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THE NEW STATE di Mary Parker Follett | |
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Chapter XXXV The World State WE have seen the true state emerging through the Working of the federal principle, dual in its nature: (1) created by the law of interpenetration, the unifying of difference, and (2) representing the multiple man in his essential nature. Through the further working of this principle the world-state appears. The lesson of the group is imperative for our international relations. No "alliances," no balance of power, no agreements, no Hague tribunals will now satisfy us; we know that it is only by creating a genuine community of nations that we can have stability and growth -- world peace, world progress. What are the contributions of group psychology to the League of Nations? There is no way out of the hell of our present European situation
until we find a method of compounding difference. Superficial moralists
try to get us to like some other nationality by emphasizing all the
things we have in common, but war can never cease until we see the
value of differences, that they are to be The failure of international society in the past is a fact fraught
with deep significance: the differences between nations are not to
be overcome by one class of people in a country uniting with the same
class in another country. The upper classes of Petrograd, Berlin,
Paris and London have very much the same manners and habits. This
has not brought peace. Artists the world over have a common language.
Workingmen have tried to break down international barriers by assuming
that their interests were so identical that they could unite across
these barriers. But this has failed to bring peace as the other _rapprochements_
have failed. Why? Because they are all on the wrong track. International
peace is never coming by an increase of similarities (this is the
old-fashioned crowd-philosophy); international peace is coming by
the frankest and fullest kind of recognition of our differences. If it were true that we ought to increase the likenesses between nations, then it would be legitimate for each nation to try to impose its ideals upon others. In that case England would try to spread her particular brand of civilization, and Germany hers, for if some one kind of civilization has to prevail, each will want it to be his own. There is not room on this planet for a lot of similar nations, but only for a lot of different nations. A group of nations must create a group culture which shall be broader than the culture of one nation alone. There must be a world-ideal, a whole-civilization, in which the ideals and the civilization of every nation can find a place. The ideal of one nation is not antagonistic to the ideal of another, nor do these ideals exist in a row side by side, but these different kinds of civilization are bound up in one another. I am told that this is mysticism. It is the most practical idea I have found in the world. It is said that a mighty struggle is before us by-and-by when East meets West, and in that shock will be decided which of these civilizations shall rule the world -- that this is to be the great world-decision. No, the great world-decision is that each nation needs equally every other, therefore each will not only protect, but foster and increase the other that thereby it may increase its own stature. Perhaps one of the most useful lessons to be learned from the group
process is a new definition of patriotism. Patriotism must not be
herd instinct. Patriotism must be the individual's rational, self-conscious
building of his country every moment. Loyalty means always to create
your group, not to wave a flag over it [1]. We need a patriotism which
is not "following the lead" but involved in a process in
which all take part. In the place of sentimental patriotism we want
a common purpose, a purpose evolved by the 1. See pp.58-59. Then genuine loyalty, a self-evolved loyalty will always lead the
way to higher units. Nationalism looks out as well as in. It means,
in addition to its other meanings, every nation being responsible
to a larger whole. It is this new definition of patriotism which America
is now learning. It is this new patriotism which must be taught our
children, which we must repeat to one another on our special patriotic
day, July 4th, and on every occasion when we meet. This new patriotism
looks in, it looks out: we have to learn that we are not wholly patriotic
when we are working with all our heart for America merely; we are
truly patriotic only when we are working also that America may take
her place worthily and helpfully Shall this hideous war go on simply because people will not understand nationalism? Nationalism and internationalism are not opposed. We do not lop off just enough patriotism to our country to make enough for a world-state: he who is capable of the greatest loyalty to his own country is most ready for a wider loyalty. There is possible no world-citizenship the ranks of which are to be filled by those who do not care very much for their own country. We have passed through a period when patriotism among cultivated people seemed often to be at a discount -- the ideal was to be "citizens of the world." But we see now that we can never be "citizens of the world" until we learn how to be citizens of America or England or France. Internationalism is not going to swallow up nationalism. Internationalism will accentuate, give point, significance, meaning, value, reality, to nationalism. Whether we can have a lasting peace or not depends upon whether
we have advanced far enough to be capable of loyalty to a higher unit,
not as a substitute for our old patriotism to our country, but in
addition to it. Peace will come by the group consciousness rising
from the national to the international unit. This cannot be done through
the imagination alone but needs actual experiments in world union,
or rather experiments first in the union of two or more nations. Men
go round lecturing to kind-hearted audiences and say, "Can you
not be loyal to something bigger than a nation?" And the kind-hearted
audiences reply, "Certainly, we will now, at your very interesting
suggestion, be loyal to a league of nations." But Of course there must be some motive for the larger union: we shall
probably first get nations into an international league through their
economic interests; then when we have a genuine union the sense of
belonging begins. When men have felt the need of larger units than
nations and have formed "alliances," they have not felt
that they belonged to these alliances. The sense of belonging ended
at the British Empire or the German Empire. But the reason Germany
became one empire and Italy one nation was because an economic union
brought it home to the people daily that they were Italians, not Venetians,
Germans, not Bavarians. We must feel the international bond exactly
as we feel the national bond. Some We may, perhaps, look forward to Europe going through something
of the same process which we have gone through in the United States.
