{"id":1197,"date":"2013-07-13T01:33:12","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1197"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:33:12","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:33:12","slug":"68-after-the-war-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\/68-after-the-war-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-68_After the War .htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nAfter the War<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n                            
\n<\/font> <\/span>
\nT<\/font><\/b>HE great war has for some time been over: it is already
\nreceding into the near distances of the past. Around us is a black mist and
\nwelter of the present, before us the face of a dim and ambiguous future. It is
\njust possible, however, to take some stock of the immediate results of the war,
\nalthough by no stretch of language can the world situation be called clear, for
\nit is marked rather by chaotic drift and an unexampled confusion. The ideals
\nwhich were so loud of mouth during the collision,<\/font> –<\/font>
\nmainly as
\nadvertising agents of its conflicting interests,<\/font> –<\/font>
\nare now discredited and silent:
\nan uneasy locked struggle of irreconcilable forces entangled in an inextricable
\nclasp of enmity, but too weak or too exhausted to prevail against each other
\nand unable to separate, a bewildered opportunism incapable of guiding itself or
\nfinding an issue is the character of the present situation. Humanity has the
\nfigure of a derelict with broken mast and rudder drifting on a sea still
\nupheaved by the after-swell of the tempest, the statesmen of the Supreme
\nCouncil figuring as its impotent captains and shouting directions that have not
\nthe least chance of useful execution and have to be changed from moment to
\nmoment. Nowhere is there a guiding illumination or a just idea that is at all
\npracticable. A great intellectual and moral bankruptcy, an immense emptiness
\nand depression has succeeded to the delirium of massacre.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This indeed the most striking immediate after-result of the war,
\nthe atmosphere of a world-wide disappointment and disillusionment and the
\nfailure of great hopes and ideals. What high and large and dazzling things were
\npromised us during the war, and where are they now? Rejected, tarnished,
\ndishonoured they lie cast aside dead and stripped and desecrated on the blood-
\nstained refuse heap that the war has left behind it. Not one remains to us. The
\nwar that was fought to end war has been only the parent of fresh armed conflict
\nand civil discord and it is<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-637<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

the
\nexhaustion that followed it which alone prevents as yet another vast and
\nsanguinary struggle. The new fair and peace<\/font>ful world-order that was promised us has gone far<\/font><\/span> away <\/font> <\/span>
\ninto the<\/font><\/span> land of the
\nchimeras. The League of Nations that was to have embodied it hardly even exists
\nor exists only as a mockery and a byword. It is an ornamental, a quite helpless
\nand otiose appendage to the Supreme Council, at present only a lank promise
\ndangled before the vague and futile idealism of those who are still faithful to
\nits sterile formula, a League on paper and with little chance, even if it
\nbecomes more apparently active, of being anything more than a transparent cover
\nor a passive support for the domination of the earth by a close oligarchy of
\npowerful governments or, it may be even, of two allied and imperialistic
\nnations. The principle of self-determination once so loudly asserted is now
\nopenly denied and summarily put aside by the victorious empires. In its place
\nwe have the map of Europe remade on old diplomatic principles, Africa
\nappropriated and partitioned as the personal property of two or three great
\nEuropean Powers and western Asia condemned to be administered under a system of
\nmandates that are now quite openly justified as instruments of commercial
\nexploitation and have to be forced on unwilling peoples by the sovereign right
\nof the machine-gun and the bayonet. The spectacle of subject peoples and
\n"protected" nations demanding freedom and held down by military force
\ncontinues to be a principal feature of the new order. The promised death of
\nmilitarism is as far off as ever: its spirit and its actuality survive
\neverywhere, and only its centre of strength and main operation has shifted
\nwestward – and eastward. All these things were foreseen while yet the war continued
\nby a few who even while holding to the ideal persisted in seeing clearly: they
\nare now popular common-places. <\/font>
\n <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This however is only one side of the
\nsituation, the most present, insistent and obvious, but not therefore the most
\nimportant and significant. It marks a stage, it is not the definite result of
\nthe great upheaval. The expectation of an immediate and magically complete
\ntransformation and regeneration of the world by the radical operation of the
\nwar was itself an error.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

