{"id":1190,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:10","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1190"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:10","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:10","slug":"57-the-conditions-of-a-free-world-union-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\/57-the-conditions-of-a-free-world-union-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-57_The Conditions of a Free World-Union.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


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

The
\nConditions of a Free World-Union<\/font><\/b><\/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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n<\/font> <\/span>
\nA<\/font><\/span> FREE world-union must in its very
\nnature be a complex unity based on a diversity and that diversity must be based
\non free self- determination. A mechanical unitarian system would regard in its
\nidea the geographical groupings of men as so many conveniences for provincial
\ndivision, for the convenience of administration, much in the same spirit as the
\nFrench Revolution reconstituted France with an entire disregard of old natural
\nand historic divisions. It would regard mankind as one single nation and it
\nwould try to efface the old separative national spirit altogether; it would
\narrange its system probably by continents and subdivide the continents by
\nconvenient geographical demarcations. In this other quite opposite idea, the
\ngeographical, the physical principle of union would be subordinated to a
\npsychological principle; for not a mechanical division, but a living diversity would
\nbe its object. If this object is to be secured, the peoples of humanity must be
\nallowed to group themselves according to their free-will, and their natural
\naffinities; no constraint or force could be allowed to compel an unwilling
\nnation or distinct grouping of peoples to enter into another system or join
\nitself or remain joined to it for the convenience, aggrandisement or political
\nnecessity of another people or even for the general convenience, in disregard
\nof its own wishes. Nations or countries widely divided from each other
\ngeographically like England and Canada or England and Australia might cohere
\ntogether. Nations closely grouped locally might choose to stand apart, like
\nEngland and Ireland or like Finland and Russia. Unity would be the largest
\nprinciple of life, but freedom would be its foundation-stone.1<\/sup> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>In a world
\nbuilt on the present political and commercial<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n1<\/sup> <\/font>Necessarily
\nto every principle there must be in application a reasonable limit; otherwise
\nfantastic and impracticable absurdities might take the place of a living truth<\/font><\/span>.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-517<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\nbasis this system of groupings might present often
\ninsuperable difficulties or serious disadvantages; but in the condition of
\nthings in which alone a free world-union would be possible, these difficulties
\nand disadvantages would cease to operate. Military necessity of forced union
\nfor strength of defence or for power of aggression would be non-existent,
\nbecause war would no longer be possible; force as the arbiter of international
\ndifferences and a free world-union are two quite incompatible ideas and
\npractically could not coexist. The political necessity would also disappear;
\nfor it is largely made up of that very spirit of conflict and the consequent
\ninsecure conditions of international life apportioning predominance in the
\nworld to the physically and organically strongest nations out of which the
\nmilitary necessity arose. In a free world-union determining its affairs and
\nsettling its differences by agreement or, where agreement failed, by
\narbitration, the only political advantage of including large masses of men, not
\notherwise allied to each other in a single State, would be the greater
\ninfluence arising from mass and population. But this influence could not work
\nif the inclusion were against the will of the nations brought together in the
\nState; for then it would rather be a source of weakness and disunion in the
\nState’s international action- unless indeed it were allowed in the
\ninternational system to weigh by its bulk and population without regard to the
\nwill and opinion of the peoples constituting it. Thus the population of Finland
\nand Poland might swell the number of voices which a united Russia could count
\nin the council of the nations, but the will, sentiment and opinions of the
\nFinns and Poles be given no means of expression in that mechanical and unreal
\nunity.1<\/sup> (<\/font>)<\/font><\/span>
\nBut this would be contrary to the modern sense of justice and reason and
\nincompatible with the principle of freedom which could alone ensure a sound and
\npeaceful basis for the world-arrangement. Thus the elimination of war and the
\nsettlement of differences by peaceful means would remove the military necessity
\nfor forced unions, while the right of every people to a free voice and status
\nin the world would remove<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n1<\/sup> <\/font>The inclusion of India in the League of Nations has evidently been an
\narrangement of this type<\/font><\/span>.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-518<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\nits political necessity and advantage. The elimination
\nof war and the recognition of the equal rights of all peoples are intimately
\nbound up with each other. That interdependence, admitted for a moment, even
\nthough imperfectly, during the European conflict, will have to be permanently
\naccepted if there is to be any unification of the race.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The
\neconomic question remains, and it is the sole important problem of a vital and
\nphysical order which might possibly present in this kind of world-arrangement
\nany serious difficulties, or in which the advantages of a unitarian system
\nmight really outweigh those of this more complex unity. In either, how- ever,
\nthe forcible economic exploitation of one nation by another, which is so large
\na part of the present economic order, would necessarily be abolished. There
\nwould remain the possibility of a sort of peaceful economic struggle, a
\nseparativeness, a building up of artificial barriers, – a phenomenon which has
\nbeen a striking and more and more prominent feature of the present commercial
\ncivilisation. But it is likely that once the element of struggle were removed
\nfrom the political field, the stress of the same struggle in the economic field
\nwould greatly decrease. The advantages of self-sufficiency and predominance, to
\nwhich political rivalry and struggle and the possibility of hostile relations
\nnow give an enormous importance, would lose much of their stringency and the
\nadvantages of a freer give and take would become more easily visible. It is
\nobvious, for example, that an independent Finland would profit much more by
\nencouraging the passage of Russian commerce through Finnish ports or an Italian
\nTrieste by encouraging the passage of commerce of the present Austrian
\nprovinces than by setting up a barrier between itself and its natural feeders.