The colonies joined in a federal government. The union was something
entirely apart from themselves. The men of Massachusetts were first
and last men of Massachusetts. We belonged for good reasons to a larger
unit, but it was only very slowly that we gained any actual feeling
of belonging to the United States, of loving it because we were a
constituent part of it, because we were The great lesson of the group process, in which others are involved,
is that particularism, however magnified, is no longer possible. There
is no magic by which selfishness becomes patriotism the moment we
can invoke the nation. The change must be this: as we see now that
a nation cannot be healthy and virile if it is merely protecting the
rights of its members, so we must see that we can have no sound condition
of world affairs merely by the protection of each individual nation
-- that is the old theory of individual rights. Each nation must play
its part in some larger whole. Nations have fought for national rights.
These are as obsolete as the individual rights of the last century.
What raises this war to a place never reached by any war before is
that the Allies are not fighting for national rights. As long as history
is read the contribution of America to the Great War will be told
as America's taking her stand squarely and responsibly on the position
that national particularism was in 1917 dead. The error of our old political philosophy was that the state always looks in: it has obligations to its members, it has none to other states; it merely enters into agreements with them for mutual benefit thereby obtained. International law of the future must be based not on nations as "sovereigns" dealing with one another, but on nations as members of a society dealing with one another. The difference in these conceptions is enormous. We are told that Cessions of sovereignty must be the basis of an international government. We cannot have a lasting international union until we entirely reform such notions of sovereignty; that the power of the larger unit is produced mechanically by taking away bits of power from all the separate units. Sovereignty is got by giving to every unit its fullest value and thereby giving birth to a new power -- the power of a larger whole. We must give up "sovereign" nations in the old sense, but with our present definition of sovereignty we may keep all the real sovereignty we have and then unite to evolve together a larger sovereignty. This idea must be carefully worked out: we can take each so-called
"sovereign power" which we are thinking of "delegating"
to a League of Nations and we can see that that delegating does not
make us individual nations less "sovereign" and less "free"
but more so -- it is the Great Paradox of our time. The object of
every proper "cession" of sovereignty is to make us freer
than ever before. Is it to be "sovereign" and "free"
for nations suspiciously and fearfully to keep sleepless watch on
one another while they build ship for ship, plane for plane? Have
England and Germany been proudly conscious of their "freedom"
when thinking of Central Africa? When the individual nations give
up their separate The idea of "sovereign nations must go as completely as is disappearing the idea of sovereign individuals. The isolation of sovereign nations is so utterly complete that they cannot really (and I mean this literally) even see each other. The International League is the one solution for the relation of nations. Whenever we say we can have a "moral" international law on any other basis, we write ourselves down pure sentimentalists. There are many corollaries to this project. We do not need, for instance, a more vigorous protection of neutrals, but the abolition of neutrals. The invasion of the rights of neutrals in this war by both sides shows that we can no longer have neutrals in our scheme of union; all must come within the bond. Further, diplomatic relations will be entirely changed. "Honor among thieves" means loyalty to your group: while to lie or to try to get the better of your own particular group is an unpardonable offense, you may deceive an outsider. We see now the psychological reason for this. Diplomatic lying will not go until diplomatists instead of treating with one another as members of alien groups consider themselves all as members of one larger group - the League of Nations. Moreover, one nation cannot injure another merely; the injury will
be against the community, and the community of nations will look upon
it as such. Under our present international system the attack of one
nation on another is the same as the attack of one outlaw on another.
