{"id":1196,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:12","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1196"},"modified":"2013-12-02T12:07:15","modified_gmt":"2013-12-02T20:07:15","slug":"21-the-curve-of-the-rational-age-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\/21-the-curve-of-the-rational-age-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-21_The Curve of the Rational Age\u00a0.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n
\n


\n
\nCHAPTER <\/font><\/b> XIX<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font>The Curve of the Rational Age<\/font><\/b>\u00a0<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n                               
\nTHE
\npresent age of mankind may be characterised from this point of view of a graded
\npsychological evolution of the race as a more and more rapidly accelerated
\nattempt to discover and work out the right principle and secure foundations of a
\nrational system of society. It has been an age of progress; but progress is of
\ntwo kinds, adaptive, with a secure basis in an unalterable social principle and
\nconstant change only in the circumstances and machinery of its application to
\nsuit fresh ideas and fresh needs, or else radical, with no long-secure basis,
\nbut instead a constant root questioning of the practical foundations and even
\nthe central principle of the established society. The modern age has resolved
\nitself into a constant series of radical progressions.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This series seems to follow always a
\ntypical course, first a luminous seed-time and a period of enthusiastic effort
\nand battle, next a partial victory and achievement and a brief era of
\npossession, then disillusionment and the birth of a new idea and endeavour. A
\nprinciple of society is put forward by <\/i>the thinker, seizes on the
\ngeneral mind and becomes a social gospel; brought immediately or by <\/i>rapid
\nstages into practice, it dethrones the preceding principle and takes its place
\nas the foundation of the community’s social or political life. This victory
\nwon, men live for a time in the enthusiasm or, when the enthusiasm sinks, in
\nthe habit of their great achievement. After a little they begin to feel less at
\nease with the first results and are moved to adapt, to alter <\/font>constantly,
\nto develop more or less restlessly the new system, –
\nfor it is the very nature of the reason
\nto observe, to be open to novel ideas, to respond quickly to new needs and
\npossibilities and not to repose always in the unquestioning acceptance of every
\nhabit and old association. Still men do not yet think of questioning their
\nsocial principle or imagine that it will ever<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-180<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nneed alteration, but are
\nintent only to perfect its forms and make its application more thorough, its
\nexecution more sincere and effective. A time, however, arrives when the reason
\nbecomes dissatisfied and sees that it is only erecting a mass of new
\nconventions and that there has been no satisfying change; there has been a
\nshifting of stresses, but the society is not appreciably nearer to perfection.
\nThe opposition of the few thinkers who have already, perhaps almost from the
\nfirst, started to question the sufficiency of the social principle, makes
\nitself felt and is accepted by increasing numbers; there is a movement of
\nrevolt and the society starts on the familiar round to a new radical
\nprogression, a new revolution, the reign of a more advanced social principle.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This process has to continue until the
\nreason can find a principle of society or else a combination and adjustment of
\nseveral principles which will satisfy it. The question is whether it will ever
\nbe satisfied or can ever rest from questioning the foundation of established
\nthings,<\/font> <\/font> <\/span>
\n–<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>unless indeed it sinks back into a sleep of tradition
\nand convention or else goes forward by a great awakening to the reign of a
\nhigher spirit than its own and opens into a suprarational or spiritual age of
\nmankind. If we may judge from the modern movement, the progress of the reason
\nas a social renovator and creator, if not interrupted in its course, would be
\ndestined to pass through three successive stages which are the very logic of
\nits growth, the first individualistic and increasingly democratic with liberty
\nfor its principle, the second socialistic, in the end perhaps a governmental
\ncommunism with equality and the State for its principle, the third<\/font> <\/font> <\/span>
\n–<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>if that ever gets beyond the stage of theory –
\nanarchistic in the higher sense of that much-abused word, either a loose
\nvoluntary co- operation or a free communalism with brotherhood or comradeship
\nand not government for its principle. It is in the transition to its third and
\nconsummating stage, if or whenever that comes, that the power and sufficiency
\nof the reason will be tested; it will then be seen whether the reason can
\nreally be the master of our nature, solve the problems of our interrelated and
\nconflicting ego- isms and bring about within itself a perfect principle of