\nAn Ireland politically or administratively independent, able to develop its
\nagricultural and technical education and intensification of productiveness, would
\nfind a greater advantage in sharing the movement of the commerce of Great
\nBritain than in isolating itself, even as Great Britain would profit more by an
\nagreement with such an Ireland than by keeping her a poor and starving helot on
\nher estate. Throughout the world, the idea and fact of union once definitely
\nprevailing, unity of interests would be<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-519<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\nmore clearly seen and the greater advantage of
\nagreement and mutual participation in a naturally harmonised life over the
\nfeverish artificial prosperity created by a stressing of separative barriers.
\nThat stressing is inevitable in an order of struggle and international
\ncompetition; it would be seen to be prejudicial in an order of peace and union
\nwhich would make for mutual accommodation. The principle of a free world-union
\nbeing that of the settlement of common affairs by common agreement, this could
\nnot be confined to the removal of political differences and the arrangement of
\npolitical relations alone, but must naturally extend to economic differences
\nand economic relations as well. To the removal of war and the recognition of
\nthe right of self-determination of the peoples the arrangement of the economic
\nlife of the world in its new order by mutual and common agreement would have to
\nbe added as the third condition of a free union.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>There
\nremains the psychological question of the advantage to the soul of humanity, to
\nits culture, to its intellectual, moral, aesthetic, spiritual growth. At
\npresent, the first great need of the psychological life of humanity is the
\ngrowth towards a greater unity; but its need is that of a living unity, not in
\nthe externals of civilisation, in dress, manners, habits of life, details of
\npolitical, social and economic order, not a uniformity, which is the unity
\ntowards which the mechanical age of civilisation has been driving, but a free
\ndevelopment everywhere with a constant friendly interchange, a close
\nunderstanding, a feeling of our common humanity, its great common ideals and
\nthe truths towards which it is driving and a certain unity and correlation of
\neffort in the united human advance. At present it may seem that this is better
\nhelped and advanced by many different nations and cultures living together in
\none political State-union than by their political separateness. Temporarily,
\nthis may be true to a certain extent, but let us see within what limits.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The old
\npsychological argument for the forcible inclusion of a subject nation by a
\ndominant people was the right or advantage of imposing a superior civilisation upon
\none that was inferior or upon a barbarous race. Thus the Welsh and Irish<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-520<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\npeople used to be told that their subjugation was a
\ngreat blessing to their countries, their languages petty patois which ought to
\ndisappear as soon as possible, and in embracing English speech, English
\ninstitutions, English ideas lay their sole road to civilisation, culture and
\nprosperity. The British domination in India was justified by the priceless gift
\nof British civilisation and British ideals, to say nothing of the one and only
\ntrue religion, Christianity, to a heathen, orientally benighted and semi-
\nbarbarous nation. All this is now an exploded myth. We can see clearly enough
\nthat the long suppression of the Celtic spirit and Celtic culture, superior in
\nspirituality if inferior in certain practical directions to the Latin and
\nTeutonic, was a loss not only to the Celtic peoples, but to the world. India
\nhas vehemently rejected the pretensions to superiority of British civilisation,
\nculture and religion, while still admitting, not so much the British, as the
\nmodern ideals and methods in politics and in the trend to a greater social
\nequality; and it is becoming clear now, even to the more well-informed European
\nminds that the Anglicisation of India would have been a wrong not only to India
\nitself but to humanity.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Still it
\nmay be said that, if the old principle of the association was wrong, yet the
\nassociation itself leads eventually to a good result. If Ireleand has lost for
\nthe most part its old national speech and Wales has ceased to have a living
\nliterature, yet as a large compensation the Celtic spirit is now reviving and
\nputting its stamp on the English tongue spoken by millions throughout the
\nworld, and the inclusion of the Celtic countries in the British Empire may lead
\nto the development of an Anglo-Celtic life and culture better for the world
\nthan the separate development of the two elements. India by the partial
\npossession of the English language has been able to link herself to the life of
\nthe modern world and to reshape her literature, life and culture on a larger
\nbasis and, now that she is reviving her own spirit and ideals in a new mould,
\nis producing an effect on the thought of the West; a perpetual union of the two
\ncountries and a constant mutual interaction of their culture by this close
\nassociation would be more advantageous to them and to the world than their
\ncultural isolation from each other in a separate <\/font> <\/p>\n

\nexistence.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-521<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\nThere is a temporary apparent truth in this idea,
\nthough it is not the whole truth of the position, and we have given it full
\nweight in considering the claims of the imperialistic solution or line of
\nadvance on the way to unity. But even the elements of truth in it can only be
\nadmitted, provided a free and equal union replaces the present abnormal,
\nirritating and falsifying relations. Moreover, these advantages could only be
\nvaluable as a stage towards a greater unity in which this close association
\nwould no longer be of the same importance. For the final end is a common
\nworld-culture in which each national culture should be, not merged into or
\nfused with some other culture differing from it in principle or temperament,
\nbut evolved to its full power and could then profit to that end by all the
\nothers as well as give its gains and influences to them, all serving by their
\nseparateness and their interaction the common aim and idea of human perfection.