But under a civilized international system, the attack of one individual
on another is an attack on society and the whole society must punish
it. The punishment, however, will not consist in keeping the offender
out of the alliance. If the Allies win, Germany should not be punished
by keeping her out of a European league; she must be shown how to
take her place within it. Finally, the League of Nations is against the theory of the balance of power, but this has been already considered in the chapter on The Federal State. To sum up all these particularist fallacies: live and let live can
never be our international motto. _Laissez-faire_ falls as ignominiously
in international relations as within a single nation. Organized cooperation is in the future to be the basis of international
relations. We are international in our interests. We do not want an
American education, an English education, a French education. "Movements"
seek always an international society. We have international finance.
Our standards of living are becoming internationalized. Socially,
economically, in the world of thought, national barriers are being
broken down. It is only in politics that we are national. This must
soon change: with all these People thought that Italy could not be united, that the duchies
of Germany would never join. Cavour and Bismarck had indeed no easy
part. But if one hundred millions of people in Central Europe can
be made to see the evils of separation, cannot others? With our greater
facilities of communication, with our increased commercial intercourse
and our increased realization of interdependence of nations (a manufacturing
nation cannot get along without the food-producing nations, etc.),
this ought not now to be impossible. The group process thus shows us that a genuine community of nations means the correlation of interests, the development of an international ethics, the creation of an international will, the self-evolving of a higher loyalty, and above all and including all, the full responsibility of every nation for the welfare of every other. With such an aim before us courts of arbitration seem a sorry makeshift.
We are told that as individuals no longer fight duels but take their
disputes into the courts, so nations must now arbitrate, that is,
take their dispute to some court. But what has really ousted duels
has not been the courts but a different A community of nations needs a constitution, not treaties. We have already seen that it is the _creation_ of a collective will
which we need most in our social and political life, not the enforcing
of it. it is the same with a league of nations -- we must create an
international will. We want neither concession nor compromise. And
a vague "brotherhood" is certainly not enough. As we have
seen the group as the workshop for the making of the collective will,
so we see that we cannot have an international will without creating
a community of nations. Group psychology will What interests us most in all the war literature is any proposed _method_ of union. The importance of an international league as a peace plan is that you can never aim directly at peace, peace is what you get through other things. Much of the peace propaganda urges us to choose peace rather than war. But the decision between "war" or "peace" never lies within our power. These are mere words to gather up in convenient form of expression an enormous amount that is underneath. All sorts of interests compete, all sorts of ideas compete or join: if they can join, we have peace; if they must compete, we have war. But war or peace is merely an outcome of the process; peace or war has come, by other decisions, long before the question of peace or war ever arises. All our hope therefore of future international relations lies, not in the ethical exhortations of the pacifists, nor in plans for an economic war, but in the recognition of the possibility of a community of nations. In making a plea for some experiment in international cooperation,
I remember, with humiliation, that we have fought because it is the
easy way. Fighting solves no problems. The problems which brought
on this war will all be there to be settled when the war ends. But
we have war as the line of least resistance. 1. It has usually been supposed that wars have been the all-important element in consolidating nations; I do not want to disregard this element, I want only to warn against its over emphasis. Moreover, the way in which wars have had a real and permanent influence in the consolidation of nations is by the pressure which they have exerted upon them in showing them that efficiency is obtained by the closest cooperation and coordination of all our activities, by a high degree of internal organization. The choice of war or peace is not the choice between effort and
stagnation. We have thought of peace as the lambs lying down together
after browsing on the consciousness of their happy agreements. We
have thought of peace as a letting go and war as a girding up. We
have thought of peace as the passive and war as the active way of
living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life.