\nsociety or must give way to a higher guide. For till this third stage has<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-181<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nits trial, it is Force
\nthat in the last resort really’ governs. Reason only gives to Force the plan of
\nits action and a system to administer.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>We have already seen that it is
\nindividualism which opens the way to the age of reason and that individualism
\ngets its impulse and its chance of development because it follows upon an age
\nof dominant conventionalism. It is not that in the pre-individualistic,
\npre-rational ages there were no thinkers upon society and the communal life of
\nman; but they did not think in the characteristic method of the logical reason,
\ncritical, all-observing, all-questioning, and did not proceed on the
\nconstructive side by the carefully mechanising methods of the highly
\nrationalised intelligence when it passes from the reasoned perception of a
\ntruth to the endeavour after its pure, perfect and universal orderly
\napplication. Their thought and their building of life were much less logical
\nthan spontaneously intelligent, organic and intuitive. Always they looked upon
\nlife as it was and sought to know its secret by keen discernment, intuition and
\ninsight; symbols embodying the actual and ideal truth of life and being, types
\nsetting them in an arrangement and psychological order, institutions giving
\nthem a material fixity in their effectuation by life, this was the form in
\nwhich they shaped their attempt to understand and mentalise life, to govern
\nlife by mind, but mind in its spontaneously intuitive or its reflectively
\nseeing movements before they have been fixed into the geometrical patterns of
\nthe logical intelligence.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>But reason seeks to understand and
\ninterpret life by one kind of symbol only, the idea; it generalises the facts
\nof life according to its own strongly cut ideative conceptions so that it may
\nbe able to master and arrange them, and having hold of an idea it looks for its
\nlargest general application. And in order that these ideas may not be a mere
\nabstraction divorced from the realised or realisable truth of things, it has to
\nbe constantly comparing them with facts. It has to be always questioning facts
\nso that it may find the ideas by which they can be more and more adequately
\nexplained, ordered and managed, and it has always to be questioning ideas in
\norder, first, to see whether they square with the actual facts and, secondly,
\nwhether there are not new facts to suit<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-182<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwhich they must be
\nmodified or enlarged or which can be evolved out of them. For reason lives not
\nonly in actual fact~, but in possibilities, not only in realised truths, but in
\nideal truths; and the ideal truth once seen, the impulse of the idealising
\nintelligence is to see too whether it cannot be turned into a fact, cannot be
\nimmediately or rapidly realised in life. It is by this inherent characteristic
\nthat the age of reason must always be an age of progress.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>So long as the old method of mentalising
\nlife served its purpose, there was no necessity for men in the mass to think
\nout their way of life by the aid of the reason. But the old method ceased to
\nserve its purpose as soon as the symbols, types, institutions it created became
\nconventions so imprisoning truth that there was no longer a force of insight
\nsufficient to deliver the hidden reality from its artificial coatings. Man may
\nfor a time, for a long time even, live by the mere tradition of things whose
\nreality he has lost, but not permanently; the necessity of questioning all his
\nconventions and traditions arises, and by that necessity reason gets her
\nfirst real chance of an entire self-development. Reason can accept no tradition
\nmerely for the sake of its antiquity or its past greatness; it has to ask,
\nfirst, whether the tradition contains at all any sti11living truth and,
\nsecondly, whether it contains the best truth available to man for the
\ngovernment of his life. Reason can accept no convention merely because men are
\nagreed upon it; it has to ask whether they are right in their agreement,
\nwhether it is not an inert and false acquiescence. Reason cannot accept any
\ninstitution merely because it serves some purpose of life; it has to ask
\nwhether there are not greater and better purposes which can be best served by
\nnew institutions. There arises the necessity of a universal questioning and
\nfrom that necessity arises the idea that society can only be perfected by the
\nuniversal application of the rational intelligence to the whole of life, to its
\nprinciple, to its details, to its machinery and to the powers that drive the
\nmachine.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This reason which is to be universally
\napplied, cannot be the reason of a ruling class; for in the present
\nimperfection of the human race that always means in practice the fettering and
\nmisapplication of reason degraded into a servant of power to main-<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-183<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ntain the privileges of
