{"id":1164,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1164"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:00","slug":"44-the-ideal-solution-a-free-grouping-of-mankind-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\/44-the-ideal-solution-a-free-grouping-of-mankind-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-44_The Ideal Solution \u00e2\u20ac\u201c A Free Grouping of Mankind.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\nCHAPTER <\/font><\/b>
\nXVIII<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font>
\n
\nThe Ideal
\nSolution \u2013
\nA Free Grouping of Mankind<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span>
\nT<\/font><\/b>HESE
\nprinciples founded on the essential and constant tendencies of Nature in the
\ndevelopment of human life ought clearly to be the governing ideas in any
\nintelligent attempt at the unification of the human race. And it might so be
\ndone if that unification could be realised after the manner of a Lycurgan
\nconstitution or by the law of an ideal Manu, the perfect sage and king.
\nAttempted, as it will be, in very different fashion according to the desires,
\npassions and interests of great masses of men and guided by no better light
\nthan the half- enlightened reason of the world’s intellectuals and the
\nempirical opportunism of the world’s statesmen and politicians, it is likely to
\nbe done by a succession of confused experiments, recoils and returns,
\nresistances and persistences; it will progress in spite of human unreason in
\nthe midst of a clamour of rival ideas and interests, stumble through a war of
\nprinciples, advance by a clash of vehement parties ending in more or less
\nclumsy compromises. It may even, as we have said, be managed in the most unideal, though not the most inconvenient method of all, by a certain amount of
\nviolence, the domination of a few vast and powerful empires or even the
\nemergence of a single predominant World-Empire, a King-State that will be
\naccepted or will impose itself as the arbiter if not the ruler of mankind. Not
\nany intelligent principle, but necessity and convenience, not urgent light but
\nurgent power is likely to be the effective force in any political,
\nadministrative and economic unification of the race.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Still,
\nthough the ideal may not be immediately practicable, it is that to which our
\naction ought more and more to move. And if the best method cannot always be
\nemployed, it is well to know the best method, so that in the strife of
\nprinciples and forces and interests something of it may enter into our dealings
\nwith each<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-405<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

other and mitigate the errors, stumblings and
\nsufferings which our ignorance and unreason compel us to pay as the price of
\nour; progress. In principle, then, the ideal unification of mankind would be a
\nsystem in which, as a first rule of common and harmonious life, the human
\npeoples would be allowed to form their own groupings according to their natural
\ndivisions of locality, race, culture, economic convenience and not according to
\nthe more violent accidents of history or the egoistic will of powerful nations
\nwhose policy it must always be to compel the smaller or less timely organised
\nto serve their interests as dependents or obey their commands as subjects. The
\npresent arrangement of the world has been worked out by economic forces, by
\npolitical diplomacies, treaties and purchases and by military violence without
\nregard to any moral principle or any general rule of the good of mankind. It
\nhas served roughly certain ends of the World-Force in its development and
\nhelped at much cost of bloodshed, suffering, cruelty, oppression and revolt to
\nbring humanity more together. Like all things that, though in them- selves
\nunideal, have been and have asserted themselves with force, it has had its
\njustification, not moral but biological, in the necessity of the rough methods
\nwhich Nature has to use with a half-animal mankind as with her animal creation.
\nBut the great step of unification once taken, the artificial arrangements which
\nhave resulted would no longer have any reason for existence. It would be so in
\nthe first place because the convenience and good of the world at large and not
\nthe satisfaction of the egoism, pride and greed of particular nations, would be
\nthe object to be held in view, in the second because whatever legitimate claim
\nany nation might have upon others, such as necessities of economic well- being
\nand expansion, would be arranged for in a soundly organised world-union or
\nWorld-State no longer on the principle of strife and competition, but on a
\nprinciple of co-operation or mutual adjustment or at least of competition
\nregulated by law and equity and just interchange. Therefore no ground would
\nremain for forced and artificial groupings except that of historical tradition
\nor accomplished fact which would obviously have little weight in a great change
\nof world conditions impossible to achieve unless the race is prepared to break
\nhundreds of tradi-<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-406<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

