Our modern state-unity is due to the consequences of technology employed so as to facilitate the rapid and easy circulation of opinions and information, and so as to generate constant and intricate interaction far beyond the limits of face-to-face communities.
Dewey discusses how modern technology has transformed the nature of political unity and communication.
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If the technological age can provide mankind with a firm and general basis of material security, it will be absorbed in a humane age.
But the wingèd words of conversation in immediate intercourse have a vital import lacking in the fixed and frozen words of written speech.
Competition will continue, but it will be less rivalry for acquisition of material goods, and more an emulation of local groups to enrich direct experience with appreciatively enjoyed intellectual and artistic wealth.
We lie, as Emerson said, in the lap of an immense intelligence.