\nthe ruling class and justify the existing order. It cannot be the reason of a
\nfew pre-eminent thinkers; for, if the mass is infrarational, the application of
\ntheir ideas becomes in practice disfigured, ineffective, incomplete, speedily altered
\ninto mere form and convention. It must be the reason of each and all seeking
\nfor a basis of agreement. Hence arises the principle of individualistic
\ndemocracy, that the reason and will of every individual in the society must be
\nallowed to count equally with the reason and will of every other in determining
\nits government, in selecting the essential basis and in arranging the detailed
\nordering of the common life. This must be, not because the reason of one man is
\nas good as the reason of any other, but be- cause otherwise we get back
\ninevitably to the rule of a predominant class which, however modified by being
\nobliged to consider to some extent the opinion of the ruled, must exhibit
\nalways the irrational vice of reason subordinated to the purposes of power and
\nnot flexibly used for its own proper and ideal ends. Secondly, each individual
\nmust be allowed to govern his life according to the dictates of his own reason
\nand will so far as that can be done without impinging on the same right in
\nothers; this is a necessary corollary of the primary principle on which the age
\nof reason founds its initial movement. It is sufficient for the first purposes
\nof the rational age that each man should be sup- posed to have sufficient
\nintelligence to understand views which are presented and explained to him, to
\nconsider the opinions of his fellows and to form in consultation with them his
\nown judgment. His individual judgment so formed and by one device or another
\nmade effective is the share he contributes to the building of the total common
\njudgment by which society must be ruled, the little brick in appearance
\ninsignificant and yet indispensable to the imposing whole. And it is sufficient
\nalso for the first ideal of the rational age that this common judgment should
\nbe effectively organised only for the indispensable common ends <\/font>
\nof the society, while in all
\nelse men must be left free to govern <\/font> <\/span>their
\nown life according to their own reason and will and find freely its best
\npossible natural adjustment with the lives of others. In this way by the
\npractice of the free use of reason men can grow into rational beings and learn
\nto live by common agreement<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-184<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\na liberal, a vigorous, a
\nnatural and yet rationalised existence. In practice it is found that these
\nideas will not hold for a long time. For the ordinary man is not yet a rational
\nbeing; emerging from a long infrarational past, he is not naturally able to
\nform a reasonable judgment, but thinks either according to his own interests,
\nimpulses and prejudices or else according to the ideas of others more active in
\nintelligence or swift in action who are able by some means to establish an
\ninfluence over his mind. Secondly, he does not yet use his reason in order to
\ncome to an agreement with his fellows, but rather to enforce his own opinions
\nby struggle and conflict with the opinions of others. Exceptionally he may
\nutilise his reason for the pursuit of truth, but normally it serves for the
\njustification of his impulses, prejudices and interests, and it is these that
\ndetermine or at least quite discolour and disfigure his ideals, even when he
\nhas learned at all to have ideals. Finally, he does not use his freedom to
\narrive at a rational adjustment of his life with the life of others; his
\nnatural tendency is to enforce the aims of his life even at the expense of or,
\nas it is euphemistically put, in competition with the life of others. There
\ncomes thus to be a wide gulf between the ideal and the first results of its
\npractice. There is here a disparity between fact and idea that must lead to
\ninevitable disillusionment and failure.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The individualistic democratic ideal
\nbrings us at first in actual practice to the more and more precarious rule of a
\ndominant class in the name of democracy over the ignorant, numerous and less
\nfortunate mass. Secondly, since the ideal of freedom and equality is abroad and
\ncannot any longer be stifled, it must lead to the increasing effort of the
\nexploited masses to assert their down-trodden right and to turn, if they can,
\nthis pseudo- democratic falsehood into the real democratic truth; therefore, to
\na war of classes. Thirdly, it develops inevitably as part of its process a
\nperpetual strife of parties, at first few and simple in composition, but
\nafterwards as at the present time an impotent and sterilising chaos of names,
\nlabels, programmes, war-cries. All lift the banner of conflicting ideas or
\nideals, but all are really fighting out under that flag a battle of conflicting
\ninterests. Finally, individualistic democratic freedom results fatally in an<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-185<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nincreasing stress of
\ncompetition which replaces the ordered tyrannies of the infrarational periods
\nof humanity by a sort of ordered conflict. And this conflict ends in the
