{"id":1161,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:59","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1161"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:59","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:59","slug":"53-the-peril-of-the-world-state-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\/53-the-peril-of-the-world-state-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-53_The Peril of the World-State.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


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

\nThe Peril
\nof the World-State<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n                                <\/font>T<\/font><\/b>HIS then is the extreme possible form of a World-State,
\nthe form dreamed of by the socialistic, scientific, humanitarian thinkers who
\nrepresent the modern mind at its highest point of self-consciousness and are
\ntherefore able to detect the trend of its tendencies, though to the
\nhalf-rationalised mind of the ordinary man whose view does not go beyond the
\nday and its immediate morrow, their speculations may seem to be chimerical and
\nutopian. In reality they are nothing of the kind; in their essence, not necessarily
\nin their form, they are, as we have seen, not only the logical outcome, but the
\ninevitable practical last end of the incipient urge towards human unity, if it
\nis pursued by a principle of mechanical unification, – that is to say, by the
\nprinciple of the State. It is for this reason that we have found it necessary
\nto show the operative principles and necessities which have underlain the
\ngrowth of the unified and finally socialistic nation-State, in order to see how
\nthe same movement in international unification must lead to the same results by
\nan analogous necessity of development. The State principle leads necessarily to
\nuniformity, regulation, mechanisation; its inevitable end is socialism. There
\nis nothing fortuitous, no room for chance in political and social development,
\nand the emergence of socialism was no accident or a thing that might or might
\nnot have been, but the inevitable result contained in the very seed of the
\nState idea. It was inevitable from the moment that idea began to be hammered
\nout in practice. The work of the Alfreds and Charlemagnes and other premature
\nnational or imperial unifiers contained this as a sure result, for men work
\nalmost always without knowing for what they have worked. But in modem times the
\nsigns are so clear that we need not be deceived or imagine, when we begin to
\nlay a mechanical base for world- unification, that the result contained in the
\nvery effort will not<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-482<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\ninsist on developing, however far-off it may seem at
\npresent from any immediate or even any distant possibilities. A strict
\nunification, a vast uniformity, a regulated socialisation of united man- kind
\nwill be the predestined fruit of our labour.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This result
\ncan only be avoided if an opposite force interposes and puts in its veto, as happened
\nin Asia where the State idea, although strongly affirmed within its limits,
\ncould never go in its realisation beyond a certain point, because the
\nfundamental principle of the national life was opposed to its full intolerant
\ndevelopment. The races of Asia, even the most organised, have always been
\npeoples rather than nations in the modern sense. Or they were nations only in
\nthe sense of having a common soul-life, a common culture, a common social
\norganisation, a common political head, but not nation-States. The State ma-
\nchine existed only for a restricted and superficial action; the real life of
\nthe people was determined by other powers with which it could not meddle. Its
\nprincipal function was to preserve and protect the national culture and to maintain
\nsufficient political, social and administrative order – as far as possible an
\nimmutable order – for the real life of the people to function undisturbed in
\nits own way and according to its own innate tendencies. Some such unity for the
\nhuman race is possible in the place of an organised World-State, if the nations
\nof mankind succeed in pre- serving their developed instinct of nationalism
\nintact and strong enough to resist the domination of the State idea. The result
\nwould then be not a single nation of mankind and a World-State, but a single
\nhuman people with a free association of its nation- units. Or, it may be, the
\nnation as we know it might disappear, but there would be some other new kind of
\ngroup-units, assured by some sufficient machinery of international order in the
\npeaceful and natural functioning of their social, economical and cultural
\nrelations.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Which then
\nof these two major possibilities would be preferable? To answer that question
\nwe have to ask ourselves, what would be the account of gain and loss for the
\nlife of the human race which would result from the creation of a unified World-
\nState. In all probability the results would be, with all allowance for the
\ngreat difference between then and now, very much the<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-483<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\nsame in essence as those which we observe in the
\nancient Roman Empire. On the credit side, we should have first one enormous
\ngain, the assured peace of the world. It might not be absolutely secure against
\ninternal shocks and disturbances but, supposing certain outstanding questions
\nto be settled with some approach to permanence, it would eliminate even such
\noccasional violences of civil strife as disturbed the old Roman imperial
\neconomy and, whatever perturbations there might still be, need not disturb the settled
\nfabric of civilisation so as to cast all again into the throes of a great
\nradical and violent change. Peace assured, there would be an unparalleled
\ndevelopment of ease and well-being. A great number of outstanding problems
\nwould be solved by the united intelligence of mankind working no longer in
\nfragments but as one. The vital life of the race would settle down into an
\nassured rational order comfortable, well-regulated, well-informed, with a
\nsatisfactory machinery for meeting all difficulties, exigencies and problems
\nwith the least possible friction, disturbance and mere uncertainty of adventure
\nand peril. At first, there would be a great cultural and intellectual
