Persons, personalities if you wish, can be made only in
communities. A community is made up of intimate relationships among
diverse types of individuals--a kinship group, a local group, a
neighbourhood, a village, a large family.
Without communities, no infant will be sufficiently socialized.
He may grow up to be forty years old, he may have made an extremely
good living, he may have engendered half a dozen children, but he
is still an infant unless he has been properly socialized and that
occurs in the first four or five years of life.
In our society today, we have attempted to throw the whole
burden of socializing out population upon the school system, to
which the individual arrives only at the age of four or five.
A few years ago they had big programs to take children to school
for a few hours at age two and three and four, but that will not
socialize them. The first two years are important.
The way a child is treated in the first two days is of vital
importance. He has to be loved, above all he has to be talked
to.
A state of individuals, such as we have now reached in Western
Civilization, will not create persons, and the atomized individuals
who make it up will be motivated by desires which do not
necessarily reflect needs. Instead of needing other people they
need a shot of heroin; instead of some kind of religious
conviction, they have to be with the winning team....
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