\nsurvival not of the spiritually, rationally or physically fittest, but of the most
\nfortunate and vitally successful. It is evident enough that whatever else it
\nmay be, this is not a rational order of society; it is not at all the
\nperfection which the individualistic reason of man had contemplated as its
\nideal or set out to accomplish.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The natural remedy for the first defects
\nof the individualistic theory in practice would seem to be education; for if
\nman is not by nature, we may hope at least that he can be made by education and
\ntraining something like a rational being. Universal education, therefore, is
\nthe inevitable second step of the democratic movement in its attempt to
\nrationalise human society. But a rational education means necessarily three
\nthings, first, to teach men how to observe and know rightly the facts on which
\nthey have to form a judgment; secondly, to train them to think fruit- fully and
\nsoundly; thirdly, to fit them to use their knowledge and their thought
\neffectively for their own and the common good. Capacity of observation and
\nknowledge, capacity of intelligence and judgment, capacity of action and high.
\ncharacter are required for the citizenship of a rational order of society; a
\ngeneral deficiency in any of these difficult requisites is a sure source of
\nfailure. Unfortunately, – even if we suppose that training made available to
\nthe millions can ever be of this rare character, – the actual education given
\nin the most advanced countries has not had the least relation to these
\nnecessities. And just as the first defects and failures of democracy have given
\noccasion to the enemy to blaspheme and to vaunt the superiority or even the
\nquite imaginary perfection of the ideal past, so also the first defects of its
\ngreat remedy, education, have led many superior minds to deny the efficacy of
\neducation and its power to transform the human mind and driven them to condemn
\nthe democratic ideal as an exploded fiction.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Democracy and its panacea of education
\nand freedom have certainly done something for the race. To begin with, the
\npeople are, for the first time in the historical period of history, erect,
\nactive and alive, and where there is life, there is always a hope<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-186<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nof better things. Again,
\nsome kind of knowledge and with it some kind of active intelligence based on
\nknowledge and strengthened by the habit of being called on to judge and decide
\nbetween conflicting issues and opinions in all sorts of matters have been much
\nmore generalised than was formerly possible. Men are being progressively
\ntrained to use their minds, to apply intelligence to life, and that is a great
\ngain. If they have not yet learned to think for themselves or to think soundly,
\nclearly and rightly, they are at least more able now to choose with some kind
\nof initial intelligence, however imperfect as yet it may be, the thought they
\nshall accept and the rule they shall follow. Equal educational equipment and
\nequal opportunity of life have by no means been acquired; but there is a much
\ngreater equalisation than was at all possible in former states of society. But
\nhere a new and enormous defect has revealed itself which is proving fatal to
\nthe social idea which engendered it. For given even perfect equality of
\neducational and other opportunity,<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/span>–<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font> <\/span>and that does not yet really exist and cannot in the
\nindividualistic state of society, – to what purpose or in what manner is the
\nopportunity likely to be used? Man, the half infrarational being, demands three
\nthings for his satisfaction, power, if he can have it, but at any rate the use
\nand reward of his faculties and the enjoyment of his desires. In the old
\nsocieties the possibility of these could be secured by him to a certain extent
\naccording to his birth, his fixed status and the use of his capacity within the
\nlimits of his hereditary status. That basis once removed and no proper
\nsubstitute provided, the same ends can only be secured by success in a scramble
\nfor the one power left, the power of wealth. Accordingly, instead of a
\nharmoniously ordered society there has been developed a huge organised
\ncompetitive system, a frantically rapid and one-sided development of
\nindustrialism and, under the garb of democracy, an increasing plutocratic
\ntendency that shocks by its ostentatious grossness and the magnitudes of its
\ngulfs and distances. These have been the last results of the individualistic
\nideal and its democratic machinery, the initial bankruptcies of the rational
\nage.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The first natural result has been the
\ntransition of the rational mind from democratic individualism to democratic
\nsocialism.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n Page-187<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nSocialism, labouring
\nunder the disadvantageous accident of its birth in a revolt against capitalism,
\nan uprising against the rule of the successful bourgeois and the plutocrat, has