\nefflorescence. Science would organise itself for the betterment of human life
\nand the increase of knowledge and mechanical efficiency. The various cultures
\nof the world –<\/span> those that still
\nexist as separate realities –<\/span>
\nwould not only exchange ideas more intimately, but would throw their gains into
\none common fund, and new motives and forms would arise for a time in thought
\nand literature and Art. Men would meet each other much more closely and
\ncompletely than before, develop a greater mutual understanding rid of many
\naccidental motives of strife, hatred and repugnance which now exist, and arrive,
\nif not at brotherhood, – which cannot come by mere political, social and
\ncultural union, –<\/span> yet at some
\nimitation of it, a sufficiently kindly association and interchange. There would
\nbe an unprecedented splendour, ease and amenity in this development of human
\nlife, and no doubt some chief poet of the age, writing in the common or
\nofficial tongue – shall we say, Esperanto ? – would sing confidently of the
\napproach of the golden age or even proclaim its actual arrival and eternal
\nduration. But after a time, there would be a dying down of force, a static
\ncondition of the human mind and human life, then stagnation, decay,<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-484<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\ndisintegration. The soul of man would begin to wither
\nin the midst of his acquisitions. <\/font> <\/p>\n

\n <\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This result
\nwould come about for the same essential reasons as in the Roman example. The
\nconditions of a vigorous life would be lost, liberty, mobile variation and the
\nshock upon each other of freely developing differentiated lives. It may be said
\nthat this will not happen because the World-State will be a free democratic
\nState, not a liberty-stifling empire or autocracy and because liberty and
\nprogress are the very principle of modern life and no development would be
\ntolerated which went contrary to that principle. But in all this, there is not
\nreally the security that seems to be offered. For what is now, need not endure
\nunder quite different circumstances and- the idea that it will is a strange
\nmirage thrown from the actualities of the present on the possibly quite
\ndifferent actualities of the future. Democracy is by no means a sure
\npreservative of liberty; on the contrary, we see today the democratic system of
\ngovernment march steadily towards such an organised annihilation of individual
\nliberty as could not have been dreamed of in the old aristocratic and
\nmonarchical systems. It may be that from the more violent and brutal forms of
\ndespotic oppression which were associated with those systems democracy has
\nindeed delivered those nations which have been fortunate enough to achieve liberal
\nforms of government and that is no doubt a great gain. It revives now only in
\nperiods of revolution and of excitement often in the forms of mob tyranny or a
\nsavage revolutionary or reactionary repression. But there is a deprivation of
\nliberty which is more respectable in appearance more subtle and systematised
\nmore mild in its method because it has a greater force at. its back, but for
\nthat very reason more effective and pervading. The tyranny of the majority has
\nbecome a familiar phrase and its deadening effects have been depicted with a
\ngreat force- of resentment by certain of the modern intellectuals;1<\/sup>  but what the future promises
\nus is something more formidable still, the tyranny of the whole, of the self-hypnotised
\nmass over its constituent groups and units.2<\/sup> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n1<\/font> <\/font><\/sup>Ibsen
\nin his drama, "An Enemy of the People.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n2 <\/font>
\nThere was first seen the
\ndrastic beginning of this phenomenon in Fascist Italy and Soviet Russia. At the
\ntime of writing this development could be seen only in speculative pre<\/font><\/span>
\nvision. It assumed afterwards the proportions of a growing fact and we can now
\nsee its full and formidable body.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-485<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\nThis is a very remarkable development, the more so, as
\nin the origins of the democratic movement individual freedom was the ideal
\nwhich it set in front both in ancient and modern times. The Greeks associated
\ndemocracy with two main ideas, first, an effective and personal share by each
\ncitizen in the actual government, legislation, administration of the community,
\nsecondly, a great freedom of individual temperament and action. But neither of
\nthese characteristics can flourish in the modem type of democracy, although in
\nthe United States of America there was at one time a tendency to a certain
\nextent in this direction. In large States, the personal share of each citizen
\nin the government cannot be effective; he can only have an equal share –
\nillusory for the individual although effective in the mass –<\/span> in the periodical choice of his
\nlegislators and administrators. Even if these have not practically to be
\nelected from a class which is not the whole or even the majority of the
\ncommunity, at present almost everywhere the middle class, still these
\nlegislators and administrators do not really represent their electors. The
\nPower they represent is another, a formless and bodiless entity, which has
\ntaken the place of monarch and aristocracy, that impersonal group-being which assumes
\nsome sort of outward form and body and conscious action in the huge mechanism
\nof the modern State. Against this power the individual is much more helpless
\nthan he was against old oppressions. When he feels its pressure grinding him
\ninto its uniform moulds, he has no resource except either an impotent anarchism
\nor else a retreat, still to some extent possible, into the freedom of his soul
\nor the freedom of his intellectual being.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>For this is
\none gain of modem democracy which ancient liberty did not realise to the same
\nextent and which has not yet been renounced, a full freedom of speech and
\nthought. And as long as this freedom endures, the fear of a static condition of
\nhumanity and subsequent stagnation might seem to be groundless, –<\/span> especially when it is accompanied by
\nuniversal education which provides the largest possible human field for
\nproducing an effectuating force. Freedom of thought and speech<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-486<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\n-the two necessarily go together, since there can be
