{"id":1144,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1144"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:53","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:53","slug":"59-internationalism-and-human-unity-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15\/59-internationalism-and-human-unity-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-59_Internationalism and Human Unity .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nCHAPTER <\/font><\/b>
\nXXXIII<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Internationalism
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>and Human Unity<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n \u00a0                <\/font><\/span>
\nT<\/font><\/span>HE
\ngreat necessity, then, and the great difficulty is to help this idea of
\nhumanity which is already at work upon our minds and has even begun in a very
\nslight degree to influence from above our actions, and turn it into something
\nmore than an idea, however strong, to make it a central motive and a fixed part
\nof our nature. Its satisfaction must become a necessity of our psychological
\nbeing, just as the family idea or the national idea has become each a
\npsychological motive with its own need of satisfaction. But how is this to ‘be
\ndone? The family idea had the advantage of growing out of a primary vital need
\nin our being and therefore it had not the least difficulty in becoming a
\npsychological motive and need; for our readiest and strongest mental motives
\nand psychological needs are those which grow out of our vital necessities and
\ninstincts. The clan and the tribe ideas had a similar origin, less primary and
\ncompelling, and therefore looser and more dissoluble; but still they arose from
\nthe vital necessity in human nature for aggregation and the ready basis given
\nto it by the inevitable physical growth of the family into clan or tribe. These
\nwere natural aggregations, evolutionary forms already prepared on the animal
\nlevel.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The nation
\nidea, on the contrary, did not arise from a primary vital need, but from a
\nsecondary or even tertiary necessity which resulted not from anything inherent
\nin our vital nature, but from circumstances, from environmental evolution; it
\narose not from a vital, but from a geographical and historical necessity. And
\nwe notice that as one result it had to be created most commonly by force, force
\nof circumstances partly, no doubt, but also by physical force, by the power of
\nthe king and the conquering tribe converted into a military and dominant State.
\nOr else it came by a reaction against force, a revolt against conquest and
\ndomination that brought a slow or sudden compactness to<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-531<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

peoples who,
\nthough geographically or even historically and culturally one, had lacked power
\nof cohesion and remained too conscious of an original heterogeneity or of local
\nand regional and other divisions. But still the necessity was there, and the
\nnation form after many failures and false successes got into being, and the
\npsychological motive of patriotism, a sign of the growth of a conscious national
\nego, arose in the form as the expression of its soul and the guarantee of its
\ndurability. For without such a soul, such a psychological force and presence
\nwithin the frame, there can be no guarantee of durability. Without it, what circumstances have created,
\ncircumstances easily will destroy. It was for this reason that the ancient
\nworld failed to create nations, except on a small scale, little clans and small
\nregional nations of brief duration and usually of loose structure; it created
\nonly artificial empires which went to pieces and left chaos behind them.<\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/font><\/span>What then of this international unity now in
\nthe first obscure throes of the preformatory state resembling a ferment of
\ncells drawing together for\u00a0
\n<\/span>amalgamation? What is the compelling necessity behind it? If we look at
\noutward things only, the necessity is much less direct and much less compelling
\nthan any that preceded it. There is here no vital necessity; mankind as a whole
\ncan get on well enough without international unity, so far as mere living goes;
\nit will not be at all a perfect, rational or ideal collective living of the
\nrace, –<\/span> but after all where is
\nthere yet any element in human life or society which is perfect, rational or
\nideal? As yet at least none; still we get on somehow with life, because the
\nvital man in us, who is the dominant element in our instincts and in our
\nactions, cares for none of these things and is quite satisfied with any just
\ntolerable or any precariously or partly agreeable form of living, because that
\nis all to which he is accustomed and all therefore that he feels to be
\nnecessary. The men who are not satisfied, the thinkers, the idealists, are
\nalways a minority and in the end an ineffectual minority, because though always
\nin the end they do get their way partly, their victory yet turns into a defeat;
\nfor the vital man remains still the majority and degrades the apparent success
\ninto a pitiful parody of their rational hope, their clear- sighted ideal or
\ntheir strong counsel of perfection.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-532<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

