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service to others is of necessity opposed to the aim of enriching
the meaning of experience, while a culture which is taken to
consist in an internal refinement of a mind is opposed to a
socialized disposition. But social efficiency as an educational
purpose should mean cultivation of power to join freely and fully
in shared or common activities. This is impossible without
culture, while it brings a reward in culture, because one cannot
share in intercourse with others without learning -- without
getting a broader point of view and perceiving things of which
one would otherwise be ignorant. And there is perhaps no better
definition of culture than that it is the capacity for constantly
expanding the range and accuracy of one's perception of
meanings.
1 Donaldson, Growth of Brain, p. 356.
2 We must not forget that Rousseau had the idea of a radically
different sort of society, a fraternal society whose end should
be identical with the good of all its members, which he thought
to be as much better than existing states as these are worse than
the state of nature.
Chapter Ten: Interest and Discipline
1. The Meaning of the Terms. We have already noticed the
difference in the attitude of a spectator and of an agent or
participant. The former is indifferent to what is going on; one
result is just as good as another, since each is just something
to look at. The latter is bound up with what is going on; its
outcome makes a difference to him. His fortunes are more or less
at stake in the issue of events. Consequently he does whatever
he can to influence the direction present occurrences take. One
is like a man in a prison cell watching the rain out of the
window; it is all the same to him. The other is like a man who
has planned an outing for the next day which continuing rain will
frustrate. He cannot, to be sure, by his present reactions
affect to-morrow's weather, but he may take some steps which will
influence future happenings, if only to postpone the proposed
picnic. If a man sees a carriage coming which may run over him,
if he cannot stop its movement, he can at least get out of the
way if he foresees the consequence in time. In many instances,
he can intervene even more directly. The attitude of a
participant in the course of affairs is thus a double one: there
is solicitude, anxiety concerning future consequences, and a
tendency to act to assure better, and avert worse, consequences.
There are words which denote this attitude: concern, interest.
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Democracy and Education
96
These words suggest that a person is bound up with the
possibilities inhering in objects; that he is accordingly on the
lookout for what they are likely to do to him; and that, on the
basis of his expectation or foresight, he is eager to act so as
to give things one turn rather than another. Interest and aims,
concern and purpose, are necessarily connected. Such words as
aim, intent, end, emphasize the results which are wanted and
striven for; they take for granted the personal attitude of
solicitude and attentive eagerness. Such words as interest,
affection, concern, motivation, emphasize the bearing of what is
foreseen upon the individual's fortunes, and his active desire to
act to secure a possible result. They take for granted the
objective changes. But the difference is but one of emphasis;
the meaning that is shaded in one set of words is illuminated in
the other. What is anticipated is objective and impersonal;
to-morrow's rain; the possibility of being run over. But for an
active being, a being who partakes of the consequences instead of
standing aloof from them, there is at the same time a personal
response. The difference imaginatively foreseen makes a present
difference, which finds expression in solicitude and effort.
While such words as affection, concern, and motive indicate an
attitude of personal preference, they are always attitudes toward
objects -- toward what is foreseen. We may call the phase of
objective foresight intellectual, and the phase of personal
concern emotional and volitional, but there is no separation in
the facts of the situation.
Such a separation could exist only if the personal attitudes ran
their course in a world by themselves. But they are always
responses to what is going on in the situation of which they are
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