\nbeen compelled to work itself out by a war of classes. And, worse still, it has
\nstarted from an industrialised social system and itself taken on at the
\nbeginning a purely industrial and economic appearance. These are accidents that
\ndisfigure its true nature. Its true nature, its real justification is the
\nattempt of the human reason to carryon the rational ordering of society to its
\nfulfilment, its will to get rid of this great parasitical excrescence of
\nunbridled competition, this giant obstacle to any decent ideal or practice of
\nhuman living. Socialism sets out to replace a system of organised economic
\nbattle by an organised order and peace. This can no longer be done on the old
\nlines, an artificial or inherited inequality brought about by the denial of
\nequal opportunity and justified by the affirmation of that injustice and its
\nresult as an eternal law of society and of Nature. That is a falsehood which
\nthe reason of man will no longer permit. Neither can it be done, it seems, on
\nthe basis of individual liberty; for that has broken down in the practice.
\nSocialism therefore must do away with the democratic basis of individual liberty,
\neven if it professes to respect it or to be marching towards a more rational
\nfreedom. It shifts at first the fundamental emphasis to other ideas and fruits
\nof the democratic ideal, and it leads by this transference of stress to a
\nradical change in the basic principle of a rational society. Equality, not a
\npolitical only, but a perfect social equality, is to be the basis. There is to
\nbe equality of opportunity for all, but also equality of status for all, for
\nwithout the last the first cannot be secured; even if it were established, it
\ncould not endure. This equality again is impossible if personal, or at least
\ninherited right in property is to exist, and therefore socialism abolishes –
\nexcept at best on a small scale – the right of personal property as it is now
\nunder- stood and makes war on the hereditary principle. Who then is to possess
\nthe property? It can only be the community as a whole. And who is to administer
\nit? Again, the community as a whole. In order to justify this idea, the
\nsocialistic principle has practically to deny the existence of the individual
\nor his right to exist except as a member of the society and for its sake. He
\nbelongs entirely<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-188<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nto the society, not only
\nhis property, but himself, his labour, his capacities, the education it gives
\nhim and its results, his mind, his knowledge, his individual life, his family
\nlife, the life of his children. Moreover, since his individual reason cannot be
\ntrusted to work out naturally a right and rational adjustment of his life with
\nthe life of others, it is for the reason of the whole community to arrange that
\ntoo for him. Not the reasoning minds and wills of the individuals, but the
\ncollective reasoning mind and will of the community has to govern. It is this
\nwhich will determine not only the principles and all the details of the
\neconomic and political order, but the whole life of the community and of the
\nindividual as a working, thinking, feeling cell of this life, the development
\nof his capacities, his actions, the use of the knowledge he has acquired, the
\nwhole ordering of his vital, his ethical, his intelligent being. For so only
\ncan the collective reason and intelligent will of the race overcome the egoism
\nof individualistic life and bring about a perfect principle and rational order
\nof society in a harmonious world.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>It is true that this inevitable character
\nof socialism is denied or minimised by the more democratic socialists; for the
\nsocialistic mind still bears the impress of the old democratic ideas and
\ncherishes hopes that betray it often into strange illogicalities. It assures us
\nthat it will combine some kind of individual freedom, a limited but all the
\nmore true and rational freedom, with the rigours of the collectivist idea. But
\nit is evidently these rigours to which things must tend if the collectivist
\nidea is to prevail and not to stop short and falter in the middle of its
\ncourse. If it proves itself thus wanting in logic and courage, it may very well
\nbe that it will speedily or in the end be destroyed by the foreign element it
\ntolerates and perish without having sounded its own possibilities. It will pass
\nperhaps, unless guided by a rational wisdom which the human mind in government
\nhas not yet shown, after exceeding even the competitive individualistic society
\nin its cumbrous incompetence.1<\/sup> But even at its best the collectivist idea<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t1 <\/sup>These hesitations of social democracy, its
\n\t\tuneasy mental poise between two opposing principles, socialistic
\n\t\tregimentation and democratic liberty may be the root cause of the
\n\t\tfailure of socialism to make good in so many countries even when it had
\n\t\tevery chance on its side and its replacement by the more vigorous and
\n\t\truthlessly logical forces of Communism and Fascism. On the other hand,
\n\t\tin the northernmost countries of Europe, a temporising, reformist,
\n\t\tpractical Socialism compromising between the right regulation of the
