Collective action

“ What collective mental life it has is on the plane of impulse and unregulated desire. Such ideas as are widely accepted may determine collective action; but such action is not the result of the weighing of ideas in the light of self-consciousness; hence they are little adapted to promote the welfare of the nation, and, because there is no organisation adapted for their expression, they can be but imperfectly realised. ”

“ WHAT then is the essence of the group process by which are evolved the collective thought and the collective will? It is an acting and reacting, a single and identical process which brings out differences and integrates them into a unity. The complex reciprocal action, the intricate interweavings of the members of the group, is the social process.
We see now that the process of the many becoming one is not a metaphysical or mystical idea; psychological analysis shows us how we can at the same moment be the self and the other, it shows how we can be forever apart and forever united. ”

“ Therefore the collective actions of a crowd are not simply the resultants of all the tendencies to thought and action of the individuals, as such, but may be very different from any such resultant. And they are not merely the expression of the individual tendencies of the average member, nor yet of the mass of least intelligent and refined members ”

“ This brings us back to the goal with which we began this discussion of the collective goals of civilizations: The primary task of any civilization is to survive.
Each individual human being, living and working in a civilized community occupies a sphere of action, enjoys the advantages and disadvantages and accepts the responsibilities and duties which pertain to his sphere. Within his sphere the individual succeeds or fails in so far as he leads a rewarding personal life and contributes his share toward the collective life of the group to which she or he belongs. ”

“ Having seen the importance for national life of the idea of the nation, the diffusion of which through the minds of the people constitutes national self-consciousness, let us glance for a moment at the way other ideas may play leading rôles in national life. Such are ideas which became national ideals, that is to say, ideas of some end to be realised by the nation which became widely entertained and the objects of strong sentiments and of collective emotion and desire and which, therefore, determine collective action. ”

“ It is by political discussion that the manual laborer, whose employment is a routine, and whose way of life brings him in contact with no variety of impressions, circumstances, or ideas, is taught that remote causes, and events which take place far off, have a most sensible effect even on his personal interests; and it is from political discussion and collective political action that one whose daily occupations concentrate his interests in a small circle round himself, learns to feel for and with his fellow-citizens, and becomes consciously a member of a great community. ”

“ We have seen that, in the well-organised group, collective deliberation, judgment, and action are raised to a higher plane of effectiveness than is possible to the average member of the group. But apart from that, the group spirit continues with us, as with the savage (though in a less effective degree) to be the great socialising agency. In the majority of cases it is the principal, if not the sole, factor which raises a man’s conduct above the plane of pure egoism, leads him to think and care and work for others as well as for himself. ”

“ Thus 13sometimes we watch individuals acting for their own ends with little thought of their effect on society at large, and sometimes we have to study movements of national life as a whole, where the individuals co-operating in them are utterly beyond our observation. But seeing that collective social action is the mere resultant of many individual actions, it is clear that these two methods of enquiry, if rightly followed, must be absolutely consistent. ”

“ If each representative were a mere delegate, an average specimen of the group he represents, chosen by lot and merely charged to express their will, this feature would modify the crude collective mental processes in one important respect only; namely, it would counteract to some extent that weakening of individual responsibility which is characteristic of collective mental action. But, in addition to this, internal organisation, in the form of tradition and custom, comes in to modify very greatly the collective process. ”

“ In the two foregoing chapters, we have considered in relation to the life of nations three principal conditions essential to all collective mental life and action, even that of the unorganised crowd—namely, homogeneity, free communications and leadership. We have now to consider other conditions which may render the collective mental processes of nations very different from, and superior to, those of a mere crowd. ”

“ The whole body moves on steadily, each perhaps aided in maintaining his resolution in face of difficulties by the presence of the rest and the spectacle of their resolute efforts. Here there is a certain collectivity of action, the individual wills are strengthened by the community of purpose. But the arrival of the band is not due to collective volition; nor can it properly be said to be due to the will of all; for each member cares nothing for the arrival of the band as a whole; he desires and wills only his own arrival. ”

“ Again, suppose a nation of which every member was patriotic, and suppose that some proposed national action were pondered upon by each man apart in his own chamber, without consultation and discussion with his fellows in public and private. ”

“ Such incapacity of the crowd for resolution and volition, together with the increased suggestibility of its members, accounts for the fact that a crowd may be easily induced to follow as a leader any one who, by means of the elementary reasoning processes suited to its intellectual capacity, can succeed in suggesting to it the desirability of any course of action. ”

“ The essential conditions of collective mental action are, then, a common object of mental activity, a common mode of feeling in regard to it, and some degree of reciprocal influence between the members of the group. ”

“ Let our objective be common, let our Hearts be one, we shall spend our day in this equality.
Once this is achieved then we can proceed to fight to achieve goals before us. Any collective work needs this connecting of minds as a first step. ”

“ I have just read in a work on sociology, “Men surrender their individual wills to the collective will.” No, the true social process is not when they surrender but when they contribute their wills to the collective will. ”

“ There will be found in every progressive community societies and organisations which represent a far higher level of public spirit and enterprise than that possessed or displayed by such communities in their collective capacity. ”

