THE NEW STATE
By Mary Parker Follett

Chapter XIII
The Secret of Progress

I have said that the essence of the social process is the creating
of ever new values through the interplay of all the forces of life.
But I have also tried to show that these forces must be organized;
from confusion nothing is born.  The spiritual order grows up
within us as fast as we make new correlations.  Chaos, disorder,
destruction, come everywhere from refusing the synthesis of life.

  The task of coadaptation is unending, whether it means getting on
with a difficult member of my family, playing the game at school or
college, doing my part in my business, my city, or whether it means
Germany and the Allies living together on the same planet.

  Nietzsche thought that the man who showed the most force was the
most virtuous.  Now we say that all this brute energy is merely the
given, that the life-process is the unifying of the given -- he who
shows the unifying power in greatest degree is the superman. 
Progress is not determined then by economic conditions, by physical
conditions, nor by biological factors solely, but more especially
by our capacity for genuine cooperation.

  This idea of progress clear-cuts some long-established notions. 
We see now the truth and the fallacy in the assertions (1) that
social evolution depends upon individual progress with imitation by
the crowd, (2) that evolution means struggle and the survival of
the fittest.

  For some years the generally accepted theory of the social
process was that the individual invents, society spreads.  We have
already examined one half of this theory; let us look at the other
half -- the idea that the individual originates.

  If a man comes forward with an idea, what do we mean by saying
that he is more "original" than his fellows?  So far as the quality
of originality can be described, do we not mean that his capacity
for saturation is greater, his connection with the psychic
reservoir more direct, so that some group finds in him its most
complete interpreter?  Or even if it is quite evident that in a
particular instance a particular individual has not derived his
idea from the group of which he is at the moment a member, but has
brought it to the group, none of us believes that that idea arose
spontaneously in his mind independent of all previous association. 
This individual has belonged to many other groups, has discussed
with many men, or even if he has lived his life apart he has read
newspapers and magazines, books and letters, and has mingled his
ideas with those he has found there.  Thus the "individual" idea he
brings to a group is not really an "individual" idea; it is the
result of the process of interpenetration, but by bringing it to a
new group and soaking it in that the interpenetration becomes more
complex.  The group idea he takes away is now his individual idea
so far as any new group is concerned, and in fact it becomes an
active agent in his progress and the progress of society only by
meeting a new group.  Our life is more and more stagnant in
proportion as we refuse the group life.

  According to the old theory, the individual proposes, society
accepts or rejects; the individual is forever walking up to society
to be embraced or rejected -- it sounds like some game but is
hardly life.

  There is an interesting theory current which is the direct
outcome of the fallacy that the individual originates and society
imitates, namely, the great man theory.  While it seems absurd in
this age to be combating the idea of special creation, yet it is
something very like this that one comes up against sometimes in the
discussion of this theory.  The question is often asked, "Does the
great man produce his environment or is he the product of his
environment?"  Although for my purpose I may seem to emphasize the
other side of things, not for a moment do I wish to belittle the
inestimable value of genius.  But the fact of course is that great
men make their environment and are made by their environment. 
There wells up in the individual a fountain of power, but this
fountain has risen underground and is richly fed by all the streams
of the common life [1].

     1.  It is unfortunate to be obliged to treat this important
     point with such brevity.

  I have spoken of fallacies in the individual invention theory and
in the struggle theory.  But I am using the word struggle as
synonymous with strife, opposition, war; effort, striving, the
ceaseless labor of adjustment will always be ours, but these two
ideas represent opposite poles of existence.  In the true theory of
evolution struggle has indeed always been adaptation.  For many
years the "strongest" man has been to science the being with the
greatest number of points of union, the "fittest" has been the one
with the greatest power of cooperation.  Darwin we all know
believed that the cause of the advance of civilization was in the
social habits of man.  Our latest biologists tell us that "mutual
aide" has from the first been a strong factor in evolution, that
the animal species in which the practice of "mutual aid" [2] has
attained the greatest development are invariably the most numerous
and the most prosperous.  We no longer think of the animal world as
necessarily a world of strife; in many of its forms we find not
strife but coordinated activities.

