Social peace

“ If, while the healing of this vast sore is progressing, the races are to live for many years side by side, united in economic effort, obeying a common government, sensitive to mutual thought and feeling, yet subtly and silently separate in many matters of deeper human intimacy—if this unusual and dangerous development is to progress amid peace and order, mutual respect and growing intelligence, it will call for social surgery at once the delicatest and nicest in modern history. ”

“ By hope, by common and harmonious action all the proletariat, all the men of social justice and international peace belong beforehand to the same human country, to the universal country of free work and of reconciled nations. ”

“ It may well be believed that notions29 of right and duty, and of social welfare, were first developed in connection with ghost fear and other-worldliness, and therefore that, in that field also, folkways were first raised to mores. "Rights" are the rules of mutual give and take in the competition of life which are imposed on comrades in the in-group, in order that the peace may prevail there which is essential to the group strength. ”

“ Shall we enable them to keep, to improve, to double manifold the political, social, and personal blessings they now possess; shall we give them this power to create riches, to promote order, peace, happiness — all forms of human welfare, or shall wo not ? ”

“ Conflict and Social Selection.—The supreme business of the social group is to adapt itself to the conditions that affect its life. It must learn to get on with its physical environment and with other social groups with which it comes into relation. The methods of adaptation are conflict and co-operation. The primitive savage and his wife learned to work together, and his family and hers very likely kept the peace, until through the increase of population they felt the pinch of hunger when the supply did not equal the demand. Then came conflict. Conflict is an essential element in all progress. ”

“ While in almost every other association of men, political animosities, contentions, and wars interrupt the progress of Humanity and the cause of Benevolence, it is our distinguished privilege to dwell together in peace, and engage in plans to perfect individual and social happiness. ”

“ So in every other department, wherever these opposite principles are equally adjusted by allowing each full play, there results perfect consonance and peace. Order and freedom in government; unity and liberty in church; individuality and mutuality in society; these are the elements, when alike operative, of security and success in their respective domains, in individual and social life. ”

“ CHAPTER XXV SOCIAL ALLEVIATION WHEN the security of peace and an efficient government are attained, the way lies open for the amelioration of social evils. Freedom from war and from political corruption are but the pre-conditions of social advance, which must consist in three things: the healing of existing ills, the reorganization of society to prevent the recurrence of similar ills, and the bringing of new opportunities and joys to the people. ”

“ The sense of lifelong freedom and self-respect and of the peace and permanence of one’s own home will do much to purify and uplift the personal relations of life, and more to strengthen and extend the social relations. The individual will learn to feel himself an integral part of the social structure, 300in close, direct, permanent connection with the needs and uses of society. ”

“ It is certain that they made no provision for directly influencing the masses, for giving them sympathetic guidance, and enabling them to suffuse with social sentiments the aspirations and strivings which were chiefly of the materialistic order, with a view to bringing about a spiritual transformation of the social basis. ”

“ Quiet at home and peace abroad being secured, we shall be able, notwithstanding the continuance of mental and moral anarchy, to proceed actively with the vast work of social regeneration, with the certainty of full liberty of thought and expression. ”

“ Perhaps we are going to be put back to learn over again under simpler conditions some of those necessary fundamental lessons our race has learnt as yet insufficiently well—honesty and brotherhood, social collectivism, and the need of some common peace-preserving council for the whole world. ”

“ Thus in a fully segregated society in time of peace the moral support of the citizen comes from his social class and his immediate circle, his professional associations, his church, his chapel, his trade union and his clubs, rather than directly from the nation in which he is a unit. ”

“ The increasing social and economic interdependence, the ramifications of the credit system, the facility and rapidity of intercommunication, the developing community of intellectual interest, the growth of a collective social consciousness, are combining to minimize the significance of the purely political frontiers which divide civilized States. ”

“ But as there is one kind of social tie founded upon an equality, for instance, among brothers, citizens, friends, allies, and another on pre-eminence as Aristotle styles it, subsisting between parents and children, masters and servants, sovereigns and subjects, God and men. ”

“ If your object is to secure liberty, you must learn to do without authority and compulsion. If you intend to live in peace and harmony with your fellow-men, you and they should cultivate brotherhood and respect for each other. If you want to work together with them for your mutual benefit, you must practice coöperation. The social revolution means much more than the reorganization of conditions only: it means the establishment of new human values and social relationships, a changed attitude of man to man, as of one free and independent to his equal; ”

“ Our successes in transportation, in architecture, and in material well-being in general; our achievement of the welfare of the whole people over that of section or class, of equality of opportunity for each and of benevolence toward all, have already taught the whole world new lessons of peace, tolerance, and faith in the average man. ”

“ Good name, the ties of country, brotherhood, even oaths, and all that man holds sacred, were fallen in estimation. Such was the destiny to which a great and flourishing commercial town was subjected, where one hundred thousand industrious men had been brought together by the single tie of mutual confidence,—every one indispensable to his neighbor, yet every one distrusted and distrustful,—all attracted by the spirit of gain, and repelled from each other by fear,—all the props of society torn away, where social union was the basis of all life and all existence. ”