tions and unsettle the great majority of accomplished
\nfacts.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The first
\nprinciple of human unity, groupings being necessary, should be a system of free
\nand natural groupings which would leave no room for internal discords,
\nincompatibilities and repression and revolt as between race and race or people
\nand people. For otherwise the World-State would be founded in part at least
\nupon a system of legalised injustice and repression or at the best upon a
\nprinciple of force and compulsion, however mitigated. Such a system would
\ncontain dissatisfied elements eager to seize upon any hope of change and throw
\ntheir moral force and whatever material power they might still keep<\/span> on the side of any velleities
\nthat might appear in the race towards disorder, secession, dissolution of the
\nsystem and perhaps a return to the old order of things. Moral centres of revolt
\nwould thus be preserved which, given the restlessness of the human mind, could
\nnot fail to have, in periods favourable to them, a great power of contagion and
\nself-diffusion. In fact, any system which would appear to stereotype anomalies,
\neternise injustice and inequality or rest permanently on a principle of
\ncompulsion and forced subjection, could have no security and
\nwould be condemned by its very nature to transience.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This was
\nthe principal weakness of the drift during the war towards the settlement of
\nthe world on the basis of the actual status<\/span>
\nquo <\/i>that followed the recent world convulsion. Such a settlement must have
\nhad the vice of fixing conditions which in their nature must be transient. It
\nwould mean not only the rule of this or that nation over dissatisfied foreign
\nminorities but the supremacy of Europe over most of Asia and all Africa. A
\nleague or incipient unity of the nations would be equivalent under such
\nconditions to the control of the enormous mass of man- kind by an oligarchy of
\na few white races. Such could not be the principle of a long-enduring
\nsettlement of the world. For then one of two alternatives would be inevitable.
\nA new system would have to support by law and force the existing condition of
\nthings and resist any attempt at radical change; but this would lead to an
\nunnatural suppression of great natural and moral forces and in the end a
\ntremendous disorder, perhaps a world- shattering explosion. Or else some
\ngenera11egislative authority<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-407<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

and means of change would have to be established by
\nwhich the judgment and sentiment of mankind would be able to prevail over
\nimperialistic egoisms and which would enable the European, Asiatic and African
\npeoples now subject to make the claims of their growing self-consciousness felt
\nin the councils of the world.1<\/sup> But such an authority, interfering
\nwith the ego isms of great and powerful empires, would be difficult to
\nestablish, slow to act and not by any means at ease in its exercise of power or
\nmoral influence or likely to be peaceful or harmonious in its deliberations. It
\nwould either reduce itself to a representative of the sentiments and interests
\nof a ruling oligarchy of great Powers or end in such movements of secession and
\ncivil war between the States as settled the question of slavery in America.
\nThere would be only one other possible issue, –<\/span> that the liberal sentiments and principles at first aroused by
\nthe war in Europe should become settled and permanent forces of action and
\nextend them- selves to the dealings of European nations with their non-
\nEuropean dependencies. In other words, it must become a settled political
\nprinciple with European nations to change the character of their imperialism
\nand convert their empires as soon as might be from artificial into true
\npsychological unities.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>But that
\nwould end inevitably in the recognition of the principle we have advanced, the
\narrangement. of the world in a system of free and natural and not as hitherto
\nof partly free and partly forced groupings. For a psychological unity could
\nonly be assured by a free assent of nations now subject to their inclusion in
\nthe imperial aggregate and the power of free assent would imply a power of free
\ndissent and separation. If owing to incompatibility of culture, temperament or
\neconomic or other interest the psychological unity could not be established,
\neither such separation would be inevitable or else there might be a resort to
\nthe old principle of force, a difficult matter when dealing with great masses
\nof men who must in the course of the new process have arrived at
\nself-consciousness and recovered their united in-<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1 <\/font>
\n<\/sup>The League of Nations started with some dim
\nideal of this kind; but even its first halting attempts at opposing imperial
\negoisms ended in secession and avoided a civil war among its members only by
\ndrawing back from its own commitments. In fact, it was never more than an
\ninstrument subservient to the policy of a few great Powers<\/span>.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-408<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

tellectual force and vitality. Imperial unities of this
\nkind must be admitted as a possible, but by no means an inevitable next step in
\nthe human aggregation easier to realise than a united mankind in present
\nconditions; but such unities could have only two rational purposes, one as a
\nhalf-way house to the unity of all the nations of the world and an experiment
\nin administrative and economic confederation on a large scale, the other as a
\nmeans of habituating nations of different race, traditions, colour,
\ncivilisation to dwell together in a common political family as the whole human
\nrace would have to dwell in any scheme of unity which respected the principle
\nof variation and did not compel a dead level of uniformity. The imperial
\nheterogeneous unit has a value in Nature’s processes only as a means towards
\nthis greater unity and, where not maintained afterwards by some natural
\nattraction or by some miracle of entire fusion, – a thing improbable, if
\npossible, – would cease to exist once the greater unity was accomplished. On
\nthis line of development also and indeed on any line of development the
\nprinciple of a free and natural grouping of peoples must be the eventual
\nconclusion, the final and perfect basis. It must be so, because on no other
\nfoundation could the unification of mankind be secure or sound. And it must be
\nso, because once unification is firmly accomplished and war and jealous
\nnational competition replaced by better methods of intercourse and mutual
\nadjustment, there can be no object in maintaining any other more artificial
\nsystem, and there- fore both reason and convenience would compel the change.
\nThe institution of a natural system of grouping would become as much a matter
\nof course as the administrative arrangement of a country according to its
\nnatural provinces. And it would be as much a necessity of reason or convenience
\nas the regard necessarily paid in any system of devolution or free federation
\nto race or national sentiment or long-established local unities. Other
\nconsiderations might modify the application of the principle, but there would
\nbe none that could be strong enough to abrogate it.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The natural
\nunit in such a grouping is the nation, because that is the basis natural
\nevolution has firmly created and seems indeed to have provided with a view to
\nthe greater unity. Unless,<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-409<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

