{"id":1157,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:58","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1157"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:58","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:58","slug":"27-the-turn-towards-unity-its-necessity-and-dangers-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\/27-the-turn-towards-unity-its-necessity-and-dangers-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-27_The Turn towards Unity Its Necessity and Dangers.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\n
\n
\nCHAPTER\u00a0 <\/span>I<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Turn towards Unity:<\/font> <\/font><\/span>
\n<\/b>
\nIts Necessity and Dangers<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span>                    THE surfaces of life are easy to under- stand; their laws,
\ncharacteristic movements, practical utilities are ready to our hand and we can
\nseize on them and turn them to account with a sufficient facility and rapidity.
\nBut they do not carry us very far. They suffice for an active superficial life
\nfrom day to day, but they do not solve the great problems of existence. On the
\nother hand, the knowledge of life’s profundities, its potent secrets, its great,
\nhidden, all-determining laws is\u00a0 <\/span>exceedingly difficult to us. We have found no plummet that can
\nfathom these depths; they seem to us a vague, indeterminate movement, a
\nprofound obscurity from which the mind recoils willingly to play with the fret
\nand foam and facile radiances of the surface. Yet it is these depths and their
\nunseen forces <\/font>"<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>
\nthat we ought to know if we
\nwould understand existence; on<\/font><\/span> f the surface we get only Nature’s secondary rules and
\npractical bye-laws which help us to tide over the difficulties of the moment
\nand to organise empirically without understanding them her continual
\ntransitions.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Nothing is more obscure to humanity or
\nless seized by its understanding, whether in the power that moves it or the
\nsense of the aim towards which it moves, than its own communal and collective
\nlife. Sociology does not help us, for it only gives us the general story of the
\npast and the external conditions under which communities have survived. History
\nteaches us nothing; it is a confused torrent of events and personalities or a
\nkaleidoscope of changing institutions. We do not seize the real sense of all
\nthis change and this continual streaming forward of human life in the channels
\nof Time. What we do seize are current or recurrent phenomena, facile
\ngeneralisations, partial ideas. We talk of democracy, aristocracy and
\nautocracy, collectivism and<\/font><\/p>\n