“ Then, the solidarity of the spiritual welfare of mankind, will equal that of the physical! Then, the measure of spiritual progress achieved by the mass, will be the measure of progress attained by its weakest unit! Then, will come perfect co-operation, between the spiritual and the physical! Then, will come the reign of liberty and justice, the guardian spirits of a true republic! Then, will come the social, the industrial, and the spiritual millennium! ”

“ We, as well as you, are fighting for the best things of life—peace, freedom, and the welfare of every one, capitalist and laborer alike, and a whole-souled, complete understanding and brotherhood between all of us! ”

“ These and more mark the visible products of civilization.
But civilization is something more than form, it is spirit; and its evidence may be more clearly discerned in the co-operation of men in political organization and industrial life, by their united action in religious worship and charitable service, in social order and educational advancement. Observe, too, the happy homes, with all of their sweet and hallowed influences, and the social mingling of the people searching for pleasure or profit in their peaceful, harmonious association. ”

“ And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice – not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice. ”

“ As this century advanced, the conception of the dignity and worth of each individual man, rich or poor, bond or free, had spread more and more widely, bearing as its fruit the emancipation of slaves, the spread of political freedom, the amelioration of the conditions of the dregs of humanity, the right of all to education, the possibility of universal peace based on the brotherhood of man; and all that was best in philosophy and in political practice seemed bound up with a lofty view of the unit of mankind. ”

“ Let us put on one side political life, local and national interests, all that sphere of mixed social relations, which is so imperfect, so full of fierce passions, of strife, envy, and ambition, so productive of distractions and entanglements. ”

“ They established a community and a government solidly founded on love of freedom and belief in progress, on civil liberty and religious toleration, on industrial cooperation and individual honesty and industry, on even-handed justice and a real equality before the laws, on peace and goodwill supported by protective force. ”

“ Having made much of the principles of the solidarity of society, science is now engaged in emphasizing the principle of vicarious service and suffering. The consecrated blood of yesterday is seen to be the social and spiritual capital of to-day. Indeed, the civil, intellectual and religious freedom and hope of our age are only the moral courage and suffering of past ages, reappearing under new and resplendent forms. ”

“ We are here to choose between a life of peace and harmony, a life in which no man is oppressed in any way by any other, a life of fellowship, a life of peaceful trade, a life of shared talents and ideals—or a life of rigid organization, of slavery to a high-sounding phrase and a remorseless system of government that fits its subjects to itself rather than pattern itself to meet their greatest good. ”

“ Have we made peace within ourselves and in our homes? Have we made peace in that territory over which we preside? Is the same unanimity of feeling, the same union, the same singleness of purpose developed within us, as individuals and families, that marks the action and the conduct of this great people when the public safety and the interests of the people require effort? When labour is to be performed or sacrifice to be made, and it is called for, is it made? ”

“ The other is the profound need of justice, the presentiment of, and the demand for, a social order which would be harmonious and truly human, from which the present reality is still far off, but which is bound to realize itself. ”

“ Yet, especially, should it not be forgotten in an age of ultra-physicism, of social and economic heterodoxies, that there must ever be in human society, according to the blessed ordinance of God, princes and subjects, masters and proletariat, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, nobles and plebeians—yet all united in the bonds of love to help one another attain their moral welfare on earth and their last end in heaven;—all united in the bonds of fraternal good-will, independent yet acknowledging the sovereignty of Omnipotence. ”

“ This presupposes a state of society in which peace and order are felt by the masses of the people to be needed for their everyday occupations, their regular activities—in other words, a state of society in which everybody, or nearly everybody, being steadily at work for his own sustenance or benefit, feels himself interested in the maintenance of peace and order to insure to himself and those dependent upon him the fruit of his labor. ”

“ By this conduct, if successful, they in a few ages gain an ascendant for their country; establish a frontier at a distance from its capital; they find, in the mutual desires of tranquillity, which come to possess mankind, and in those public establishments which tend to keep the peace of society, a respite from foreign wars, and a relief from domestic disorders. They learn to decide every contest without tumult, and to secure, by the authority of law, every citizen in the possession of his personal rights. ”

“ Now, every Sunday hundreds of pulpits throughout the land are preaching social duty and the solidarity of nations and of humanity; declaring the duty of mutual love and service, whereby the strong are made bondmen to the weak, to be the only key to the social problem. ”

“ This sense of ultimate oneness is the real meaning of equality, as it is the foundation of social solidarity and the bond which, if genuinely experienced, resists the disruptive force of all conflict, intellectual, religious, and ethical. ”

“ The religious, the domestic, and the political spirit are more than ever beneficent, more than ever necessary, in our society. Neither social tranquillity, nor stability, nor order can dispense with their co-operation. ”

“ Some problems are peculiar to the country, the city, or the nation, like the need of rural co-operation, the improvement of municipal efficiency, or the regulation of immigration. A few are international, like the scourge of war. Besides such specific problems there are always general issues demanding the attention of social thinkers and reformers, such as the adjustment of individual rights to social duties, and the improvement of moral and religious efficiency. ”

“ Whether in the form of the adversarial structure of civil government, the advocacy principle informing most of civil law, a glorification of the struggle between classes and other social groups, or the competitive spirit dominating so much of modern life, conflict is accepted as the mainspring of human interaction. It represents yet another expression in social organization of the materialistic interpretation of life that has progressively consolidated itself over the past two centuries. ”