It is a kind of rest-cure compared to the task of reconciling our
differences. I knew a young business man who went to the Spanish war
who said when he came back that it had been as good as going to a
sanitarium; he had simply obeyed commands and had not made a decision
or thought a thought since he left home. From war to peace is not
from the strenuous to the easy existence; it is from the futile to
the effective, from the If, however, peace means for you simply the abstinence from bloodshed,
if it means instead of the fight of the battlefield, the fight of
employer and employed, the fight of different interests in the legislature,
the fight of competing business firms, that is a different matter.
But if you are going to try to _solve_ the We are told that when the North Sea fishermen found that they were
bringing flabby codfish home to market, they devised the scheme of
introducing one catfish into every large tank of codfish. Civilization calls upon us to "Agree with thine adversary."
It means a supreme effort on our part, and the future of the world
depends upon whether we can make this effort, whether we are equal
to the cry of civilization to the individual man, to the individual
nation. It is a supreme effort because it is not, as sometimes thought,
a matter of feeling. To feel kindly, to desire peace -- no, we must
summon every force of our natures, trained minds and disciplined characters,
to find the _methods_ of agreement. We may be angry and fight, we
may feel kindly and want peace -- it is all about the same. The world
will be regenerated by the people who rise above both these passive
ways and heroically seek, by whatever What has this young twentieth century gone out to fight? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The history of modern times from the point of view of political
science is the history of the growth of democracy; from the point
of view of social psychology it is the history of the growth of the
social consciousness. These two are one. But the mere consciousness
of the social bond is not enough. Frenssen said of Jorn Uhl, "He
became conscious of his soul, but it was empty and he had now to |
Appendix THE training for the new democracy must be from the cradle -- through nursery, school and play, and on and on through every activity of our life. Citizenship is not to be learned in good government classes or current events courses or lessons in civics. It is to be acquired only through those modes of living and acting which shall teach us how to grow the social consciousness. This should be the object of all day school education, of all night school education, of all our supervised recreation, of all our family life, of our club life, of our civic life. When we change our ideas of the relation of the individual to society,
our whole system of education changes. What we want to teach is interdependence,
that efficiency waits on discipline, that discipline is obedience
to the whole of which I am a part. The object of education is to fit children into the life of the community [1]. Every cooperative method conceivable, therefore, must be used in our schools for this end. It is at school that children should begin to learn group initiative, group responsibility -- in other words social functioning. The group process must be learnt by practice. We should therefore teach subjects which require a working together, we should have group recitations, group investigations, and a gradual plan of self-government. Every child must be shown his place in the life that builds and his relation to all others who are building. All the little daily and hourly experiences of his interrelations must be constantly interpreted to him. Individual competition must, of course, disappear. All must see that the test of success is ability to work with others, not to surpass others. 1. The western states feel that they are training members of society and not individuals and that is why it seems proper to them to take public money to found state universities. Group work is, indeed, being introduced into our more progressive
schools. Manual training, especially when the object made is large
enough to require the work of two or more, cooking classes, school Moreover, we should have, and are beginning to have, group recitations.
A recitation should not be to test the pupil but to create something.
