Most of the
conflicts of interests, which lead individuals or organizations into
disputes, are purely imaginary, and would be seen to be so if men
aimed more at the goods in which all can share, and less at those
private possessions that are the source of strife. In proportion as
men live creatively, they cease to wish to interfere with others by
force. Very many matters in which, at present, common action is
thought indispensable, might well be left to individual decision. It
used to be thought absolutely necessary that all the inhabitants of a
country should have the same religion, but we now know that there is
no such necessity. In like manner it will be found, as men grow more
tolerant in their instincts, that many uniformities now insisted upon
are useless and even harmful.
Good political institutions would weaken the impulse toward force and
domination in two ways: first, by increasing the opportunities for the
creative impulses, and by shaping education so as to strengthen these
impulses; secondly, by diminishing the outlets for the possessive
instincts. The diffusion of power, both in the political and the
economic sphere, instead of its concentration in the hands of
officials and captains of industry, would greatly diminish the
opportunities for acquiring the habit of command, out of which the
desire for exercising tyranny is apt to spring.
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