\n\t\tcommunal life and the freedom of the individual has to some extent made
\n\t\tgood; but it is still doubtful whether it will be allowed to go to the
\n\t\tend of its road. If it has that chance, it is still to be seen whether
\n\t\tthe drive of the idea and the force it carries in it for complete
\n\t\tself-effectuation will not prevail in the end over the spirit of
\n\t\tcompromise.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-189<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ncontains several
\nfallacies inconsistent with the real facts of human life and nature. And just
\nas the idea of individualistic democracy found itself before long in
\ndifficulties on that account because of the disparity between life’s facts and
\nthe mind’s idea, difficulties that have led up to its discredit and approaching
\noverthrow, the idea of collectivist democracy too may well find itself before
\nlong in difficulties that must lead to its discredit and eventual replacement
\nby a third stage of the inevitable progression. Liberty protected by a State in
\nwhich all are politically equal, was the idea that individualistic democracy
\nattempted to elaborate. Equality, social and political equality enforced
\nthrough a perfect and careful order by a State which is the organised will of
\nthe whole community, is the idea on which socialistic democracy stakes its
\nfuture. If that too fails to make good, the rational and democratic Idea may
\nfall back upon a third form of society founding an essential rather than formal
\nliberty and equality upon fraternal comradeship in a free community, the ideal
\nof intellectual as of spiritual Anarchism.1<\/sup><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>In fact the claim to equality like the
\nthirst for liberty is individualistic in its origin, – it is not native or
\nindispensable to the essence of the collectivist ideal. It is the individual
\nwho demands liberty for himself, a free movement for his mind, life, will,
\naction; the collectivist trend and the State idea have rather the opposite
\ntendency, they are self-compelled to take up more and more the compulsory
\nmanagement and control of the mind, life, will, action of the community – and
\nthe individual’s as part of it – until personal liberty is pressed out of
\nexistence. But similarly it is the individual who demands for himself equality
\nwith all others; when a class demands, it is still the individual multiplied
\nclaiming for himself and all who are of his own grade, political or economic
\nstatus, an equal place, privilege or opportunity with<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t1 <\/sup>
\nIn the theory of communism State socialism is only a passage; a
\n\t\tfree classless Stateless communal life is the eventual ideal. But it is
\n\t\tnot likely that the living State machine once in power with all that are
\n\t\tinterested in its maintenance would let go its prey or allow itself to
\n\t\tbe abolished without a struggle.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-190<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthose who have acquired or
\n<\/i>inherited a superiority of status. The social Reason conceded first the
\nclaim to liberty, but in practice (whatever might have been the theory) it
\nadmitted only <\/font>so
\nmuch equality <\/font> <\/span>
\n–<\/font><\/span> equality before the law, a
\nhelpful but not too <\/font> <\/span>effective political
\nequality of the vote – as was necessary to en- sure a reasonable freedom for
\nall. Afterwards when the injustices and irrationalities of an unequalised
\ncompetitive freedom, the enormity of the gulfs it created, became apparent, the
\nsocial Reason shifted its ground and tried to arrive at a more complete
\ncommunal justice on the basis of a political, economic, educational and social
\nequality as complete as might be; it has laboured to make a plain level on
\nwhich all can stand together. Liberty in this change has had to undergo the former
\nfate of equality; for only so much liberty<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/span>–<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font> <\/span>perhaps or <\/i>for a time<\/font> <\/font> <\/span>
\n–<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>could survive as can be safely allowed without the
\ncompetitive individual getting enough room for his self-assertive growth to
\nupset or <\/i>endanger the equalitarian basis. But in the end the discovery
\ncan- not fail to be made that an artificial equality has also its
\nirrationalities, its contradictions of the collective good, its injustices even
\nand its costly violations of the truth of Nature. Equality like individualistic
\nliberty may turn out to be not a panacea but an obstacle in the way of the best
\nmanagement and control of life by the collective reason and will of the
\ncommunity.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>But if both equality and liberty
\ndisappear from the human scene, there is left only one member of the democratic
\ntrinity, brotherhood or, <\/i>as it is now called, comradeship, that has some
\nchance of survival as part of the social basis. This is be- cause it seems to
\nsquare better with the spirit of collectivism; we see accordingly the idea of
\nit, if not the fact, still insisted on in the new social systems, even those in
\nwhich both liberty and equality are discarded as noxious democratic chimeras.
