{"id":1160,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:59","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1160"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:59","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:59","slug":"30-the-inadequacy-of-the-state-idea-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\/30-the-inadequacy-of-the-state-idea-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-30_ The Inadequacy of the State Idea.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


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

\nThe Inadequacy of the State Idea<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>
\n        WHAT, after all,
\nis this State idea, this idea of the organised community to which the
\nindividual has to be immolated? Theoretically, it is the subordination of the
\nindividual to the good of all that is demanded; practically, it is his <\/font>
\nsubordination to a
\ncollective egoism, political, military,<\/font><\/span>
\neco<\/font><\/span>nomic,
\nwhich seeks to satisfy certain collective aims and ambitions shaped and imposed
\non the great mass of the individuals by a smaller or larger number of ruling
\npersons who are supposed in some way to represent the community. It is
\nimmaterial whether these belong to a governing class or emerge as in modem
\nStates from the mass partly by force of character, but much more by force of
\ncircumstances; nor does it make any essential difference that their aims and
\nideals are imposed nowadays more by the hypnotism of verbal persuasion than by
\novert and actual force. In either case there is no guarantee that this ruling
\nclass or ruling body represents the best mind of the nation or its noblest aims
\nor its highest instincts.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Nothing of the kind can be asserted of
\nthe modem politician in any part of the world; he does not represent the soul
\nof a people or its aspirations. What he does usually represent is all the
\naverage pettiness, selfishness, egoism, self-deception that is about him and
\nthese he represents well enough as well as a great deal of mental incompetence
\nand moral conventionality, timidity and pretence. Great issues often come to
\nhim for decision, but he does not deal with them greatly; high words and noble
\nideas are on his lips, but they become rapidly the claptrap of a party. The
\ndisease and falsehood of modern political life is patent in every country of
\nthe world and only the hypnotised acquiescence of all, even of the intellectual
\nclasses, in the great organised sham, cloaks and prolongs the malady, the
\nacquiescence that men yield to everything that is habitual and makes the
\npresent atmos-<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-278<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

phere of their lives. Yet it is by such minds that the
\ngood of all has to be decided, to such hands that it has to be entrusted, to
\nsuch an agency calling itself the State that the individual is being more and
\nmore called upon to give up the government of his activities. As a matter of
\nfact, it is in no way the largest good of all that is thus secured, but a great
\ndeal of organised blundering and evil with a certain. amount of good which
\nmakes for real progress, because Nature moves forward always in the midst of
\nall stumblings and secures her aims in the end more often in spite of man’s
\nimperfect mentality than by its means.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>But even if the governing
\ninstrument were better constituted and of a higher mental and moral character,
\neven if some way could be found to do what ancient civilisations by their
\nenforcement of certain high ideals and disciplines tried to do with their ruling
\nclasses, still the State would not be what the State idea pretends that it is.
\nTheoretically, it is the collective wisdom and force of the community made
\navailable and organised for the general good. Practically, what controls the
\nengine and drives the train is so much of the intellect and power available in
\nthe community as the particular machinery of State organisation will allow to
\ncome to the surface; but it is also caught in the machinery and hampered by it
\nand hampered as well by the large amount of folly and selfish weakness that
\ncomes up in the emergence. Doubtless, this is the best that can be done under
\nthe circumstances, and Nature, as always,
\nutilises it for the best. But things would be much worse if there were not a
\nfield left for a less trammelled individual effort doing what the State cannot
\ndo, deploying and using the sincerity, energy, idealism of the best individuals
\nto attempt that which the State has not the wisdom or courage to attempt,
\ngetting that done which a collective conservatism and imbecility would either
\nleave undone or actively suppress and oppose. It is this energy of the
\nindividual which is the really effective agent of collective progress. The
\nState sometimes comes in to aid it and then, if its aid does not mean undue
\ncontrol, it serves a positively useful end. As often it stands in the way and
\nthen serves either as a brake upon progress or sup- plies the necessary amount
\nof organised opposition and friction always needed to give greater energy and a
\nmore complete shape<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-279<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