therefore, unification is put off to a much later date
\nof our history and in the meanwhile the national principle of aggregation loses
\nits force and vitality and is dissolved in some other, the free and natural
\nnation-unit and perhaps the nation-group would be the just and living support
\nof a sound and harmonious world-system. Race still counts and would enter in as
\nan element, but only as a subordinate element. In certain groupings it would
\npredominate and be decisive; in others it would be set at nought partly by a
\nhistoric and national sentiment overriding differences of language and race,
\npartly by economic and other relations created by local contact or geographical
\noneness. Cultural unity would count, but need not in all cases prevail; even
\nthe united force of race and culture might not be sufficiently strong to be
\ndecisive.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The
\nexamples of this complexity are everywhere. Switzer- land belongs by language,
\nrace and culture and even by affinities of sentiment to different national
\naggregations, two of sentiment and culture, the Latin and the Teutonic, three
\nof race and language, the German, French and Italian, and these differences
\nworked sufficiently to bewilder and divide Swiss sympathies in the clash of
\nnations; but the decisive feeling overriding all others is the sentiment of
\nHelvetian nationality and that would seem to forbid now and always any idea of
\na voluntary partition or dissolution of Switzerland’s long-standing natural,
\nlocal and historic unity. Alsace belongs predominantly by race, language and early
\nhistory to a Germanic union, but the German appealed in vain to these titles
\nand laboured in vain to change Alsace- Lorraine into Elsass- Lothringen; the
\nliving sentiments and affinities of the people, national, historical, cultural,
\nbound it still to France. Canada and Australia have no geographical connection
\nwith the British Isles or with each other and the former would seem to belong
\nby predestination to an American group-unity; but certainly, in the absence of
\na change of sentiment not now easily foreseen, both would prefer to belong to a
\nBritish grouping rather than the one fuse itself into an increasingly
\ncosmopolitan American nation or the other stand apart as an Australasian union.
\nOn the other hand, the Slavonic and Latin elements of Austro-Hungary, though
\nthey belonged by<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-410<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

history, geographical position and economic convenience
\nto that empire, moved strongly towards separation and, where local sentiments
\npermitted, to union with their racial, cultural and linguistic kin. If Austria had
\ndealt with her Slav subjects as with the Magyars or had been able to build a
\nnational culture of her own out of her German, Slav, Magyar and Italian
\nelements, it would have been otherwise and her unity would have been ~, secure
\nagainst all external forces of disruption. Race, language, local relations and
\neconomic convenience are powerful factors, but what decides must be a dominant
\npsychological element that makes<\/span>
\nfor union. To that subtler force all others, however restless they may be, must
\nsuccumb; however much they may seek for free particularist expression and
\nself-possession within a larger unity, they must needs subordinate themselves
\nto the more powerful attraction.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>For this very reason the basic
\nprinciple adopted must be a free grouping and not that of some abstract or
\npractical rule or principle of historic tradition or actual status imposed Upon
\nthe nations. It is easy to build up a system in the mind and propose to erect
\nit on foundations which would be at first sight rational and convenient. At
\nfirst sight it would seem that the unity of mankind could most rationally and
\nconveniently arrange itself upon the basis of a European grouping, an Asiatic
\ngrouping, an American grouping, with two or three sub-groups in’ America, Latin
\nand English-speaking, three in Asia, the Mongolian, Indian and West-Asian, with
\nMoslem North Africa perhaps as a natural annexe to the third of these, four in
\nEurope, the Latin, Slavonic, Teutonic and Anglo-Celtic, the latter with the
\ncolonies that still chose to adhere to it, while Central and Southern Africa
\nmight be left to develop under present conditions but with the more humane and
\nprogressive principles upon which the sentiment of a united humanity would
\ninsist. Certain of the actual and obvious difficulties might not be of great
\nimportance under a better system of things. We know, for instance, that nations
\nclosely connected by every apparent tie, are actually divided by stronger
\nantipathies than those more ideative and less actual which separate them from peoples
\nwho have with them no tie of affinity. Mongolian Japan and Mongo-<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-411<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

