Collective will

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ And, as the organisation of a nation becomes less dependent upon outer authority and upon mere custom and the unreasoning acceptance of tradition, and more and more upon free consent and voluntary contract, the nation does not cease to be an organism; it retains that formal and informal organisation which has developed in large part without the deliberate guidance of the collective will and which is essential to its collective life ”

“ Disappointed a thousand times, they still persist in their exalted creed that there must and will be here on earth, if not now, in some future and approaching time, a state of social arrangement in which the spontaneous action and free development of each individual constituent member will combine to form ‘a vast and solemn harmony,’ the ultimate perfect movement of collective humanity. ”

“ Nevertheless, they are the expression not of a general or collective will, but merely of the wills of all the individuals; and, even if there arise differences between the members and a conflict of wills as to the mode of achieving the common end, and if the issue be determined simply by the stronger party overbearing the weaker and securing their co-operation, that still does not constitute the expression of a general will. For a collective or general will only exists where some idea of the whole group and some sentiment for it as such exists in the minds of the persons composing it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have decided for myself that the general business of life is the development of a collective consciousness and will and purpose out of a chaos of individual consciousnesses and wills and purposes, and that the way to that is through the development of the Socialist State, through the socialization of existing State organizations and their merger of pacific association in a World State. ”

“ Further, the motives supplied by the group spirit may be stronger than, and may overpower, the purely individualistic egoistic motives, just because they harmonise with, and are supported by, any altruistic tendency or tendencies comprised in the make up of the individual; which altruistic tendencies will, where the group spirit is lacking, oppose and weaken the effects of purely egoistic motives. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the two latter countries the rights of the individual are made supreme over all other considerations, the welfare of the whole is only to be advanced by measures which do not override individual wills and rights; or, at least, the only power which is admitted to have the right in any degree to override individual wills is the will of the majority. In such a nation the greatest efforts are concentrated on the perfection of the deliberative organisation, by means of which the general mind may arrive at collective judgment and choice of means and may express its will. ”

“ So far as they have such knowledge, and a will based upon it, so far is the moral organism self-conscious and self-willing.... Thus, on the one hand, we must recognise that the State lives; that there is a nation’s soul, self-conscious in its citizens; and that to each citizen this living soul assigns his field of accomplishment [12] .” On a later page of the same book we read—“All the institutions of a country, so far as they are effective, are not only products of thought and creations of mind: they are thought, and they are mind. ”

“ Only when the general principles of group life have been applied to the understanding of particular societies, of nations and the manifold system of groups within the nation, will it be possible for Social Psychology to return upon the individual life and give of it an adequate account in all its concrete fulness. ”

“ The problem of the general will, like all problems of collective psychology, becomes extremely complex when we consider the life of nations; and it is, therefore, important to make ourselves clear as to the nature of collective volition by consideration of the relatively simple case of a patriot army. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I know well that those of my readers whose sympathies are with Collectivism, Syndicalism, or Socialism in any of its various forms will detect in this book the cloven foot of individualism and leanings towards the aristocratic principle. I know also that many others will reproach me with giving countenance to communistic and ultra-democratic tendencies. ”

“ It should be noticed that this ideal of the contractual organism synthesises the two great doctrines or theories of society which have generally been regarded as irreconcilable alternatives: the doctrine of society as an organism, and that of society as founded upon reason and free will. ”

“ Again, the group spirit plays an important part in raising the intellectual level of the group; for it leads each member deliberately to subordinate his own judgment and opinion to that of the whole; and, in any properly organised group, this collective opinion will be superior to that of the average individual, because in its formation the best minds, acting upon the fullest knowledge to the gathering of which all may contribute, will be of predominant influence. ”

“ So, when we hear of minor outrages committed by a crowd of undergraduates or suffragettes, a knowledge of group psychology will save us from the error of attributing to the individuals concerned the low grade of intelligence and decency that might seem to be implied by the deeds performed by them collectively. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If a great majority of the individuals composing a community are characterized by weakness of purpose, error of judgment, blind adhesion to custom, and ill-regulated desires, it is idle to expect such a people to possess in a collective capacity the intellectual and moral virtues required for a wise and beneficial management of their own affairs. Your first duty then is clear. Raise yourselves individually. ”

“ And so the form or order of that community becomes more and more human. All its corporate acts express more and more faithfully the human thoughts and feelings with which the minds of its individual members are imbued. Such community is in the human form, therefore, just so far as the individual minds composing it are truly human. It is the tendency of true human life, wherever it exists, to mould the collective as well as the individual man into a corresponding human form. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That philosophy could satisfy the new needs of social progress, because it refused to worship a supposed individual liberty which was proving destructive of the real liberty of the vast majority, and preferred to emphasise the moral well-being and betterment of the whole community, and to conceive of each of its members as attaining his own well-being and betterment in and through the community. ”

“ While not only admitting but proclaiming that the processes of individual and social improvement are mutually dependent, it is equally true that the initiative cannot be left to collective action. The individual must begin and carry as far as he can the work of his own emancipation ”

“ 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. ”

“ In this way too, with the increase of these stored values, of which members realise parts but none the whole, the spirit of a people more and more surpasses the measure of any individual mind. It is these social forces within and without, working in the minds of individuals whose own social inheritance is an essential part of their individuality, stored in the institutions which they maintain from the past or establish in the present, that mould the communal spirit of the successive generations. ”

“ Unity and difference here too weave their eternal web, the greater social scheme which none of us who are part of it can ever see in its entirety, but whose infinite subtlety and harmony we may more and more comprehend and admire. As a community grows in civilisation and culture, its traditions are no longer clear and definite ways of thinking, its usages are no longer uniform, its spirit is no longer to be summed up in a few phrases. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Society like the kingdom of God is within us. Within us, within each of us, and yet greater than the thoughts and understandings of any of us. For the social thoughts and feelings and willings of each, the socialised mind of each, with the complex scheme of his relation to the social world, is no mere reproduction of the social thoughts and feelings and willings of the rest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Since the greater number of them are represented as if drawn from a point at right angles to the horizon, when they were necessarily taken at an angle often far less than this, it is plain that they will transgress the laws of perspective. ”

“ In other words, as a return for what you wish to have society do for you, what can you do for society? This is a very important question—more important to you than to society. The question is, whether you will be a member of society by right, or by courtesy. If you have so mean a spirit as to be content to be a beneficiary of society—to receive favors and to confer none—you have no business in the society to which you aspire. ”