\nBut comrade- ship without liberty and equality can be nothing more than the
\nlike association of all – individuals, functional classes, guilds, <\/font>
\nsyndicates, soviets or <\/i>any
\nother units <\/font> <\/span>
\n–<\/font><\/span> in common service to the
\n<\/font> <\/span>life of the nation under the absolute control of the
\ncollectivist State. The only liberty left at the end would be the freedom to serve
\nthe community under the rigorous direction of the State authority; the only
\nequality would be an association of all alike<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-191<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nin a Spartan or Roman
\nspirit of civic service with perhaps a like status, theoretically equal at
\nleast for all functions; the only brotherhood would be the sense of comradeship
\nin devoted dedication to the organised social Self, the State. In fact the
\ndemocratic trinity stripped of its godhead would fade out of existence; the collectivist
\nideal can very well do without them, for none of them belong to its grain and
\nvery substance.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This is indeed already the spirit, the
\nsocial reason, – or rather the social gospel, – of the totalitarianism whose
\nswelling tide threatens to engulf all Europe and more than Europe.
\nTotalitarianism of some kind seems indeed to be the natural, almost inevitable
\ndestiny, at any rate the extreme and fullest outcome of Socialism or, more
\ngenerally, of the collectivist idea and impulse. For the essence of Socialism,
\nits justifying ideal, is the governance and strict organisation of the total
\nlife of the society as a whole and in detail by its own conscious reason and
\nwill for the best good and common interest of all, eliminating exploitation by
\nindividual or class, removing internal competition, haphazard confusion and
\nwaste, enforcing and perfecting co-ordination, assuring the best functioning
\nand a sufficient life for all. If a democratic polity and machinery best assure
\nsuch a working, as was thought at first, it is this that will be chosen and the
\nresult will be Social Democracy. That ideal still holds sway in northern Europe
\nand it may there yet have a chance of proving that a successful collectivist
\nrationalisation of society is quite possible. But if a non-democratic polity
\nand machinery are found to serve the purpose better, then there is nothing
\ninherently sacrosanct for the collectivist mind in the democratic ideal; it can
\nbe thrown in the rubbish-heap where so many other exploded sanctities have gone.
\nRussian Communism so discarded with contempt democratic liberty and attempted
\nfor a time to substitute for the democratic machine a new sovietic structure,
\nbut it has preserved the ideal of a proletarian equality for all in a classless
\nsociety. Still its spirit is a rigorous totalitarianism on the basis of the
\ndictator- ship of the proletariate, which amounts in fact to the dictatorship
\nof the Communist party in the name or on behalf of the proletariate.