to the new thing which is in process of formation. But
\nwhat we are now tending towards is such an increase of organised State power and
\nsuch a huge irresistible and complex State activity as will either eliminate
\nfree individual effort altogether or leave it dwarfed and cowed into
\nhelplessness. The necessary corrective to the defects, limitations and
\ninefficiency of the State machine will disappear.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The organised State is neither the best
\nmind of the nation nor is it even the sum of the communal energies. It leaves
\nout of its organised action and suppresses or unduly depresses the working
\nforce and thinking mind of important minorities, often of those which represent
\nthat which is best in the present and that which is developing for the future.
\nIt is a collective egoism much inferior to the best of which the community is
\ncapable. What that egoism is in its relation to other collective egoisms we
\nknow, and its ugliness has recently been forced upon the vision and the
\nconscience of mankind. The individual has usually something at least like a
\n,soul, and, at any rate, he makes up for the defi<\/font>ciencies of the soul by a system of morality
\nand an ethical sense, <\/font> <\/span>and for the
\ndeficiencies of these again by the fear of social opinion or, failing that, a
\nfear of the communal law which he has ordinarily either to obey or at least to
\ncircumvent; and even the difficulty of circumventing is a check on all except
\nthe most violent or the most skilful. But the State is an entity which, with
\nthe greatest amount of power, is the least hampered by internal scruples or
\nexternal checks. It has no soul or only a rudimentary one. It is a military,
\npolitical and economic force; but it is only in a slight and undeveloped
\ndegree, if at all, an intellectual and ethical being. And unfortunately the
\nchief use it makes of its undeveloped intellect is to blunt by fictions,
\ncatchwords and recently by State philosophies, its ill-developed ethical
\nconscience. Man within the community is now at least a half-civilised creature,
\nbut his international existence is still primitive. Until recently the
\norgnaised nation in its relations with other nations was only a huge beast of prey
\nwith appetites which sometimes slept when gorged or discouraged by events, but
\nwere always its chief reason for existence. Self-protection and self-expansion
\nby the devouring of others were its dharma. <\/i>At the present<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-280<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\nday
\nthere is no essential improvement; there is only a greater difficulty in
\ndevouring. A "sacred egoism" is still the Ideal of nations, and
\ntherefore there is neither any true and enlightened <\/font>
\nconsciousness of human
\nopinion to restrain the predatory State <\/font> <\/span>
\n4<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>
\nnor
\nany effective international law. There is only the fear of de<\/font><\/span>feat <\/font> <\/span>
\nand the fear, recently, of a
\ndisastrous economic disorganisa<\/font><\/span>tion; but
\nexperience after experience has shown that these checks are ineffective.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>In its inner life this huge State egoism was
\nonce little better than in its outer relations.1<\/sup>  Brutal, rapacious, cunning, opressive, intolerant of
\nfree action, free speech and opinion, even of freedom of conscience in
\nreligion, it preyed upon individuals and classes within as upon weaker nations
\noutside. Only the necessity of keeping alive and rich and strong in a rough
\nsort of way the community on which it lived made its action partially and
\ncrudely beneficent. In modern times there has been much improvement in spite of
\ndeterioration in certain directions. The State now feels the necessity of
\njustifying its existence by organising the general economic and animal
\nwell-being of the community and even of all individuals. It is beginning to see
\nthe necessity of assuring the intellectual and, indirectly, the moral development
\nof the whole community. This attempt of the State to grow into an intellectual
\nand moral being is one of the most interesting phenomena of modern
\ncivilisation. Even the necessity of intellectualising and moralising it in its
\nexternal relations has been enforced upon the conscience of mankind by the
\nEuropean catastrophe. But the claim of the State to absorb all free individual
\nactivities, a claim which it increasingly makes as it grows more clearly
\nconscious of its new ideals and its possibilities, is, to say the least of it,
\npremature and, if satisfied, will surely end in a check to human progress, a
\ncomfortably organised stagnancy such as overtook the Graeco-Roman world after
\nthe establishment of the Roman Empire.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The call of
\nthe State to the individual to immolate himself on its altar and to give up his
\nfree activities into an organised<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n1<\/font> <\/font><\/sup>
\nI am speaking of the intermediate age between
\nancient and modem times. In ancient times the State had, in some countries at
\nleast, ideals and a conscience with regard to the community, but very little in
\nits dealings with other States<\/font><\/span>.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-281<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

