Moreover, we think now of the survival of groups rather than of individuals. For the survival of the group the stronger members must not crush the weaker but cherish them, because the spiritual and social strength which will come from the latter course makes a stronger group than the mere brute strength of a number of “strong” individuals. That is, the strength of the group does not depend on the greatest number of strong men, but on the strength of the bond between them, that is, on the amount of solidarity, on the best organization.
But it might be said, “You still evidently believe in struggle, only you make the group instead of the individual the unit.” No, the progress of man must consist in extending the group, in belonging to many groups, in the relation of these groups. If we accept life as endless battle, then we shall always have the strong overcoming the weak, either strong individuals conquering the weak, or a strong group a weak group, or a strong nation a weak nation. But synthesis is the principle of life, the method of social progress. Men have developed not through struggle but through learning how to live together.
Lately the struggle theory has been transferred from the physical to the intellectual world. Many writers who see society as a continuous conflict think its highest form is discussion. One of these says, “Not for a moment would I deny that fighting is better carried on by the pen than by the sword, but some sort of fighting will be necessary to the end of the world.” No, as long as we think of discussion as a struggle, as an opportunity for “argument,” there will be all the usual evil consequences of the struggle theory. But all this is superficial. If struggle is unavailing, it is unavailing all along the line. It is not intellectual struggle that marks the line of progress, but any signs of finding another method than struggle. Two neighbors quarrelling in words are little more developed than two men fighting a duel. We must learn to think of discussion not as a struggle but as experiment in cooperation. We must learn cooperative thinking, intellectual teamwork. There is a secret here which is going to revolutionize the world.
Perhaps the most profound reason against struggle is that it always erects a thing-in-itself. If I “fight” Mr. X, that means that I think of Mr. X as incapable of change—that either he or I must prevail, must conquer. When I realize fully that there are no things-in-themselves, struggle simply fades away; then I know that Mr. X and I are two flowing streams of activity which must meet for larger ends than either could pursue alone.
Is Germany the last stronghold of the old theory of evolution, is she the last being in a modern world to assert herself as a thing-in-itself? President Wilson’s contribution to this war is that he refuses to look upon Germany as a thing-in-itself.
The idea of adaptation to environment has been so closely connected with the “struggle for existence” theory that some people do not seem to realize that in giving up the latter, the former still has force, although with a somewhat different connotation. We now feel not only that adaptation to environment is compatible with cooperation, but that cooperation is the basis of adaptation to environment. But our true environment is psychic, and as science teaches adaptation to the physical, so group psychology will teach the secret of membership in the psychic environment, will teach the branch to know its vine, where its own inner sources of life are revealed to it. Then we shall understand that environment is not a hard and rigid something external to us, always working upon us, whose influence we cannot escape. Not only have self and environment acted and reacted upon each other, but the action and reaction go on every moment; both self and environment are always in the making. The individual who has been affected by his environment acts on an environment which has been affected by individuals. We shall need an understanding of this for all our constructive work: it is not that formative influences work on a dead mass of inertia, but formative influences work on an environment which has already responded to initiatives, and these initiatives have been affected by the responses. We cannot be practical politicians without fully understanding this.
Progress then must be through the group process. Progress implies respect for the creative process not the created thing; the created thing is forever and forever being left behind us. The greatest blow to a hidebound conservatism would be the understanding that life is creative at every moment. What the hard-shelled conservative always forgets is that what he really admires in the past is those very moments when men have strongly and rudely broken with tradition, burst bonds, and created something. True conservatism and true progressivism are not two opposites: conservatives dislike “change,” yet they as well as progressives want to grow; progressives dislike to “stand pat,” yet they as well as conservatives want to preserve what is good in the present. But conservatives often make the mistake of thinking they can go on living on their spiritual capital; progressives are often too prone not to fund their capital at all.
What we must get away from is “the hell of rigid things.” There is a living life of the people. And it
