Principles and aims of the New Atlantis Foundation

12

He was working towards the creation of a wholly new sociological function which he conceived to be necessary for the establishment of an organic social order. Individuality has developed to such a degree that old ideas of leadership and hierarchical authority are no longer acceptable, but at the same time order can never appear spontaneously from unlimited individual freedom. The sense of community, based on the realisation of our mutual interdependence, must be as strong as the sense of individuality. Community and individuality, however, inevitably conflict, and some guidance is necessary to induce a social order in which both are fully related.

But this guidance should be guidance from within, not guidance from the top. It must be of the nature of intermediation in all the conflicts which arise in society. Those who are to succeed in performing this function must clearly not commit themselves to taking sides in any conflict. They must be able, by showing both contending parties that they appreciate their respective points of view, to help them to discover how they are reconcilable within a wider organic context. And they must be able to do this without the backing of any formal authority, and without assuming a position of superiority, but enjoying complete equality with their fellows. Mitrinovié called the method of achieving this “Third Force’, implying the rejection of thinking in terms of ‘either — or’, and he characterised it by the phrase ‘above, between and beyond the extremes and opposites’.

This new function, the notion of which is Mitrinovi¢’s particular contribution to social thought, and which he called ‘Senate’, would not be a distinct body separate from all others, but a large and loosely connected group of persons with members in every other function of the community. It would have no authority beyond the personal influence of its members and no power to compel anyone by force. Its function would not be leadership, as generally understood, or government, but that of relating all other functions, economic, cultural and political, to one another so that they would operate in freedom and be kept in balance as an integrated whole.

An altogether new discipline and qualifications will be necessary for the senate function, wholly different from the qualities and training which are required for governing. For this function does not in any way resemble any past or current notion of leadership. Those who are to help in founding the social state must be able to demonstrate by their relationships between themselves that the principles on which it is to be based can be realised in practice, and that they are able to include all contradictory points of view, and affirm