collective activity is therefore something quite different
\nfrom the demand of our highest ideals. It amounts to the giving up of the
\npresent form of individual egoism into another, a collective form, larger but
\nnot superior, rather in many ways inferior to the best individual egoism. The
\naltruistic ideal, the discipline of self- sacrifice, the need of a growing
\nsolidarity with our fellows and a growing collective soul in humanity are not
\nin dispute. But the loss of self in the State is not the thing that these high
\nideals mean, nor is it the way to their fulfilment. Man must learn not to
\nsuppress and mutilate, but to fulfil himself in the fulfilment of mankind, even
\nas he must learn not to mutilate or destroy, but to complete his ego by
\nexpanding it out of its limitations and losing it in something greater which it
\nnow tries to represent. But the deglutition of the free individual by a huge
\nState machine is quite another consummation. The State is a convenience, and a
\nrather clumsy convenience, for our common development; it ought never to be
\nmade an end in itself.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The second claim of the State idea that
\nthis supremacy and universal activity of the organised State machine is the
\nbest means of human progress is also an exaggeration and a fiction. Man lives
\nby the community; he needs it to develop himself individually as well as
\ncollectively. But is it true that a State-governed action is the most capable
\nof developing the individual perfectly as well as of serving the common ends of
\nthe community? It is not true. What is true is that it is capable of providing
\nthe co- operative action of the individuals in the community with all necessary
\nconveniences and of removing from it disabilities and obstacles which would
\notherwise interfere with its working. Here the real utility of the State
\nceases. The non-recognition of the possibilities of human co-operation was the
\nweakness of English individualism; the turning of a utility for co-operative
\naction into an excuse for rigid control by the State is the weakness of the
\nTeutonic idea of collectivism. When the State attempts to take up the control
\nof the co-operative action of the community, it condemns itself to create a
\nmonstrous machinery which will end by crushing out the freedom, initiative and
\nserious growth of the human being.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The State is bound to act crudely and in
\nthe mass; it is<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-282<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n‘capable<\/font> <\/font> <\/span>
\nof that free, harmonious and
\nintelligently or, instinctiv<\/font><\/span>ely varied
\naction which is proper to organic growth. For the state is not an organism; it
\nis a\u00a0 <\/span>machinery, and it works like a
\nchine, without tact, taste, delicacy or intuition. It tries to manufacture, but
\nwhat humanity is here to do is to grow and create. We see this flaw in
\nState-governed education. It is right and necessary that education should be
\nprovided for all and in providing for it the State is eminently useful; but when
\nit controls the education, it turns it into a routine, a mechanical syste<\/font>m<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>
\nin which individual
\ninitiative, individual growth and true deve<\/font><\/span>lopment
\nas opposed to a routine instruction become impossible. The State tends always
\nto uniformity, because uniformity is <\/font>
\neasy<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>
\nto it
\nand natural variation is impossible to its essentially <\/font> <\/span>
\nmechanical nature; but uniformity is death, not life.
\nA national culture, a national religion, a national education may still be
\nuseful things provided they do not interfere with the growth of human
\nsolidarity on the one side and individual freedom of thought and conscience and
\ndevelopment on the other; for they give<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/span>form to the communal soul and help it to add its quota to
\n<\/font> <\/span>the sum of human advancement; but a State education, a
\nState religion, a State culture are unnatural violences. And the same "
\nrule holds good in different ways and to a different extent in other directions
\nof our communal life and its activities.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The business of the State, so long as it
\ncontinues to be a necessary element in human life and growth, is to provide all
\npossible facilities for co-operative action, to remove obstacles, to prevent
\nall really harmful waste and friction,<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/span>– a certain<\/font><\/span>; amount of waste and
\nfriction is necessary and useful to all natural action,<\/font> <\/font> <\/span>
\n– and, removing avoidable
\ninjustice, to secure for every <\/font> <\/span>individual
\na just and equal chance of self-development and <\/font>
\nsatisfaction to the extent of his powers and
\nin the line of his <\/font> <\/span>\u00a0<\/font><\/span>nature. So far the aim in modem socialism is
\nright and good. But all unnecessary interference with the freedom of man’s
\ngrowth is or can be harmful. Even co-operative action is injurious if, instead
\nof seeking the good of all compatibly with the necessities of individual
\ngrowth,<\/font> <\/font> <\/span>
\n– and without individual <\/font> <\/span>
\ngrowth there can be no real and permanent good of all,<\/font> <\/font> <\/span>
\n– it <\/font> <\/span>
\nimmolates the individual to a communal egoism and
\nprevents so<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-283<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

much free room and initiative as is necessary for the
\nflowering of a more perfectly developed humanity. So long as humanity is not
\nfull-grown, so long as it needs to grow and is capable of a greater
\nperfectibility, there can be no static good of all independent of the growth of
\nthe individuals composing the all. All collectivist ideals which seek unduly to
\nsubordinate the individual, really envisage a static condition whether it be a
\npresent status or one it soon hopes to establish, after which all attempt at
\nserious change would be regarded as an offence of impatient individualism
\nagainst the peace, just routine and security of the happily established
\ncommunal order. Always it is the individual who progresses and compels the rest
\nto progress; the instinct of the collectivity is to stand still in its
\nestablished order. Progress, growth, realisation of wider being, give his
\ngreatest sense of happiness to the individual; status, secure ease, to the
\ncollectivity. And so it must be as long as the latter is more a physical and
\neconomic entity than a self-conscious collective soul.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>It is therefore quite improbable that in
\nthe present conditions of the race a healthy unity of mankind can be brought about
\nby State machinery, whether it be by a grouping of powerful and organised
\nStates enjoying carefully regulated and legalised relations with each other or
\nby the substitution of a single World- State for the present half chaotic half
\nordered comity of nations, <\/font>–<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font> <\/span>be the form of that World-State a single Empire like
\nthe Roman or a federated unity. Such an external or administrative unity may be
\nintended in the near future of mankind in order to accustom the race to the
\nidea of a common life, to its habit, to its possibility; but it cannot be
\nreally healthy, durable or beneficial over all the true line of human destiny
\nunless some- thing be developed, more profound, internal and real. Other- wise
\nthe experience of the ancient world will be repeated on a larger scale and in
\nother circumstances. The experiment will break down and give place to a new
\nreconstructive age of con- fusion and anarchy. Perhaps this experience also is
\nnecessary for mankind; yet it ought to be possible for us now to avoid it by
\nsubordinating mechanical means to our true development through a moralised and
\neven a spiritualised humanity united in its inner soul and not only in its
\noutward life and body.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-284<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER IV The Inadequacy of the State Idea   \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0         WHAT, after all, is this State idea, this idea of the organised community to…<\/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-1160","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\/1160","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=1160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}