The life of reflection is not superior to the life of action nor vice versa. Both are essential to vital society.
The serious gulf between the career of action and the career of reflection must be narrowed. The universities, as they prepare some young men for lives of scholarship and others for lives of action, must be conscious of the problem. In this era of complixity, great enterprises are designed and carried forward by the kind of man who has vision of what might be and a practical strategy for getting there, a man with idea in his head and a monkey wrench in his hand.
Each individual has to decide how much he wants to become personally involved in the action and effort of his society. There is no correct answer. The individual must in terms of his own temperament and motivation. A society that aspires to creativity has urgent need of its detached deeply involved in the world of action.
Creativity requires the freedom to consider"unthinkable" alternatives, to doubt the worth of cherished practices. Every organisation, every society, is under the spell of assumptions so familiar that they are never questioned - least of all by those most intimately involved.
There is certain perspective on any social enterprise that can be had only from the outside. That is why corporation presidents seek the advise of outside management consultant. That is why anthropologists can be objective about other cultures but not about their own.
People at the heart of an enterprise are striving with all their energy to accomplish certain objectives. They haven't time to doubt and speculate, and even if they did, it would be a risky form of self-indulgence. That is why it is so essential that there be people who have the time and the detachment to think not of the moment but of the past and the future, not only of how to solve the problem but whether it's worth solving, not only of what is but what might be.
But no society can survive, certainly not our own complex and swiftly changing society, if it fails to persuade a high proportion of its young people to choose the path of complete involvement in the actions and decisions of their day. We are in desperate need of talented and highly motivated young men and women to move into the key leadership and managerial roles in government, industry, the professions and elsewhere throughout the society.
Our society must have the wisdom to reflect and the fortitude to act. It must provide the creative soil for new ideas and the skill and patience and hardihood to put those ideas into action.
Source: No easy victories by John. W. Gardner.
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