The geographical necessity for a unification of this
\nkind does not exist, unless we consider that it has been created through the
\ndrawing closer together of the earth and its inhabitants by Science and her
\nmagical lessening of physical distances and attenuation of barriers. But
\nwhatever may happen in the future, this is as yet not sufficient; earth is
\nstill large enough and her divisions still real enough for her to do without any
\nformal unity. If there is any strong need, it may be described- if such an
\nepithet can be applied to a thing in the present and the future – as a
\nhistorical necessity, that is, a need which has arisen as the result of certain
\nactual circumstances that have grown up in the evolution of international
\nrelations. And that need is economic, political, mechanical, likely under
\ncertain circumstances to create some tentative or preliminary frame- work, but
\nnot at first a psychological reality which will vivify the frame. Moreover, it
\nis not yet sufficiently vital to be precisely a necessity; for it amounts
\nmainly to a need for the removal of certain perils and inconveniences, such as
\nthe constant danger of war, and at most to the strong desirability of a better
\ninternational co-ordination. But by itself this creates only a possibility, not
\neven a moral certainty, of a first vague sketch and loose framework of unity
\nwhich mayor may not lead to something more close and real.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>But there
\nis another power than that of external circumstance which we have a right to
\ntake into consideration. For behind all the external circumstances and
\nnecessities of which we are more easily aware in Nature, there is always an
\ninternal necessity in the being, a will and a design in Nature itself which
\nprecedes the outward signals of its development and in spite of all obstacles
\nand failures must in the long end inevitably get itself realised. Nowadays we
\ncan see this truth everywhere in Nature down to her lowest forms; a will in the
\nvery seed of the being, not quite conscious or only partially conscious in the
\nform itself, but still present there in Nature. It is subconscious or even
\ninconscient if you like, but it is still a blind will, a mute idea which
\ncontains beforehand the form it is going to create, is aware of a necessity
\nother than the environmental, a necessity contained in the very being itself,
\nand creates persistently and<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-533<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

inevitably a form that best answers to the, necessity,
\nhowever we may labour to interfere with or thwart its operations.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This is
\ntrue biologically, but it is also, though in a more subtle and variable way,
\npsychologically true. Now the very nature of man is that of an individual who
\non one side is always emphasising and developing his individual being to the
\nextent of his power but who is also driven by the Idea or Truth within him to
\nunify himself with others of his species, to join himself to them or
\nagglutinate them to him, to create human groups, aggregates and collectivities.
\nAnd if there is an aggregate or collectivity which it is possible for him to
\nrealise but is not yet realised, we may be sure that that too in the end he
\nwill create. This will in him is not always or often quite conscient or fore-
\nseeing; it is often largely subconscient, but even then it is eventually
\nirresistible. And if it gets into his conscious mind, as the international idea
\nhas now done, we may count on a more rapid evolution. Such a will in Nature
\ncreates for itself favourable external circumstances and happenings or finds
\nthem created for it in the stress of events. And even if they are insufficient,
\nshe will still often use them beyond their apparent power of effectivity, not
\nminding the possibility of failure, for she knows that in the end she will
\nsucceed and every experience of failure will help to better the eventual
\nsuccess.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Well, then,
\nit may be said, let us trust to this inevitable will in Nature and let us
\nfollow out her method of operation. Let us create anyhow this framework, any
\nframework of the aggregate; for she knows already the complete form she intends
\nand she will work out eventually in her own time by the power of the idea and
\nour will to realise it, by help of strong force of circumstances, by pressure
\nof all kinds, by physical force even, if need be, since that too seems still to
\nbe a part of her necessary machinery; let us create it. Let us have the body;
\nthe soul will grow in the body. And we need not mind if the bodily formation is
\nartificial with at first a small or no conscious psychological reality to
\nvivify it. That will begin to form itself as soon as the body has been formed;
\nfor the nation too was at first more or less artificially formed out of
\nincoherent elements actually brought together by the necessity of a
\nsubconscient idea, though<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-534<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

apparently it was done only by physical force and the
\nforce of circumstances. As a national ego formed which identified itself with
\nthe geographical body of the nation and developed in it the psychological
\ninstinct of national unity and the need of its satisfaction, so a collective
\nhuman ego will develop in the international body and will evolve in it the
\npsychological instinct of human unity and the need of its satisfaction. That
\nwill be the guarantee of duration. And that possibly is how the thing will
\nhappen, man being what he is; indeed if we cannot do better, it will so happen,
\nsince happen somehow it must, whether in the worse way or the better.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>It may be
\nas well to review here briefly in the light of these considerations the main
\npossibilities and powers which are shaping us towards such an end in the
\npresent world conditions. The old means of unification, conquest by a single
\ngreat Power, which would reduce part of the world by force and bring the
\nremaining nations into the condition of dependencies, protectorates and
\ndependent allies, the whole forming the basic structure of a great final
\nunification, –<\/span> this was the
\ncharacter of the ancient Roman precedent, – does not seem immediately possible.
\nIt would require a great predominance of force simultaneously by sea and land,1<\/sup>
\n(<\/font>)
\n<\/font> <\/span>an
\nirresistibly superior science and organisation and with all this a constantly
\nsuccessful diplomacy and an invincible good fortune. If war and diplomacy are
\nstill to be the decisive factors in international politics in the future as in
\nthe past, it would be rash to predict that such a combination may not arise,
\nand if other means fail, it must arise; for there is nothing that can be set
\ndown as impossible in the chances of the future, and the urge in Nature always
\ncreates its own means. But, at present, the possibilities of the future do not
\nseem to point in this direction. There is, on the other hand, a very strong
\npossibility of the whole earth, or at least the three continents of the eastern
\nhemisphere, being dominated by three or four great empires largely increased in
\nextent of dominion, spheres of influence, protectorates, and thereby exercising
\na pre-eminence which they could either maintain by agreements, avoiding all
\ncauses of conflict, or in<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1<\/sup>
\n<\/font>Now also by air<\/font><\/span>.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-535<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