     2.  The expression "mutual aid" and "animal cooperation" have,
     however, a slightly misleading connotation; mutual adaptation,
     coordinated activities come nearer the truth.  It is confusing
     to take the words and phrases we use of men in the conscious
     stage and transfer them to the world of animals in the
     unconscious stage.

  But to too many people struggle suggests conquest and domination;
it implies necessarily victors and vanquished.  Some sociologists
call the dissimilar elements of a group the struggle elements, and
the similar elements the unifying elements.  But this is a false
distinction which will, as long as persisted in, continue the war
between classes and between nations.  The test of our progress is
neither our likenesses nor our unlikenesses, but what we are going
to do with our unlikeness.  Shall I fight whatever is different
from me or find the higher synthesis?  The progress of society is
measured by its power to unite into a living, generating whole its
self-yielding differences.

  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 that 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 team-work.  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 the 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 hide-bound 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 conservatives 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 must flow directly through
our government and our institutions expressing itself anew at every
moment.  We are not fossils petrified in our social strata.  _We
are alive_.  This is the first lesson for us to learn.  That very
word means change and change, growth and growth.  To live
gloriously is to change undauntedly -- our ideals must evolve from
day to day, and it is upon those who can fearlessly embrace the
doctrine of "becoming" that the life of the future waits.  All is
growing; we must recognize this and free the way for the growth. 
We must unclose our spiritual sources, we must allow no mechanism
to come between our spiritual sources and our life.  The _elan
vital_ must have free play.

  Democracy must be conceived as a process, not a goal.  We do not
want rigid institutions, however good.  We need no "body of truth"
of any kind, but the will to will, which means the power to make
our own government, our own institutions, our own expanding truth. 
_We progress, not from one institution to another, but from a
lesser to a greater will to will_.

  We know now that there are no immutable goals -- there is only a
way, a process, by which we shall, like gods, create our own ends
at any moment -- crystallize just enough to be of use and then flow
on again.  The flow of life and we the flow: this is the truth. 
Life is not a matter of desirable objects here and there; the stream
flows on and he who waits with his object is left with a corpse. 
Man is equal to life at every moment, but he must live for _life_
and not for the _things_ life has produced.

  Yet while it is true that life can never be formalized or
formulated, that life is movement, change, onwardness, this does
not mean that we must give up the abiding.  The unchangeable and
the unchanging are both included in the idea of growth [1]. 
Stability is neither rigidity nor sterility: it is the perpetual
power of bringing forth.

     1.  It is because of this profound truth that we must always
     respect conservatism.

  Writers are always fixing dates for the dividing line between the
ancient and the modern world, or between the medieval and the
modern world.  Soon the beginning of modern times of modern
thought, will, I believe, be dated at the moment when men began to
look at a plastic world, at a life constantly changing, at
institutions as only temporary crystallizations of life forces, of
right as evolving, of men as becoming.

   The real work of every man is then to build.  The challenge is
upon us.  This is the task to which all valiant souls must set
themselves.  We are to rise from one mastery to another.  We are to
be no longer satisfied with the pace of a merely fortuitous
progress.  We must know now that we are coworkers with every
process of creation, that our function is as important as the power
which keeps the stars in their orbits.  We are creators here and
now.  We are not in the anteroom of our real life.  This is real
life.

  We cannot, however, mould our lives each by himself; but within
every individual is the power of joining himself fundamentally and
vitally to other lives, and out of this vital union comes the
creative power.  Revelation, if we want it to be continuous, must
be through the community bond.  No _individual_ can change the
disorder and iniquity of this world.  No chaotic _mass_ of men and
women can do it. Conscious _group_ creation is to be the social and
political force of the future.   Our aim must be to live
consciously in more  and more group relations and to make each
group a means of creating.  It is the group which will teach us
that we are not puppets of fate.

