“The group self or "we" is simply an "I" which includes other persons. One identifies himself with a group and speaks of the common will, opinion, service, or the like in terms of "we" and "us." The sense of it is stimulated by co-operation within and opposition without.”

—  Charles Cooley

Source: Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902, p. 209

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The group self or "we" is simply an "I" which includes other persons. One identifies himself with a group and speaks of…" by Charles Cooley?
Charles Cooley photo
Charles Cooley 17
American sociologist 1864–1929

Related quotes

Everett Dean Martin photo

“By the term individual I shall mean that in which each of us is peculiarly himself. I shall emphasize not what is common is us, but what is uncommon, and this leads me to a restatement of our question. In considering what is happening to the individual, I shall discuss what in modern civilization is happening to the uncommon in us. Are we becoming more common or more uncommon? Are the common people destroying the uncommon? Is the public self of us crushing out the personal self? Are we being directed more from without than from within? As our group memberships grow larger, do we as persons tend to grow smaller? Do the tendencies of the present day, mass movements, social organization, publicity, public education, emphasize the unique in man, or enhance the dominance of undifferentiated man acting as mass?”

Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941)

Source: The Conflict of the Individual and the Mass in the Modern World (1932), p. 9

“Formulating and structuring a system provide methods for relating (1) what the system consists of in the mind of the persons or group desiring it; (2)what it means in terms of the persons or group designing and building it; and (3) in terms of the persons or groups operating, using and servicing it. They provide a set of "reasonable" parts and methods of relating them so that the many persons working on the system can understand the whole in sufficient detail for their purposes, and their particular parts in explicit detail so that they may contribute their best efforts to the extent required. A further purpose of system formulation is to recognize the magnitude of the job, including the possible pitfalls.”

Harold Chestnut (1917–2001) American engineer

Source: Systems Engineering Tools, (1965), Systems Engineering Methods (1967), p. 70; Rest of first paragraph of Ch.3

Ilana Mercer photo

“Whether it is committed by a group operating within or without the law, terrorism is still terrorism.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“In Defense of Obama’s Apologizing,” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=551 WorldNetDaily.com, May 21, 2010.
2010s, 2010

Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo

“We make our sons. This is the tragedy of the tribal Muslim man, and especially the firstborn son: the overblown expectations, the ruinous vanity, the unstable sense of self that relies on the oppression of one group of people—women—to maintain the other group’s self-image.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (1969) Dutch feminist, author

Source: 2010s, Nomad: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations (2010), Chapter 4, “My Brother’s Story” (p. 58)

Robert Greene photo

“We have a side to our character that we are generally unaware of—our social personality, the different person we become when we operate in groups of people. In the group setting, we unconsciously imitate what others are saying and doing. We think differently, more concerned with fitting in and believing what others believe. We feel different emotions, infected by the group mood. We are more prone to taking risks, to acting irrationally, because everyone else is. This social personality can come to dominate who we are. Listening so much to others and conforming our behavior to them, we slowly lose a sense of our uniqueness and the ability to think for ourselves. The only solution is to develop self-awareness and a superior understanding of the changes that occur in us in groups. With such intelligence, we can become superior social actors, able to outwardly fit in and cooperate with others on a high level, while retaining our independence and rationality.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 14 : Resist the Downward Pull of the Group
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Jane Roberts photo

“All layers of the personality are 'conscious.' They simply operate like compartments, so that often one portion of the self is not aware of other portions.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: Seth, Dreams & Projections of Consciousness, (1986), p. 202

“I do not think that when one is speaking of hardships or benefits one can reasonably speak in terms of classes or social groups but only in terms of individuals.”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

March 29, 1963, page 135.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council
Context: I should like to begin with a philosophical comment. I do not think that when one is speaking of hardships or benefits one can reasonably speak in terms of classes or social groups but only in terms of individuals.

“Boys and girls don't pair off at birth and scurry off to a dank cave together. Humans have always been social animals. We live in cooperative groups. Our bodies sort us out into groups of males or females. We interact socially as members of one group or the other. These groups aren't arbitrary or cultural- they're basic and biological. Males have to negotiate male and female groups as males. Males aren't simply reacting to female groups as males. We react to other males, as males. Who we are has a lot to do with how we see ourselves in relationship to other males, as members of the male group.”

Jack Donovan (1974) American activist, editor and writer

Pg 1
The Way of Men (2012)

Robert Oppenheimer photo

“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism.”

Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) American theoretical physicist and professor of physics

"Encouragement of Science" (Address at Science Talent Institute, 6 Mar 1950), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, v.7, #1 (Jan 1951) p. 6-8
Context: We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to enquire. We know that the wages of secrecy are corruption. We know that in secrecy error, undetected, will flourish and subvert.

“Every culture, or subculture, is defined by a set of common values, that is, generally agreed upon preferences. Without a core of common values a culture cannot exist, and we classify society into cultures and subcultures precisely because it is possible to identify groups who have common values.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1960s, Economics As A Moral Science, 1969, p. 12

Related topics