a rivalry which would be the cause of fresh wars and
\nchanges. This would normally have been the result of the great European
\nconflict.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>But there
\nhas struck across this possibility a revived strength of the idea of
\nnationality expressed in the novel formula of the principle of
\nself-determination to which the great world- empires have had to pay at least a
\nverbal homage. The idea of international unity to which this intervention of
\nthe revived force of nationality is leading, takes the form of a so-called
\nLeague of Nations. Practically, however, the League of Nations under present
\nconditions or any likely to be immediately realised would still mean the
\ncontrol of the earth by a few great Powers, – a control that would be checked only
\nby the necessity of conciliating the sympathy and support of the more numerous
\nsmaller or less powerful nations. On the force and influence of these few would
\nrest practically, if not admittedly, the decision of all important debatable
\nquestions. And without it there could be no chance of enforcing the decisions
\nof the majority against any recalcitrant great Power or combination of Powers.
\nThe growth of democratic institutions would perhaps help to minimise the
\nchances of conflict and of the abuse of power, – though that is not at all
\ncertain; but it would not alter this real character of the combination. <\/font>
\n <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>In all this
\nthere is no immediate prospect of any such form of unification as would give
\nroom for a real psychological sense of unity, much less necessitate its growth.
\nSuch a form might evolve; but we should have to trust for it to the chapter of
\naccidents or at best to the already declared urge in Nature expressed in the
\ninternationalist idea. On that side, there was at one time a possibility which
\nseemed to be very suddenly and rapidly growing into something more, the
\nemergence of a powerful party in all the advanced countries of the world
\npledged to internationalism, conscious of its necessity as a first condition
\nfor their other aims and more and more determined to give it precedence and to
\nunite internationally to bring it about. That combination of the intellectuals
\nwith Labour which created the Socialist parties in Germany, Russia and Austria,
\nformed anew recently the Labour party in England and has had<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-536<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

its counterparts in most other European countries,
\nseems to be travelling in that direction. This world-wide movement which made
\ninternationalism and Labour rule its two main principles, had already created
\nthe Russian revolution and seemed ready to bring about another great
\nsocialistic revolution in central Europe. It was conceivable that this party
\nmight everywhere draw together. By a chain of revolutions such as took place in
\nthe nineteenth century and of less violent but still rapid evolutions brought
\nabout by the pressure of their example, or even by simply growing into the
\nmajority in each country, the party might control Europe. It might create
\ncounterparts of itself in all the American republics and in Asiatic countries.
\nIt might by using the machinery of the League of Nations or, where necessary,
\nby physical force or economic or other pressure persuade or compel all the
\nnations into some more stringent system of international unification. A
\nWorld-State or else a close confederation of democratic peoples might be
\ncreated with a common governing body for the decision of principles and for all
\ngenerally important affairs or at least for all properly international affairs
\nand problems; a common law of the nations might grow up and international
\ncourts to administer it and some kind of system of international police control
\nto maintain and enforce it. In this way, by the general victory of an idea,
\nsocialist or other, seeking to organise humanity according to its own model or
\nby any other yet unforeseen way, a sufficient formal unity might come into
\nexistence.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The
\nquestion then arises, how out of this purely formal unity a real psychological
\nunity can be created and whether ‘it can be made a living oneness. For a mere
\nformal, mechanical, administrative, political and economic union does not
\nnecessarily create a psychological unity. None of the great empires have yet
\nsucceeded in doing that, and even in the Roman where some sense of unity did
\ncome into being, it was nothing very close and living; it could not withstand
\nall shocks from within and without, it could not prevent what was much more
\ndangerous, the peril of decay and devitalisation which the diminution of the
\nnatural elements of free variation and helpful struggle brought with it. A
\ncomplete world-union would have indeed<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-537<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

