A man may be one thing as a church member and another thing as a member of the business community.
John Dewey
The Public Record
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.
gutenberg.org
But groups may be opposed to one another, and individuals may be opposed to one another; and an individual as a member of different groups may be divided within himself, and in a true sense have conflicting selves, or be a relatively…
An individual cannot be opposed to the association of which he is an integral part nor can the association be set against its integrated members.
If we do not bear the facts steadily in mind, it is easy--as frequently happens--to create an artificial problem.
As a member of the union, his traits and acts are evidently those which he possesses in virtue of it, while those of the integrated association are what they are in virtue of his status in the union.
But as a member of the union he cannot be treated as antithetical to the union in which he belongs.
He may be compared and contrasted with his wife in their distinctive rôles within the union.
A single man when he is joined in marriage is different in that connection to what he was as single or to what he is in some other union, as a member, say, of a club.
But it is absurd to suppose that a society does away with the traits of its own constituents so that it can be set over against them.
Then there exists something truly social and not merely associative.
Such perception creates a common interest; that is concern on the part of each in the joint action and in the contribution of each of its members to it.
Any human being is in one respect an association, consisting of a multitude of cells each living its own life.