{"id":1187,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:09","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1187"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:09","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:09","slug":"69-1919-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\/69-1919-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-69_1919.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\n\t\t
\n1919<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/span><\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><\/span>
\nTHE
\nyear 1919 comes to us with the appearance of one of the most pregnant and
\nhistoric dates of the modern world. It has ended the greatest war in history,
\nbegotten a new thing in the history of mankind, a League of Nations which claims
\nto be the foundation-stone for the future united life of the human race, and
\ncleared the stage for fresh and momentous other constructions or destructions,
\nwhich will bring us into another structure of society and of the framework of
\nhuman life than has yet been known in the recorded memory of the earth’s
\npeoples. This is record enough for a single year and it looks as if there were
\nalready sufficient to give this date an undisputed preeminence in the twentieth
\ncentury. But it is possible that things are not quite what they look to the
\ncontemporary eye and that posterity may see them in a very different focus. 1815
\nmust have seemed the date of dates to the men of the day whose minds were filled
\nwith the view of the long struggle between the ancient regimes and revolutionary
\nFrance and then between Europe and Napoleon. But when we look back at present,
\nwe see that it was only a stage, the end of the acutest phase of struggle, the
\ncommencement of a breathing-time, the date of a makeshift which could not
\nendure. We look back from it to 1789 which began the destruction of an old order
\nand the birth of a new ideal and beyond it to later dates which mark the
\nprogress of that ideal towards its broadening realisation. So too posterity may
\nlook back beyond this year 1919 to the beginning of the catastrophe which marks
\nthe first collapse of the former European order and forward beyond it to dates
\nyet in the womb of the future which will mark the progress towards realisation
\nof whatever order and ideal is destined to replace it. This year too may be only
\nthe end of an acute phase of a first struggle, the commencement. of a
\nbreathing-time, the year of a make- shift, the temporary halt of a flood in
\nmotion. That is so because it has not realised the deeper mind of humanity nor<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-651<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\nanswered
\nto the far-reaching intention of the Time-Spirit.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>In the enthusiasm of the struggle a hope arose
\nthat it would sweep away all the piled-up obstacles to human progress and usher
\nin with a miraculous immediateness a new age. A vague ideal also syllabled
\neloquently of peace, of brotherhood, of freedom, of unity, which for the moment
\npartly enlightened and kindled the soul of the race and gave its intellect a
\nbroader vista. Men spoke of the powers of good and evil separated on opposite
\nsides and locked in a decisive conflict. These ideas were the exaggerations of
\nsentiment and idealistic reason and in their excessive and blinding light many
\nthings took cover which were of a very different nature. The hope could not but
\nbe an illusion, a haloscene of the dream mind when it sees a future possibility
\nin its own light apart from existing conditions. Human mind and action are too
\nmuch of a tangled coil to admit of such miraculous suddennesses; the physical
\nshock of war and revolution can break down stifling obstructions, but they
\ncannot of themselves create either the kingdom of good or the kingdom of God; for
\nthat a mental and spiritual change is needed to which our slowly moving human
\nnature takes time to shape its customary being. The ideal, a thing of the
\nintellect and the sentiment only, cannot so easily bring about its own
\neffectuation; force of circumstance, the will to survive of existing
\nactualities, the insistent past of our own nature are not so easily blown away
\nby the eager shouting of a few high and great words or even by the breath of
\nthe thought behind them, however loudly blare the trumpets of the ideal. Nor
\nwas the war itself precisely a definite issue between pure good and pure evil,
\n– such distinctions belong to the world of the idealistic reason of which our
\nactual intricate existence in whose net opposites are very bafflingly fused
\ntogether, is as yet at least no faithful reproduction, – but a very confused
\nclash and catastrophe of the intertangled powers of the past, present and
\nfuture. The result actually realised is only such as might have been expected
\nfrom the balance of the forces at work. It is not the last result nor the end
\nof the whole matter, but it represents the first sum of things that was ready
\nfor working out in the immediate- ness of the moment’s potency. More was
\ninvolved which will now press for its reign, but belongs to the future.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-652<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe cataclysm of the last five years had
\na Janus face, one side turned towards the past, one turned towards the future.
\nIn its dealings with the past it was a conflict between two forces, one
\nrepresented by Germany and the central Powers, the other by America and the
\nwestern nations of Europe. Outwardly, imperial Germany represented a very
\nnakedly brutal imperialism and militarism satisfied of its own rightful claim
\nand perfection and opposed to the broader middle-class democracy – but
\ndemocracy tainted with a half-hearted, uneasy, unwilling militarism and a
\nliberalised, comfortably half-idealistic imperialism- of Western Europe. But
\nthis was only the outside of the matter, in itself it would not have been a
\nsufficient occasion for so great a catastrophe. Imperial Germany and all it
\nrepresented had to go because it was the worst side of European civilisation
\nenthroned in all the glory of a perfect mechanical and scientific efficiency.
\nIts figure was a composite godl1ead of Moloch and Mammon seated between the
\nguardian figures of Intelligence and Science. It had its ideal, a singular
\ncombination of the remnants of the old spirit of monarchy and feudalism now
\nstripped of all its past justification, of a very modern burdensome organised
\naggressive commercialism and industrialism and of a mechanised State socialism
\nadministered by an empire and a bureaucracy, all guided by an expert
\nintelligence and power of science. This triple-headed caricature of a future
\nideal for the world, with its claim to take possession of the race and
\nmechanise its life for it, had to be broken, and with it passed away almost all
\nthe old phantoms of aristocracy and survivals of aristocratic monarchy which
\nstill lived on in an increasingly democratic Europe. So much the war has swept
\naway; but its more important and positive result is not the destruction of the
\npast, but a shaking even of the present bases and a clearing of the field for
\nthe forces of the future.<\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>     The future does not belong to that hybrid
\nthing, a middle- class democracy infected with the old theory of international
\nrelations, however modified by concessions to a new broader spirit of idealism.
\nThe peace which closes the war is evidently in part a prolongation of the past
\nand a thing of the moment, its only importance for the future is its
\nassociation’ with the plan<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-653<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfor a league of nations.
\nBut this league also is a makeshift, a temporary device awaiting the
\npossibility of a more perfect formation.- Its insecurity lies in the degree to
\nwhich it is a concession to the past and founded on a present which is indeed
\nstill dominant, but very evidently doomed to a rapid passing. The future
\ndestined to replace this present is evident enough in some of its main outward
\ntendencies, in society away from plutocracy and middle-class democracy to some
\ncompleteness of socialism and attempt at a broad and equal commonalty of social
\nliving, in the relations of the peoples away from aggressive nationalism and
\nbalances of power to some closer international comity. But these are only
\nsymptoms, feelings-out, mechanical tendencies, not likely by themselves,
\nwhatever changes they bring, to satisfy for long the soul of humanity. Behind
\nthem lies a greater question of the spirit and ideal which are to govern the
\nrelations of man with man and people with people in the age that is opening,
\nthe most critical because the most far-reaching in its hopes of all the
\nhistoric ages of humanity.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Meanwhile much is gone that had to go,
\nthough relics and dregs of it remain for destruction, and the agony of a
\nsanguinary struggle is ended, and for that there may well be rejoicing. But if
\nsomething is ended, all has yet to be begun. The human spirit has still to find
\nitself, its idea and its greater orientation.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n
\nTHE END<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nPage-654<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1919    \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 THE year 1919 comes to us with the appearance of one of the most pregnant and historic dates of the modern world….<\/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-1187","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\/1187","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=1187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}