And with the immense importance attached
to the nationalistic state, surrounded by other competing and
more or less hostile states, it was equally impossible to
interpret social efficiency in terms of a vague cosmopolitan
humanitarianism. Since the maintenance of a particular national
sovereignty required subordination of individuals to the superior
interests of the state both in military defense and in struggles
for international supremacy in commerce, social efficiency was
understood to imply a like subordination. The educational
process was taken to be one of disciplinary training rather than
of personal development. Since, however, the ideal of culture as
complete development of personality persisted, educational
philosophy attempted a reconciliation of the two ideas. The
reconciliation took the form of the conception of the "organic"
character of the state. The individual in his isolation is
nothing; only in and through an absorption of the aims and
meaning of organized institutions does he attain true
personality. What appears to be his subordination to political
authority and the demand for sacrifice of himself to the commands
of his superiors is in reality but making his own the objective
reason manifested in the state -- the only way in which he can
become truly rational. The notion of development which we have
seen to be characteristic of institutional idealism (as in the
Hegelian philosophy) was just such a deliberate effort to combine
the two ideas of complete realization of personality and
thoroughgoing "disciplinary" subordination to existing
institutions.
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