Page
\n261<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

individualism,
\nimperialism and nationalism, the State and the commune, capitalism and labour;
\nwe advance hasty generalisations and make absolute systems which are positively
\nannounced today only to be abandoned perforce tomorrow; we espouse causes and
\nardent enthusiasms whose triumph turns to an early disillusionment and then
\nforsake them for others, perhaps for those that we have taken so much trouble
\nto destroy. For a whole century mankind thirsts and battles after liberty and
\nearns it with a bitter expense of toil, tears and blood; the century that
\nenjoys without having fought for it turns away as from a puerile illusion and
\nis ready to renounce the depreciated gain as the price of some new good. And
\nall this happens because our whole thought and action with regard to our
\ncollective life is shallow and empirical; it does not seek for, it does not
\nbase itself on a firm, profound and complete knowledge. The moral is not the
\nvanity of human life, of its ardours and enthusiasms and of the ideals it
\npursues, but the necessity of a wiser, larger, more patient search after its
\ntrue law and aim.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Today the ideal of human unity is more or
\nless vaguely making its way to the front of our consciousness. The emergence of
\nan ideal in human thought is always the sign of an intention in Nature, but not
\nalways of an intention to accomplish; some- times it indicates only an attempt
\nwhich is predestined to temporary failure. For Nature is slow and patient in
\nher methods. She takes up ideas and half carries them out, then drops them by
\nthe wayside to resume them in some future era with a better combination. She
\ntempts humanity, her thinking instrument, and tests how far it is ready for the
\nharmony she has imagined;. she allows and incites man to attempt and fail, so
\nthat he may learn and succeed better another time. Still the ideal, having once
\nmade its way to the front of thought, must certainly be attempted, and this
\nideal of human unity is likely to figure largely among the determining forces
\nof the future; for the intellectual and material circumstances of the age have
\nprepared and almost impose it, especially the scientific discoveries which have
\nmade our earth so small that its vastest kingdoms seem now no more than the
\nprovinces of a single country.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>But this very commodity of the material
\ncircumstances<\/font> may<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-262<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\nbring <\/font> <\/span>
\nabout
\nthe failure of the ideal; for when material circum- <\/font>
\n;<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>
\nstances<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>favour a great change, but the heart and mind of the
\nrace <\/font>,<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>
\nare not<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>really ready<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/span>–<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font> <\/span>especially the heart – failure may be <\/font>
\npredicted,<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>unless indeed men are wise in time and accept<\/font> <\/font> <\/span>
\nthe inner<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>change along with’ the external readjustment. But at
\n<\/font>present the human intellect
\nhas been so much mechanised by physical Science that it is likely to attempt
\nthe revolution it is beginning to envisage principally or solely through
\nmechanical <\/font> <\/span>
\nmeans,
\nthrough<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font> <\/span>social -and political adjustments. Now it is not
\n<\/font>by<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>
\nsocial<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>and political devices, or at any rate not by these,
\nchiefly <\/font>or
\nonly, that<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font> <\/span>the unity of the human race can be enduringly or
\n<\/font>fruitfully accomplished.<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>It must
\nbe remembered that a greater social or political unity is not necessarily a
\nboon in itself; it is only worth pursuing in so far as it provides a means and
\na framework for a better, richer, more happy and puissant individual and
\ncollective life. But <\/font> <\/span>hitherto the
\nexperience of mankind has not favoured<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/span>the <\/font> <\/span>
\nview
\nthat<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>
\nhuge aggregations, closely united and strictly
\norganised, <\/font>are
\nfavourable to a rich and puissant human life. It would seem <\/font> <\/span>
\nrather that<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>collective life is more at ease with itself, more
\ngenial, <\/font>varied,<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>fruitful when it can concentrate itself in small spaces
\nand simpler <\/font>organisms.<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>If we consider the past of humanity so
\nfar as it is known to us, we find that the interesting periods of human life,
\nthe scenes in which it has been most richly lived and has left behind it the
\nmost precious fruits, were precisely those ages and countries in which humanity
\nwas able to organise itself in little independent <\/font>
\ncentres acting<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>
\nintimately upon each other
\nbut not fused into a <\/font> <\/span>single unity. Modem
\nEurope owes two-thirds of its civilisation <\/font>
\nto three <\/font> <\/span>
\nsuch supreme moments of human history, the religious
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>life of the congeries of tribes which
\ncalled itself Israel and, subsequently, of the little nation of the Jews, the
\nmany-sided life of the small Greek city states, the similar, though more
\nrestricted, artistic and intellectual life of mediaeval Italy. Nor was any age
\nin Asia so rich in energy, so well worth living in, so productive <\/font>
\nof the<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>best and most enduring fruits as that heroic period of
\nIndia <\/font>when<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>she was divided into small kingdoms, many of them no
\n<\/font>larger than a modern
\ndistrict. Her most wonderful activities,<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-263<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