Every pupil should be made to feel that his point of view is slightly
different from any one's else, and that, therefore, he has something
to contribute. He is not to "recite" But after the child has been taught in his group recitation to contribute his own point of view, he must immediately be shown that he cannot over-insist upon it; he must be taught that it is only a part of the truth, that he should be eager for all the other points of view, that all together they can find a point of view which no one could work out alone. In other words we can teach collective thinking through group recitations. A group recitation may give each pupil the feeling that a whole is being created: (1) by different points of view being brought out and discussed, and (2) by every one contributing something different: one will do some extra reading, one will bring clippings from newspapers and periodicals, one will take his camera to the Art Museum and take pictures of the casts. Thus we get life, and the lesson of life, into that hour. Thus may we learn the obligation and the joy of "belonging," not only when our school goes to play some other school, but in every recitation hour of the day. The old idea was that no one should help another in a recitation; the new idea is that every one is to help every one else. The kind of competition you have in a group recitation is whether you have added as much as any one else. You now feel responsible not only for your contribution but that the recitation as a whole should be a worthy thing. Such an aim will overcome much of the present class-room indifference. Many more of the regular school activities could be arranged on a group basis than is now thought possible -- investigation for instance. This is a big word, but the youngest children sent out to the woods in spring are being taught "original research." Again, every good teacher teaches her pupils to "assemble" his different thoughts, shows them that a single thought is not useful, but only as it is connected with others. The modern teacher is like the modern curator who thinks the group significance of a particular classification more important than the significance of each isolated piece. The modern teacher does not wish his pupils' minds to be like an old-fashioned museum -- a hodge-podge of isolated facts -- but a useful workshop. Again, to learn genuine discussion should be considered an essential
part of our education. Every child must be trained to meet the clash
of difference -- difference of opinion, difference of interest --
which life brings. In some universities professors are putting aside
one hour a week for a discussion hour. This Moreover, in many schools supervised playground and gymnasium activities are being established, athletic clubs encouraged, choruses and dramatic leagues developed, not only because of their value from the health or art point of view, but because they teach the social lesson. The question of self-government in the schools is too complicated a subject and has met with too many difficulties, notwithstanding its brilliant successes, to take up here, but undoubtedly some amount of self-control can be given to certain groups, and in the upper grades to whole schools, and when this can be done no training for democracy is equal to the practice of democracy. The aim is to create such a mental atmosphere for children that it is natural for them to wish to take their part, to make them understand that citizenship is not obeying the laws nor voting, nor even being President [1], but that all the visions of their highest moments, all the aspirations of their spiritual nature can be satisfied through their common life, that only thus do we get "practical politics." 1. A little girl I know said, "Mother, if women get the vote, shall I have to be President?" In our industrial schools it is obviously easier to carry further the teaching of coordinated effort than in the regular day schools. Our evening schools must adopt the methods of the more progressive day schools, and must, as they are doing in many cases, add to the usual activities of evening schools. The most conscious and deliberate preparation for citizenship is
given by the "School Centres" now being established all
over the United States. The School Centre movement is a movement to
mold the The training in the School Centres consists of: group activities, various forms of civic clubs and classes, and practice in self-government. First, we have in the Centres those activities which require working
together, such as dramatic and choral clubs, orchestras and bands,
civic and debating clubs, folk-dancing and team-games. We In our group the centre of consciousness is transferred from our private to our associate life. Thus through our group activities does neighborhood life become a preparation for neighborhood life; thus does it prepare us for the pouring out of strength and strain and effort in the common cause. Then the consciousness of the solidarity of the group leads directly
to a sense of responsibility, responsibility in a group and for a
group. Sooner or later every one in a democracy must ask himself,
what am I worth to society? Our effort in the Centres is to help the
birth of that moment. This is the social lesson: for people to understand
that their every act, their work, their home-life, the kind of recreation
they demand, the kind of newspapers they read, the bearing of their
children, the bringing Moreover, we learn responsibility for our group as well as to our
group. We used to think, "I must do right no matter what anyone
else does." Now we know how little that exhausts our duty; we
must These then are the lessons which we hope group activities will teach -- solidarity, responsibility and initiative, -- how to take one's place worthily in a self-directed, self-governing community. In the first year of one of our Boston Centres, the people of a
certain nationality asked if they might meet regularly at the Centre.
At their first meeting, however, they broke up without accomplishing
anything, without even deciding to meet again, simply because those
present had never learned how to do things with other people. Each
man seemed a little island by himself. They explained to me the fact
that they made no plans for further meeting by saying that they found
they did not know parliamentary law, and But the Centres prepare for citizenship not only by group activities
but also by direct civic teaching. This takes the form not only of
lectures, classes in citizenship, but also of societies like the "junior
city councils" or the "legislatures" where municipal
and state questions are discussed, and young men's and 1. See pp.208-212. But I have written as if it were our young people who were to be
educated by the group activities of the Centres, as if the young people
were to have the training for democracy and the older people the exercise
of democracy. Nothing could be further from my thoughts. The training
for democracy can never cease while we exercise democracy. We older
ones need it exactly as much as the younger ones. That education is
a continuous process is a truism. A successful business man said to me the other day, "I graduated
from college with honors, but all I learned there has done me little
good directly. What I got out of college was an attitude towards life:
that life was a matter of constantly learning, that my education had
began and was going on as long as I lived." Then he went on to
say, "This is the attitude I want somehow to get into my factory.