\nThis would best be served, not by separateness and isolation, of which there
\nwould be no danger, but yet by a certain distinctness and independence of life
\nnot subordinated to the mechanising force of an artificial unity. Even within
\nthe independent nation itself, there might be with advantage a tendency towards
\ngreater local freedom of development and variation, a sort of return to the
\nvivid local and regional life of ancient Greece and India and mediaeval Italy;
\nfor the disadvantages of strife, political weakness and precariousness of the
\nnation’s independence would no longer exist in a condition of things from which
\nthe old terms of physical conflict had been excluded, while all the cultural
\nand psychological advantages might be recovered. A world secure of its peace
\nand freedom might freely devote itself to the intensification of its real human
\npowers of life by the full encouragement and flowering of the individual,
\nlocal, regional, national mind and power in the firm frame of a united
\nhumanity.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>What
\nprecise form the framework might take, it is impossible to forecast and useless
\nto speculate; only certain now current ideas would have to be modified or
\nabandoned. The idea of a world-Parliament is attractive at first sight, because
\nthe parliamentary form is that to which our minds are accustomed; but an
\nassembly of the present unitarian national<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-522<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\ntype could not be the proper instrument of a free
\nworld-union of this large and complex kind; it could only be the instrument of
\na unitarian World-State. The idea of a world-federation, if by that be
\nunderstood the Germanic or American form, would be equally inappropriate to the
\ngreater diversity and freedom of national development which this type of
\nworld-union would hold as one of its cardinal principles. Rather some kind of
\nconfederation of the peoples for common human ends, for the removal of all
\ncauses of strife and difference, for interrelation and the regulation of mutual
\naid and interchange, yet leaving to each unit a full internal freedom and power
\nof self-determination, would be the right principle of this unity.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>But, since
\nthis is a much looser unity, what would prevent the spirit of separativeness
\nand the causes of clash and difference from surviving in so powerful a form as
\nto endanger the endurance of the larger principle of oneness, –<\/span> even if that spirit and those causes
\nat all allowed it to reach some kind of
\nsufficient fulfilment? The unitarian ideal, on the contrary, seeks to efface
\nthese opposite tendencies in their forms and even in their root cause and by so
\ndoing would seem to ensure an enduring union. But it may be pointed out in
\nanswer that, if it is by political ideas and machinery, under the pressure of
\nthe political and economic spirit that the unity is brought about, that is to
\nsay, by the idea and experience of the material ad- vantages, conveniences,
\nwell-being secured by unification, then the unitarian system also could not be
\nsure of durability. For in the constant mutability of the human mind and
\nearthly circumstances, as long, as life is active, new ideas and changes are
\ninevitable. The suppressed desire to recover the lost element of variability,
\nseparateness, independent living might well take advantage of them for what
\nwould then be considered as a wholesome and necessary reaction. The lifeless
\nunity accomplished would dissolve from the pressure of the need of life within,
\nas the Roman unity dissolved by its lifelessness in helpless response to a
\npressure from without, and once again local, regional, national egoism would
\nreconstitute for itself fresh forms and new centres.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>On the
\nother hand, in a free world-union though originally<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-523<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\nstarting from the national basis, the national idea
\nmight be expected to undergo a radical transformation; it might even disappear
\ninto a new and less strenuously compact form and idea of group-aggregation
\nwhich would not be separative in spirit, yet would preserve the necessary
\nelement of independence and variation needed by both individual and grouping
\nfor their full satisfaction and their healthy existence. Moreover, by
\nemphasising the psychological quite as much as the political and mechanical
\nidea and basis, it would give a freer and less artificial form and opportunity
\nfor the secure development of the necessary intellectual and psychological
\nchange; for such an inner change could alone give some chance of durability to
\nthe unification. That change would be the growth of the living idea or religion
\nof humanity; for only so could there come the psychological modification of
\nlife and feeling and outlook which would accustom both individual and group to
\nlive in their common humanity first and most, subduing their individual and
\ngroup-egoism, yet losing nothing of their individual or group-power to develop
\nand ex- press in its own way the divinity in man which, once the race was
\nassured of its material existence, would emerge as the true object of human
\nexistence.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-524<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XXXI The Conditions of a Free World-Union   \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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A FREE world-union must in its very nature be a complex unity based on a…<\/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-1190","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\/1190","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=1190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}