this advantage that it would have no need to fear,
\nforces from without, for no such forces would any longer exist. But this very absence
\nof outer pressure might well give greater room and power to internal elements
\nof disintegration and still more to the opportunities of decay. It might indeed
\nfor a long time foster an internal intellectual and political activity and
\nsocial progress which would keep it living; but this principle of progress
\nwould not be always secure against a natural tendency to exhaustion and
\nstagnation which every diminution of variety and even the very satisfaction of
\nsocial and economic well-being might well hasten. Disruption of unity would
\nthen be necessary to restore humanity to life. Again, while the Roman Empire
\nappealed only to the idea of Roman unity, an artificial and accidental
\nprinciple, this World-State would appeal to the idea of human unity, a real and
\nvital principle. But if the idea of unity can appeal to the human mind, so too
\ncan the idea of separative life, for both address themselves to vital instincts
\nof his nature. What guarantee will there be that the latter will not prevail
\nwhen man has once tried unity and finds perhaps that its advantages do not
\nsatisfy his whole nature? Only the growth of some very powerful psychological
\nfactor will make unity necessary to him, whatever other changes and
\nmanipulations might be desirable to satisfy his other needs and instincts.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The formal
\nunification of mankind would come in upon us in the shape of a system which
\nwould be born, grow, come to its culmination. But every system by the very
\nnature of things tends after its culmination to decay and die. To prevent the
\norganism from decaying and dying there must be such a psychological reality
\nwithin as will persist and survive all changes of its body. Nations have that
\nin a sort of collective national ego which persists through all vital changes.
\nBut this ego is not by any means self-existent and immortal; it supports itself
\non certain things with which it is identified. First, there is the geographical
\nbody, the country; secondly, the common interests of all who inhabit the same
\ncountry, defence, economic well- being and progress, political liberty etc.;
\nthirdly, a common name, sentiment, culture. But we have to mark that this
\nnational ego owes its life to the coalescence of the separative instinct and<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-538<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

the instinct of unity; for the nation feels itself one
\nas distinguished from other nations; it owes its vitality to interchange with
\nthem and struggle with them in all the activities of its nature. Nor are all
\nthese altogether sufficient; there is a deeper factor. There must be a sort of
\nreligion of country, a constant even if not always explicit recognition not
\nonly of the sacredness of the physical mother, the land, but also, in however
\nobscure a way, of the nation as a collective soul which it is the first duty
\nand need of every man to keep alive, to defend from suppression or mortal
\nattaint or, if suppressed, then to watch, wait and struggle for its release and
\nrehabilitation, if sicklied over with the touch of any fatal spiritual ailment,
\nthen to labour always to heal and revivify and save alive.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The
\nWorld-State will give its inhabitants the great advantages of peace, economic
\nwell-being, general security, combination for intellectual, cultural, social
\nactivity and progress. None of these are in themselves sufficient to create the
\nthing needed. Peace and security we all desire at present, because we have them
\nnot in sufficiency; but we must remember that man has also within him the need
\nof combat, adventure, struggle, almost requires these for his growth and
\nhealthy living; that instinct would be largely suppressed by a universal peace
\nand a flat security and it might rise up successfully against suppression.
\nEconomic well-being by itself cannot permanently satisfy and the price paid for
\nit might be so heavy as to diminish its appeal and value. The human instinct
\nfor liberty, individual and national, might well be a constant menace to the
\nWorld-State, unless it so skilfully arranged its system as to give them
\nsufficient free play. A common intellectual and cultural activity and progress
\nmay do much, but need not by themselves be sufficient to bring into being the
\nfully powerful psychological factor that would be required. And the collective
\nego created would have to rely on the instinct of unity alone; for it would be
\nin conflict with the separative instinct which gives the national ego half its
\nvitality.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>It is not
\nimpossible that the indispensable inner factor for this outer frame might be
\nincreasingly created, in its very process of growth, but certain psychological
\nelements would have<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-539<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

to be present in great strength. There would be needed,
\nto make the change persist, a religion of humanity or an equivalent sentiment
\nmuch more powerful, explicit, self-conscious, universal in its appeal than the
\nnationalist’s religion of country; the clear recognition by man in all his
\nthought and life of a single soul in humanity of which each man and each people
\nis an incarnation and soul-form; an ascension of man beyond the principle of
\nego which lives by separativeness, –<\/span>
\nand yet there must be no destruction of individuality, for without that man
\nwould stagnate; a principle and arrangement of the common life which would give
\nfree play to the individual variation, interchange in diversity and the need of
\nadventure and conquest by which the soul of man lives and grows great, and
\nsufficient means of expressing all the resultant complex life and growth in a
\nflexible and progressive form of human society.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-540<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XXXIII Internationalism and Human Unity    \u00a0                THE great necessity, then, and the great difficulty is to help this idea of humanity which is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","wpcat-25-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}