Boys and girls come to me with the idea, 'School is over, learning
is behind me, now work begins.' This is all wrong. We have many forms of adult education: extension courses, continuation
and night schools, correspondence schools, courses in settlements,
Young Men's Christian Associations etc. And yet all 1. Also men have less opportunity for discussion at work than formerly. Many people, however, even if not the majority, are eager and hungry
for what one man spoke to me of as "real education." University
extension work is spreading rapidly and in many cases adapting itself
marvelously to local needs; a much closer connection could be made
between the opportunities of the Moreover, we must remember when we say we all need more education, that even if we could be "entirely" educated, so to speak, at any one minute, the next minute life would have set new lessons for us. The world is learning all the time about health, food values, care of children etc. All that science discovers must be spread. Adult education means largely the assimilation of new ideas; from this point of view no one can deny its necessity. I have said that the Centres prepare for citizenship through group activities, through civic clubs and classes and through actual practice in self-government. The Centres may be a real training in self-government, a real opportunity for the development of those qualities upon which genuine self-direction depends, by every club or group being self-governed, and the whole Centre self-directed and self-controlled by means of delegates elected from each club meeting regularly in a Central Council. If we want a nation which shall be really self-governed not just nominally self-governed, we must train up our young people in the ways of self-direction. Moreover, the development of responsibility and self-direction will
be the most effective means of raising standards. We are hearing a
great deal just now of regulated recreation, regulated dance halls
etc. We must give regulation a secondary place. There is something
better than this which ought to be the aim of all recreation leaders,
that is, to educate our young people to want higher standards by interpreting
their own experience to them and by getting them to think in tern
of cause and effect. You can force a moral code on people from above
yet this will change them very little, but by a system of self-governing
clubs with leaders who know how to lead, we can make real progress
in educating people to higher standards. This is true of athletic
games as well as of dances. We find, indeed, that it is true of all
parts of our Centre work. Through the stormy paths of club election
of officers, I have seen leaders often guide their young men to an
understanding of honest politics. It is usually easier, it is true,
to do _for_ people, it is easier to "regulate" their lives,
but it is not the way to bring the results we wish. We need education,
not Self-government in the Centres then means not only the election
of officers and the making of a constitution, but a real management
of club and Centre affairs, the opportunity to take initiative, to
make choices and decisions, to take responsibility. The test of our
success in the Centres will always be how far we are developing the
self-shaping instinct. But we must remember that we have not given
self-government by allowing the members of a club to record their
votes. Many people think a neighborhood association or club is self-governing
if a question is put to them and every one votes upon it. But if a
club is to be really self-governed it must first learn collective
thinking. This is not a process which can be Moreover each Centre should be begun, directed and supported (as
far as possible) by the adult people of a community acting together
for that end. A Centre should not be an undertaking begun by the School
Committee and run by the School Committee, but each Centre should
be organized by local initiative, to serve local needs, through methods
chosen by the people of a district to suit that particular district.
The ideal School Centre is a Community Centre. We are coming to a more general realization of this. In the municipal buildings in the parks of Chicago, the people are not given free lectures, free moving pictures, free music, free dances etc.; they are invited to develop their own activities. To the Recreation Centres of New York, operated by the Board of Education, are being added the Community Centres controlled by local boards of neighbors. In Boston we have under the School Committee a department of "The Extended Use of School Buildings," and the aim is to get the people of each district to plan, carry out and supervise what civic, educational and recreational activities they wish in the schoolhouses. A Chicago minister said the other day that the south side of Chicago was the only part of the city where interest in civic problems and community welfare could be aroused, and this he said was because of the South Park's work in field houses, clubrooms and gymnasiums for the last ten or twelve years. When the chairman of the Agricultural Council of Defense of Virginia asked a citizen of a certain county what he thought the prospects were of being able to rouse the people in his county in regard to an increased food production, the prompt reply was, "On the north side of the county we shall have no trouble because we have several Community Leagues there, hut on the south side it will be a hard job." The School or Community Centre is the real continuation school of America, the true university of true democracy. |