Group Action Quotes

“The law of all modern states takes account of associations, whose members, in theory, pursue the common end with equal zeal. The experience of all associations proves, however, that this is not the case, and that a lively, constant and vigorous awareness of the end is found only in a minority of the associates; an association is really rather like a comet—a large tail of docile followers dragged along by a small dynamic head.”
― Bertrand De Jouvenel, Sovereignty: An Inquiry into the Political Good

“Of all the simplifications to which the human spirit naturally inclines, unable to reconcile itself to the complexity of the real, there is none more dangerous than the attempt to integrate the whole of society in one vast, permanent action group.”
― Bertrand De Jouvenel, Sovereignty: An Inquiry into the Political Good

“There's some really interesting research that shows that action towards climate change in fact doesn't address climate anxiety, it doesn't alleviate our sense of despair about climate change, that action in a collective is the essential thing. And so there's a sort of misnomer that happens. There's a misunderstanding that if we do some actions, we'll feel better. But in fact, it's the collective part that makes us feel better, and less so the action itself. And so the collective makes us feel efficacious, the collective has that social contagion factor of hope and joy and pleasure.”
― Sarah Jaquette Ray