\nNon-proletarian totalitarianism goes farther and discards democratic equality
\nno less than democratic liberty; it<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-192<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\npreserves classes, – for
\na time only, it may be,<\/font> <\/font> <\/span>
\n–<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>but as a means of social functioning, not as a scale
\nof superiority or a hierarchic order. Rationalisation is no longer the turn;
\nits place is taken by a revolutionary mysticism which seems to be the present
\ndrive of the Time Spirit.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This is a symptom that can have a
\nconsiderable significance. In Russia the Marxist system of Socialism has been
\nturned almost into a gospel. Originally a rationalistic system worked out by a
\nlogical thinker and discoverer and systematiser of ideas, it has been
\ntransformed by the peculiar turn of the Russian mind into something like a
\nsocial religion, a collectivist mystique, <\/i>an inviolable body of doctrines
\nwith all denial or departure treated as a punishable heresy, a social cult
\nenforced by the intolerant piety and enthusiasm of a converted people. In
\nFascist countries the swing away from Rationalism is marked and open; a surface
\nvital subjectivism has taken its place and it is in the name of the national
\nsoul and its self-expression and manifestation that the leaders and prophets
\nteach and violently enforce their totalitarian mystique. <\/i>The essential
\nfeatures are the same in Russia and in Fascist countries, so that to the eye of
\nthe outsider their deadly quarrel seems to be a blood-feud of kinsmen fighting
\nfor the in<\/font>heritance
\nof their slaughtered parents <\/font> <\/span>
\n–<\/font><\/span>
\nDemocracy and the <\/font> <\/span>Age of Reason. There is
\nthe seizure of the life of the community by a dominant individual leader, F<\/font>\u00fc<\/font><\/span>hrer, Dux, dictator, head of a small active minority,
\nthe Nazi, Fascist or Communist party, and supported by a militarised partisan
\nforce; there is a rapid crystallisation of the social, economic, political life
\nof the people into a new rigid organisation effectively controlled at every
\npoint; there is the compulsory casting of thought, education, expression,
\naction into a set iron mould, a fixed system of ideas and life- motives, with a
\nfierce and ruthless, often a sanguinary repression of all that denies and
\ndiffers; there is a total unprecedented compression of the whole communal
\nexistence so as to compel a maximum efficiency and a complete unanimity of
\nmind, speech, feeling, life.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>If this trend becomes universal, it is
\nthe end of the Age of <\/font>Reason, the suicide or the execution,<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font> <\/span>–<\/font><\/span> <\/font> <\/span>by decapitation or lethal
\npressure, <\/font> peine forte et dure,<\/font>
\n<\/font> <\/span><\/i>– of the rational and intellectual ex-<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-193<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\npansion of the human
\nmental being. Reason cannot do its work, act or rule if the mind of man is
\ndenied freedom to think or freedom to realise its thought by action in life.
\nBut neither can a subjective age be the outcome; for the growth of subjectivism
\nalso cannot proceed without plasticity, without movement of self- search,
\nwithout room to move, expand, develop, change. The result is likely to be
\nrather the creation of a tenebrous No Man’s Land where obscure mysticisms,
\nmaterialistic, vitalistic or mixed, clash and battle for the mastery of human
\nlife. But this consummation is not certain; chaos and confusion still reign and
\nall hangs in the balance. Totalitarian mysticism may not be able to carry out
\nits menace of occupying the globe, may not even endure. Spaces of the earth may
\nbe left where a rational idealism can still survive. The terrible compression
\nnow exercised on the national mind and life may lead to an explosion from
\nwithin or, on the other hand, having fulfilled its immediate aim may relax and
\ngive way in calmer times to a greater plasticity which will restore to the
\nhuman mind or soul a more natural line of progress, a freer field for their
\nself-expanding impulse.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>In that case the curve of the Age of
\nReason, now threatened with an abrupt cessation, may prolong and complete
\nitself; the subjective turn of the human mind and life, avoiding a premature
\nplunge into any general external action before it has found itself, may have
\ntime and freedom to evolve, to seek out its own truth, its own lines and so
\nbecome ready to take up the spiral of the human social evolution where the
\ncurve of the Age of Reason naturally ends by its own normal evolution and make
\nready the ways of a deeper spirit.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-194<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XIX The Curve of the Rational Age\u00a0                                   THE present age of mankind may be characterised from this point of view of 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-1196","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\/1196","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=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9828,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions\/9828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}