“ It is, I repeat, only in crises that this power appears. But such as it is, it plays a part much more real and much more expressive of the collective will than does the more ordinary organization of other peoples. ”

“ Moreover, we go to our group to learn the process. We sometimes hear the advantages of collective planning spoken of as if an act of Congress or Parliament could substitute collective for individual planning! But it is only by doing the deed that we shall learn this doctrine. We learn how to create the common will in our groups, and we learn here not only the process but its value. ”

“ And it is collective volition in so far as the deliberations by which the decision of the nation has been reached have been effected through those formally and informally organised relations and channels of communication and by means of all the various modes of interaction of persons by which public opinion is formed and in which it is guided and controlled by the living traditions of the nation. ”

“ Let us consider now the type of nation which from our present point of view is the most interesting, the type which approximates most nearly to a solution of the problem of civilisation, to the reconciliation of individuality with collectivity, to the synthesis of individualist and collectivist ideals; that in which the rights and wills of individuals are not forcibly subordinated to those of the State by the power of a governing class, and in which the deliberative side of the national mind is well developed and effective. ”

“ Try to imagine any man wholly deprived of his group [Pg 79] consciousness and set over against all his fellowmen as an individual unit, and you will see that you could expect but little from him in the way of self-sacrifice or public service—at most a care for his wife and children and sporadic acts of kindliness when direct appeals are made to his pity; but none of that energetic and devoted public service and faithful self-sacrificing co-operation without which the continued welfare of any human society is impossible. ”

“ As he grows, the community in which he lives pours itself into his being in the language he learns and the social atmosphere he breathes, so that the content of his being implies in its every fibre relations of community. He is what he is by including in his essence the relations of the social State.... ”

“ No view of society can possibly be complete which does not comprise within its scope both collective organisation and individual incentive. The whole tendency of civilisation is, however, towards the multiplication of the collective functions of society. ”

“ And the same holds good of all the many forms of corporate life within the nation. Each individual’s sense of duty, in so far as it is a true sense of duty, and not a fictitious sense due merely to superstitious fear or to habit formed by suggestion [Pg 162] and compulsion, is chiefly founded upon the consciousness of the society of which he forms a part, upon the group spirit that binds him to his fellows and makes him one with them. ”

“ Individualist doctrines celebrate the ‘I’, collective movements the ‘we’. Devoid of the fullness of self-assertion or the positive connotations of friendship, community and political solidarity, ‘you’ can tend to get overlooked. ”

“ It will be maintained on a later page that we may properly speak not only of a collective will, but also of the collective mind of an organised group, for example, of the mind and will of a nation. We must, then, ask at this stage—Can we properly speak of the collective mind of an unorganised crowd? ”

“ As soon as he forms part of a social organization which benefits by his particular activity, the organization compensates for the personal disadvantages by its collective activity, and a social community not only finds room for such special developments, but it even encourages and promotes them. ”

“ All the necessary and useful occupations of every description would be carried on by voluntary groups, each group doing that particular work for which it was formed. When any work has been accomplished the group doing it would dissolve into its component parts, the various individuals that had composed it uniting with others in other groups for other and different purposes, as the necessities or expediencies of the times called for united action. ”

“ The first aim of the power that would maintain such an organisation must always be to prevent and suppress collective life, by forbidding gatherings and public discussions, by rendering communications between the parts difficult, and by enforcing a rigid discipline. ”

“ This is the peculiar merit and efficiency of the complex motives that arise from the group spirit; they bring the egoistic self-seeking impulses into the service of society and harmonise them with the altruistic tendencies. The group spirit secures that the egoistic and the altruistic tendencies of each man’s nature, instead of being in perpetual conflict, as they must be in its absence, shall harmoniously co-operate and re-enforce one another throughout a large part of the total field of human activity. ”

“ In adopting a so far unsympathetic attitude towards this doctrine, we ought to admit that, if there be any truth in it, the ‘collective consciousness’ of even the most highly organised society may be still in a rudimentary stage, and that it may continue to gain in effectiveness and organisation with the further evolution of the society in question. ”

“ In the majority of instances these declared purposes really serve merely or chiefly to exert a certain natural selection of persons, to bring together persons of similar tastes as voluntary associates, to enable, in short, birds of a feather to flock together. Even some of our enduring historical institutions owe their continuance chiefly to the advantages and satisfactions that proceed from group consciousness, for example, colleges, school-houses, and political parties, especially perhaps in America. ”

“ The idea of a greater subordination of individual interests and established institutions to the collective future, is traceable more and more clearly in the literature of those times, and movement after movement fretted itself away in criticism of and opposition to first this aspect and then that of the legal, social, and political order. ”

“ But, as I have pointed out in the Introduction to my Social Psychology, those who approached these problems were generally stimulated to do so by their interest in questions of right and wrong, in questions of norms and standards of conduct, the urgency of which demanded immediate answers for the practical guidance of human life in all its spheres of activity, for the shaping of laws, institutions, governments, and associations of every kind ”