  Then will men and women spend their time in trivial or evil ways
when they discover that they can make a world to their liking?  We
are sometimes told that young men and women working all day under
the present very trying industrial conditions live in our great
cities a round of gaiety at night.  Go and look at them.  It is a
depressing sight.  A tragedy is a tragedy and has its own nobility,
but this farce of a city population enjoying itself at night is a
pitiful spectacle.  Go to clubs, go to dances, go to theaters or
moving-pictures, and the mass of our young people look indifferent
and more or less bored -- they have _not_ found the joy of life. 
Play, as useless idling, does not give us joy.  Work, as drudgery,
does not give us joy.  Only creating gives us joy.  When we see
that we are absolute masters of our life, that in every operation,
however humble, we are working out the fundamental laws of being,
then we shall walk to our daily work as the soldiers march to the
Marseillaise.

  We know what happened on that lonely island in a distant sea when
the young Prince came to the people of the Kingdom of Cards, who
has always lived by Rules, and taught them to live by their Ichcha,
their will.  Images became men and women, rules gave place to
wills, the caste of the Court cards was lost, a mechanism changed
into life.  The inhabitants of the Kingdom of Cards, who had never
thought, who had never made a decision learned the royal power of
choosing for themselves.  Regulations were abandoned, and the
startling discovery was made that _they could walk in any direction
they chose_.  This is what we need to learn -- that we can walk in
any direction we choose.  We are not a pack of cards to be put here
and there, to go always in rows, to totter and fall when we are not
propped up.  We must obey our Ichcha.

  Already the change has begun.  I have said that we are beginning
to recognize this power -- there are many indications that we are
beginning to live this power.  We are no longer willing to leave
human affairs to "natural" control: we do not want war because it
is "natural" to fight; we do not want a haphazard population at the
dictates of "nature."  We no longer believe that sickness and
poverty are sent by God; people are being taught that they need not
be sick; that it is largely in their own hands, their own
collective hands (social hygiene etc.).  Modern charity is not
aimed at relieving individual poverty but at freeing the individual
from the particular enslavement which has produced his poverty, in
freeing society from the causes which produce poverty at all [1].

     1.  The claim of the individual to a larger share in
     government and to a share in the control of industry will be
     taken up in later chapters.

  Our once-honored blind forces are more and more losing their
mastery over us.  We are at this moment, however, in a difficult
transition period.  We are "freer" than ever before; the trouble is
we do not know what to do with this freedom.  It is easy to live
the moral, the "social" life when it consists in following a path
carefully marked out for us, but the task given us to-day is to
revalue all the worlds values, to steer straight on and on into the
unknown -- a gallant forth-faring indeed.  But conscious evolution,
the endless process of a perfect coordination demands vital people. 
War is the easy way: we take to war because we have not enough
vitality for the far more difficult job of agreeing.  So also that
kind of religion which consists of contemplation of other-
worldliness is the easy way, and we take to that when we have not
enough vitality deliberately to direct our life and construct our
world.  It takes more spiritual energy to express the group spirit
than the particularist spirit.  This is its glory as well as its
difficulty.  We have to be higher order of beings to do it -- we
become higher order of beings by doing it.  And so the progress
goes on forever: it means life forever in the making, and the
creative responsibility of every man.

  Conscious evolution is the key to that larger view of democracy
which we are embracing to-day.  The key?  Every man sharing in the
creative process _is_ democracy; this is our politics and our
religion.  People are always inquiring into their relation to God. 
God is the moving force of the world, the ever-continuing creating
where men are the co-creators.  _"Chaque homme fait dieu, un peu,
avec sa vie,"_ as one of the most illumined of the young French
poets says [1].

     1.  "Ce que Nait" is the title of a volume of poems by Arcos,
     and that which is being born through all the activity of our
     common life is God.  It is of the "naissance" and "croissance"
     of God that Arcos loves to sing.   

Man and God are correlates of that mighty movement which is
Humanity self-creating. God is the perpetual Call to our self-
fulfilling.  We, by sharing in the life-process which binds all
together in an active, working unity are all the time sharing in
the making of the Universe.  This thought calls forth everything
heroic that is in us; every power of which we are capable must be
gathered to this glorious destiny.  This is the True Democracy [1].

     1.  I have said that we gain creative power through the group. 
     Those who feel enthralled by material conditions, and to whom
     it seems an irony to be told that they are "creators," will
     demand something more specific.  Concrete methods of group
     organization are given in Part III.