her
\nmost vigorous and enduring work, that which, if we had to make a choice, we
\nshould keep at the sacrifice of all else, belonged to that period; the second
\nbest came afterwards in larger, but still comparatively small, nations and
\nkingdoms like those of the Pallavas, Chalukyas, Pandyas, Cholas and Cheras. In
\ncomparison she received little from the greater empires that rose and fell
\nwithin her borders, the Moghul, the Gupta or the Maurya –<\/font> little indeed
\nexcept political and administrative organisation, some fine art and literature
\nand a certain amount of lasting work, in other kinds, not always of the best
\nquality. Their impulse’ was rather towards elaborate organisation than
\noriginal, stimulating and creative.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Nevertheless, in this regime of the small
\ncity state or of regional cultures, there was always a defect which compelled a
\ntendency towards large organisations. The defect was a characteristic of
\nimpermanence, often of disorder, especially of defencelessness against the
\nonslaught of larger organisations, even of an insufficient capacity for
\nwidespread material well-being. There- fore this earlier form of collective
\nlife tended to disappear and give place to the organisation of nations, kingdoms
\nand empires. And here we notice, first, that it is the groupments of smaller
\nnations which have had the most intense life and not the huge States and
\ncolossal empires. Collective life diffusing itself in too vast spaces seems to
\nlose intensity and productiveness. Europe has lived in England, France, the
\nNetherlands, Spain, Italy, the small States of Germany – all her later
\ncivilisation and progress evolved itself there, not in the huge mass of the
\nHoly Roman or the Russian Empire. We see a similar phenomenon in the social and
\npolitical field when we compare the intense life and activity of Europe in its
\nmany nations acting richly upon each other, rapidly progressing by quick
\ncreative steps and sometimes by bounds, with the great masses of Asia, her long
\nperiods of immobility in which wars and revolutions seem to be small, temporary
\nand usually unproductive episodes, her centuries of religious, philosophic and
\nartistic reveries, her tendency towards an increasing isolation and a final
\nstagnancy of the outward life.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Secondly, we note that in this
\norganisation of nations and<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-264<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\nkingdoms<\/font><\/span>
\nthose
\nwhich have had the most vigorous life have <\/font>gained it by a sort of
\nartificial concentration of the vitality into some
\nhead, centre or capital, London, Paris, Rome. By this device Nature, while
\nacquiring the benefits of a larger organisation and more perfect unity,
\npreserves to some extent that equally precious power of fruitful concentration
\nin a small space and into a closely packed activity which she had possessed in
\nher more <\/font>primitive
\nsystem of the city state or petty kingdom. But this<\/font><\/span> advantage was
\npurchased by the condemnation of the rest of the organisation, the district,
\nthe provincial town, the village to a dull, petty and somnolent life in strange
\ncontrast with the vital intensity of the urbs <\/i>or metropolis.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The Roman Empire is the historic example
\nof an organisation of unity which\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/span>transcended the limits of the nation, and its advantages and
\ndisadvantages are there perfectly typified. The advantages are admirable
\norganisation, peace, wide-spread security, order and material well-being; the
\ndisadvantage is that f,<\/font> the individual, the city, the region sacrifice their
\nindependent life and become mechanical parts of a machine: life loses its
\ncolour, richness, variety, freedom and victorious impulse towards creation. The
\norganisation is great and admirable, but the individual dwindles and is
\noverpowered and overshadowed; and eventually by the smallness and feebleness of
\nthe individual the huge organism inevitably and slowly loses even its great
\nconservative vitality and dies of an increasing stagnation. Even while
\noutwardly whole and untouched, the structure has become rotten and begins to
\ncrack and dissolve at the first shock from outside. Such organisations, such
\nperiods are immensely useful for conservation, even as the Roman Empire served
\nto consolidate the gains of the rich centuries that preceded it. But they
\narrest life and growth.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

We see, then, what
\nis likely to happen if there were a social, administrative and political
\nunification of mankind, such as some have begun to dream of nowadays. A
\ntremendous organisation would be needed under which both individual and
\nregional life would be crushed, dwarfed, deprived of their necessary freedom
\nlike a plant without rain and wind and sunlight, and this would mean for
\nhumanity, after perhaps one first outburst of<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-265<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

satisfied and joyous activity, a long period of mere
\nconservation, increasing stagnancy and ultimately decay.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Yet the unity of mankind is evidently a
\npart of Nature’s eventual scheme and must come about. Only it must be under
\nother conditions and with safeguards which will keep the race intact in the
\nroots of its vitality, richly diverse in its oneness.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-266<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER\u00a0 I The Turn towards Unity: Its Necessity and Dangers   \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0                     THE surfaces of life are easy to under- stand; their laws, characteristic…<\/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-1157","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\/1157","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=1157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}