\nno, real freedom of thought where a padlock is put upon freedom of speech – is
\nnot indeed complete without freedom of association; for free speech means free
\npropagandism and propagandism only becomes effective by association for the
\nrealisation of its objects. This third liberty also exists with more or less of
\nqualifying limitations or prudent safeguards in all democratic States. But it
\nis a question whether these great fundamental liberties have been won by the
\nrace with an entire security, – apart from their occasional suspensions even in
\nthe free nations and the considerable restrictions with which they are hedged
\nin subject countries. It is possible that the future has certain surprises for
\nus in this direction.1<\/sup> <\/font>
\n <\/font><\/span>Freedom of
\nthought would be the last human liberty directly attacked by the all-regulating
\nState, which will first seek to regulate the whole life of the individual in
\nthe type approved by the communal mind or by its rulers. But when it sees how
\nall-important is the thought in shaping the life, it will be led to take hold
\nof that too by forming the thought of the individual through State education
\nand by training him to the acceptance of the approved communal, ethical,
\nsocial, cultural, religious ideas, as was done in many ancient forms of
\neducation. Only if it finds this weapon ineffective, is it likely to limit
\nfreedom of thought directly on the plea of danger to the State and to
\ncivilisation. Already we see the right of the State to interfere with individual
\nthought announced here and there in a most ominous manner. One would have
\nimagined religious liberty at least was assured to mankind; but recently we
\nhave. Seen an exponent of "new thought" advancing positively the
\ndoctrine that the State is under no obligation to recognise the religious
\nliberty of the individual and that even if it grants freedom of religious
\nthought, it can only be conceded as a matter of expediency, not of right. There
\nis no obligation, it is contended, to allow freedom of cult; and indeed this
\nseems logical; for if the State has the right to regulate the whole life of the
\nindividual, it must surely have the right to regulate his religion, which is so
\nimportant a<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n1 <\/font><\/sup>A surprise no longer, but more and
\nmore an accomplished fact. At this moment freedom of speech and thought exists
\nno longer in Russia; it was entirely suspended for a time in Germany and
\nSouthern Europe<\/font><\/span>.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-487<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\npart of his life, and his thought, which has so
\npowerful an effect upon his life<\/font>.1<\/sup><\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>
\nSupposing an all-regulating
\nsocialistic World-State to be established, freedom of thought under such a
\nregime would necessarily mean a criticism not only of the details, but of the
\nvery principles of the existing state of things. This criticism, if it is to
\nlook not to the dead past but to the future, could only take one direction, the
\ndirection of anarchism, whether of the spiritual Tolstoian kind or else the
\nintellectual anarchism which is now the creed of a small minority but still a
\ngrowing force in many European countries. It would declare the free development
\nof the individual as its gospel and denounce government as an evil and no longer
\nat all a necessary evil. It would affirm the full and free religious, ethical,
\nintellectual and temperamental growth of the individual from within as the true
\nideal of human life and all else as things not worth having at the price of the
\nrenunciation of this ideal, a renunciation which it would describe as the loss
\nof his soul. It would preach as the ideal of society a free association or
\nbrotherhood of individuals without government or any kind of compulsion.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>What would
\nthe World-State do with this kind of free thought? It might tolerate it so long
\nas it did not translate itself into individual and associated action; but the
\nmoment it spread or turned towards a practical self-affirmation in life, the
\nwhole principle of the State and its existence would be attacked and its very
\nbase would be sapped and undermined and in imminent danger. To stop the
\ndestruction at its root or else consent to its own subversion would be the only
\nalternatives before the established Power. But even before any such necessity
\narises, the principle of regulation of all things by the State would have
\nextended itself to the regulation of the mental as well as the physical life of
\nman by the communal mind, which was the ideal of former civilisations. A static
\norder of society would be the necessary consequence, since without the freedom
\nof the individual a<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n1 <\/font><\/sup>It was an error of prevision
\nto suppose that the State would hesitate for a time to suppress freedom of
\nthought altogether. It has been done at once and decisively by Bolshevist Russia
\nand the totalitarian States. Religious liberty is not yet utterly destroyed, but
\nis being sternly ground out in Russia, as it was in Germany, by State pressure<\/font><\/span>.<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-488<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\nsociety cannot remain progressive. It must settle into
\nthe rut or the groove of a regulated perfection or of something to which it
\ngives that name because of the rationality of system and symmetrical idea of
\norder which it embodies. The communal mass is always conservative and static in
\nits consciousness and only moves slowly in the tardy process of subconscient
\nNature. The free individual is the conscious progressive: it is only when he is
\nable to impart his own creative and mobile consciousness to the mass that a
\nprogressive society becomes possible.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-489<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XXVII The Peril of the World-State                                   THIS then is the extreme possible form of a World-State, the form dreamed of by the socialistic,…<\/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-1161","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\/1161","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=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}