But, objects a friend, if I meet a tramp who has been drinking whiskey, I can feel only pity for him, I can have no sense of oneness. Yes, the tramp and I are bound together by a thousand invisible bonds. He is a part of that society for which I am responsible. I have not been doing my entire duty; because of that a society has been built up which makes it possible for that tramp to exist and for whiskey drinking to be his chief pleasure.
A good illustration of both the errors mentioned—making sympathy antedate the group process and the confusion of sympathy and altruism—we see frequently in the discussion of cooperation in the business world. The question often asked, “Does modern cooperation depend upon self-interest or upon sympathy?” is entirely misleading as regards the real nature of sympathy. Suppose six manufacturers meet to discuss some form of union. There was a time when we should have been told that if each man were guided entirely by what would benefit his own plant, trusting the other five to be equally interested each in his own, thereby the interest of all would be evolved. Then there came a time when many thinkers denied this and said, “Cooperation cannot exist without some feeling of altruism; every one of those manufacturers must go to the meeting with the feeling that the interests of the other five should be considered as well as his own; he must be guided as much by sympathy as by self-interest.” But our new psychology teaches us that what these men need most is not altruistic feelings, but a consciousness of themselves as a new unit and a realization of the needs of that unit. The process of forming this new unit generates such realization which is sympathy. This true sympathy, therefore, is not a vague sentiment they bring with them; it springs from their meeting to be in its turn a vital factor in their meeting. The needs of that new unit may be so different from that of any one of the manufacturers alone that altruistic feelings might be wasted! The new ethics will never preach alter feelings but whole feelings. Sympathy is a whole feeling; it is a recognition of oneness. Perhaps the new psychology has no more interesting task than to define for us that true sympathy which is now being born in a society which is shedding its particularistic garments and clothing itself in the mantle of wholeness.
To sum up: sympathy is not pity, it is not benevolence, it is one of the goals of the future, it cannot be actualized until we can think and feel together. At present we confuse it with altruism and all the particularist progeny, but sympathy is always a group product; benevolence, philanthropy, tenderness, fervor, ardor, pity, may be possible to me alone, but sympathy is not possible alone. The particularist stage has been necessary to our development, but we stand now on the threshold of another age: we see there humanity consciously generating its own activity, its own purpose and all that it needs for the accomplishment of that purpose. We must now fit ourselves to cross that threshold. Our faces have turned to a new world; to train our footsteps to follow the way is now our task.
This means that we must live the group life. This is the solution of our problems, national and international. Employers and employed cannot be exhorted to feel sympathy one for the other; true sympathy will come only by creating a community or group of employers and employed. Through the group you find the details, the filling-out of Kant’s universal law. Kant’s categorical imperative is general, is empty; it is only a blank check. But through the life of the group we learn the content of universal law.
V
The Group Process: The Collective Will
From the group process arise social understanding and true sympathy. At the same moment appears the social will which is the creative will. Many writers are laying stress on the possibilities of the collective will; what I wish to emphasize is the necessity of creating the collective will. Many people talk as if the collective will were lying round loose to be caught up whenever we like, but the fact is we must go to our group and see that it is brought into existence.
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. When I can see that agreement with my neighbor for larger ends than either of us is pursuing alone is of the same essence as capital and labor learning to think together, as Germany and the Allies evolving a common will, then I am ready to become a part of the world process. To learn how to evolve the social will day by day with my neighbors and fellow-workers is what the world is demanding of me today. This is getting into the inner workshop of democracy.
Until we learn this lesson war cannot stop, no constructive work can be done. The very essence and substance of democracy is the creating of the collective will. Without this activity the