lian China are sharply divided from each other in
\nsentiment; Arab and Turk and Persian, although one in Islamic religion and
\nculture, would not, if their present sentiments towards each other persisted,
\nmake an entirely happy family. Scandinavian Norway and Sweden had everything to
\ndraw them together and perpetuate their union, –<\/span> except a strong, if irrational sentiment which made the
\ncontinuance of that union impossible. But these antipathies really persist only
\nso long as there is some actual unfriendly pressure or sense of subjugation or
\ndomination or fear of the oppression of the individuality of one by the other;
\nonce that is removed they would be likely to disappear. It is notable, for
\ninstance, that, since the separation of Norway and Sweden, the three
\nScandinavian States have been increasingly disposed to act together and regard
\nthemselves as a natural grouping in Europe. The long antipathy of the Irish and
\nEnglish nations is declining in the actuality of a juster though still imper-
\nfect relation between those two national individualities, as the antipathy of
\nAustrian and Magyar gave way when once a just relation had been established
\nbetween the two kingdoms. It is easily conceivable therefore that with a system
\nin which the causes of hostility would disappear, natural affinities would
\nprevail and a grouping of the kind imagined might become more easily
\npracticable. It is arguable also that the trend of mankind under a great stress
\nof tendency towards unification would naturally move to the creation of such a
\nsymmetry. It may be that a great change and revolution in the world would
\npower- fully and rapidly abolish all the obstacles, as the obstacles of the old
\nregime to a uniform democratic system were abolished in France by the French
\nRevolution. But any such arrangement would be quite impracticable unless and
\nuntil the actual sentiments of the peoples corresponded with these systems of
\nrational convenience: the state of the world is at present far removed from any
\nsuch ideal correspondence.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The idea of
\na new basis founded on the principle of national sentiment seemed at one time
\nto be taking within a limited field the shape of a practical proposition. It
\nwas confined to a European resettlement and even there it was only to be
\nimposed by the logic of war and force upon defeated empires. The others<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-412<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

proposed to recognise it for themselves only in a
\nrestricted form, Russia by the concession of autonomy to Poland, England by
\nHome Rule in Ireland and a federation with her colonies, while other denials of
\nthe principle were still to persist and even perhaps<\/span> one or two new denials of it to be established in
\nobedience to imperial ambitions and exigencies. A name even was given to this
\nnew principle and for a time the idea of self-determination received an
\nofficial sanction and almost figured as a gospel. However imperfect the
\napplication, this practical enforcement of it, if effected, would have meant
\nthe physical birth and infancy of a new ideal and would have held forth to the
\nhopes of mankind the prospect of its eventual application in a larger field
\nuntil it came to be universalised. Even if the victory if <\/i>of the Allies
\nput an end to these high professions, it is no longer possible to consider this
\nideal of a rearrangement of the world on the basis of free national groupings
\nas an impossible dream, an altogether chimerical ideal.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Still, the
\nforces against it are considerable and it is idle to hope that they will be
\novercome except after long and difficult struggles. National and imperial
\negoism is the first and most powerful of the contrary forces. To give up the
\ninstinct of domination and the desire still to be rulers and supreme where rule
\nand supremacy have been the reward of past efforts, to sacrifice the advantages
\nof a commercial exploitation of dependencies and colonies which can only be
\nassured by the confirmation of dominance and supremacy, to face disinterestedly
\nthe emergence into free national activity of vigorous and some- times enormous
\nmasses of men, once subjects and. passive means of self-enrichment but
\nhenceforth to be powerful equals and perhaps formidable rivals, is too great a
\ndemand upon egoistic human nature to be easily and spontaneously conceded,<\/span> where<\/span>
\nconcession is not forced upon the mind by actual necessity or the hope of some
\ngreat and palpable gain that will compensate the immediate and visible loss.
\nThere is, too, the claim of Europe, not yet renounced, to hold the rest of the
\nworld in the interests of civilisation, by which is meant European
\ncivilisation, and to insist upon its acceptance as a condition for the
\nadmission of Asiatic races to any kind of equality or freedom. This<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-413<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

claim which is destined soon to lose all its force in
\nAsia, has still a strong justification in the actual state of the African
\ncontinent. For the present let us note that it works strongly against a wider
\nrecognition of the new-born ideal and that until the problems it raises are
\nresolved, the settlement of the world on any such. ideal principle must wait
\nupon the evolution of new forces and the coming to a head both in Asia and
\nEurope of yet un- accomplished spiritual, intellectual and material
\nrevolutions.1<\/sup> <\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1 <\/font>
\n<\/sup>These revolutions have now happened and these
\nobstacles, though not yet entirely, have faded or are fading out of existence<\/font><\/span>.<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>Page-414<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XVIII The Ideal Solution \u2013 A Free Grouping of Mankind   \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 THESE principles founded on the essential and constant tendencies of Nature in…<\/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-1164","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\/1164","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=1164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}