The new state : $b Group organization the solution of popular governmentFollett, Mary Parker
Science
The new state : $b Group organization the solution of popular government
Follett, Mary Parker
Democracy; Political participation; Social psychology; State, The
We must not, however, think from these distinctions that man as member
of a group and man as member of a crowd, as one of a herd or of a mob or
of a mere assemblage, is subject to entirely different laws which never
mingle; there are all the various shadings and minglings of these which
we see in such varied associations as business corporation, family,
committee, political meeting, trade-union etc. Our herd traditions show
in our group life; there is something of the crowd in all groups and
there is something of the group in many crowds, as in a legislative
assembly. Only further study will teach us to distinguish how much herd
instinct and how much group conviction contribute to our ideas and
feelings at any one time and what the tendencies are when these clash.
Only further study will show us how to secure the advantages of the
crowd without suffering from its disadvantages. We have all felt that
there was much that was valuable in that emotional thrill which brings
us into a vaster realm although not a coördinated realm; we have all
rejoiced in the quickened heart-beat, the sense of brotherhood, the love
of humanity, the renewed courage which have sometimes come to us when we
were with many people. Perhaps the ideal group will combine the
advantages of the mass and the group proper: will give us collective
thought, the creative will and at the same time the inspiration for
renewed effort and sustained self-discipline.
Crowd association has, however, received more study than group
association because as a matter of fact there is at present so much more
of the former than of the latter. But we need not only a psychology
which looks at us as we are, but a psychology which points the way to
that which we may become. What our advanced thinkers are now doing is to
evolve this new psychology. Conscious evolution means giving less and
less place to herd instinct and more to the group imperative. We are
emerging from our gregarious condition and are now to enter on the
rational way of living by scanning our relations to one another, instead
of bluntly feeling them, and so adjusting them that unimpeded progress
on this higher plane is secured.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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