Page-638<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

It
\nwas an error to imagine that the power of the past rooted in the soil of
\nlong-seated human custom and character would disappear in one fierce moment or
\nabdicate at once to the virgin power of the future. The task to be accomplished
\nis too great to be so easy: the regeneration of man and his life, his rebirth
\ninto a higher nature is not to be effected by so summary and outward a process.
\nIt was an error to suppose that the war was or could be the painful, the
\nterrible, but in the end the salutary crisis by which that great change would
\nbe decisively effected, – a change that would mean a complete renovation and
\npurification of the soul, mind and life of humanity. The war came only as a
\nfirst shock and overturn, an opportunity for certain clearances, a death-blow
\nto the moral though not as yet to the material hold of certain ideas and powers
\nthat were till then confident and throned, sure of the present and hopeful of
\ntheir possession of the future. It has loosened the soil, but the up- rooting
\nof all the old growths was more than it could effectuate. It has cleared a
\ncertain amount of ground, but the fruitful filling of that ground is an
\noperation for other forces: it has ploughed and upturned much soil, but it is
\nas yet a far cry to the new sowing and the harvest. It was, finally, and it
\nstill continues a cherished error to imagine that the mere alteration, however
\nconsiderable, of political or other machinery is the sufficient panacea for the
\nshortcomings of civilisation. It is a change of spirit, therefore a spiritual
\nchange, that can alone be the sanction and the foundation of a greater and
\nbetter human existence.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The survival
\nof old principles and conditions is still not the important matter. However
\ngreat their appearance of outward and material strength, inwardly they are
\nsick, weakened and have forfeited the promise of the future: all their
\nintellectual and moral hold is gone and with that disappearance there is
\nevident a notable failing of their practical effectuating wisdom and of their
\nsustaining self-confidence. The instinct of self- continuation, the impetus of
\ntheir past motion keeps them going, and they must last so long as they have
\nsome hold in the inert continuity of the past mental and vital habit of the
\npeoples and are not pushed over by the growing and arising\u00a0 <\/span>strength<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-639<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\u00a0<\/font><\/span>of the new forces that belong to the future.
\nAll their movements only serve to increase that strength, and whether they seek
\nto perpetuate themselves by a violent insistence on their own principle or
\nhaggle and compromise with the quite opposite principles that are destined to
\nreplace them, each step they take brings them nearer to their ending. It is
\nmore fruitful to regard rather the new things that are not yet in possession of
\nthe present but already struggling to assert themselves against its ponderous
\nand effective but ephemeral pressure.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>It was very evident during the progress
\nof the war that there were two great questions that it would not solve but
\nrather must prepare for an acute stage of crisis, the growing struggle between
\nCapital and Labour and the Asiatic question, no longer a quarrel now between
\nrival exploiters but the issue between invading Europe and a resurgent Asia.
\nThe war itself was in its immediate aspect a battle between the German idea and
\nthe middle-class liberalism represented by the western peoples, France,
\nEngland, America, and during the settlement of that present issue the other two
\nquestions more momentous for the future had to be held in abeyance. There was a
\ntruce between Capital and Labour, a truce determined only by a violent
\nconcentration of national feeling that proved too strong for the vague
\nidealistic internationalism of the orthodox socialistic idea, not by any
\nessential issue; for the futile idyllic promise of a rapprochement and a
\nreconciliation between the hostile classes was too hollow an unreality to count
\nas a factor. At the same time the Asiatic question too was in suspension and
\neven enticing prospects of self-determination and independence or more
\nqualified but still tempting allurements were proffered by the liberal empires
\nto peoples who had been till then held as beyond the pale of civilisation. The
\nAsiatic peoples too weak for an independent action ranged themselves on the
\nside whose success seemed to offer to them the greater hope or else the least
\nformidable menace. All this is now of the past: the natural and inevitable
\nrelations have reasserted themselves and these great questions are coming to a
\nhead. The modern contest between Capital and Labour has entered into a new
\nphase and the two incurably antagonistic principles are evidently moving<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-640<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\nin spite of many hesitations
\nand indecisions towards the final and decisive battle. In Asia the issue has
\nalready been joined between the old rule of dependency and protectorate with
\ntheir new parti-coloured variation the mandate and the clear claim of the
\nAsiatic peoples to equality and independence. All other things still in the
\nforefront belong to the prolongation of the surviving or else to the
\nliquidation of the dead past: these two alone are living questions of the
\nimmediate future.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The forces of Socialism and
\nCapitalism now look each other in the face all over Europe, – all other
\ndistinctions are fading, the old minor political quarrels within the nation
\ngrow meaningless, – but have not yet joined battle. The old middle- class
\nregime still holds the material power, keeps by the prestige of possession and
\nmen’s habit of preferring present ills to an insecure adventure the mind of the
\nuncertain mass and summons all its remaining forces to maintain its position.
\nIt is faced by the first actuality of a successful socialistic and
\nrevolutionary regime in Russia, but hitherto, although its repeated efforts to
\nstifle it in its birth have been in vain, it has succeeded in isolating, in
\nblockading and half starving it, in erecting against its westward urge an
\nartificial frontier and in stemming the more rapid propagation of its master
\nideas by a constant campaign of discredit. Attempts at any soviet revolution west
\nof the Russian line have been put an end to for the moment by legal or military
\nrepression. On the other hand, the economic condition of the world becomes
\nworse and not better every year and it is becoming more and more evident that
\nCapitalism has not only lost its moral credit but that it is unable to solve
\nthe material problems it has itself raised and brought to a head, while it
\nblocks the way to any other solution. Every year that passes in this deadlock
\nsees an enormous increase in the strength of the socialistic idea and the
\nnumber and quality and the extremist fervour of its adherents. There is
\nundoubtedly almost everywhere a temporary stiffening and concentration of the
\nold regime; this as a phenomenon very much resembles the similar stiffening and
\nconcentration of the old monarchic and aristocratic regime that was the first
\nresult of the war between revolutionary France and Europe; but it has less
\nreality of<\/font>  <\/font><\/p>\n

Page-<\/font>641<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

\u00a0<\/span>force and little chance of an equal
\nduration; for the current of revolution is now only checked and not as then
\ntemporarily fatigued and exhausted and the accumulated rush of the ideas and
\nforces that make for change is in our day immeasurably greater. The materials
\nof an immense political, social and economic overturn, perhaps of a series of
\nformidable explosions strengthened in force by each check and compression,
\nevery- where visibly accumulate.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The outstanding portent of things to come
\nis the continued existence, success, unbroken progress of the Russian revolution.
\nThis event promises to be as significant in human history as the great overturn
\nof established ideas and institutions initiated in France in the eighteenth
\ncentury, and to posterity it may well be this and not the downfall of Germany
\nfor which the Great War will be ever memorable. Its importance is quite
\nindependent of the merits and demerits or the chances of survival of the
\npresent Bolshevik regime. The Bolshevik dictator- ship is admittedly only an
\ninstrument of transition, a temporary concentration of revolutionary force,
\njust as the Supreme Council and all that it supports is a temporary
\nconcentration of the opposing conservative forces. The achievements of this
\nextra- ordinary government have been of a sufficiently astonishing character. Assailed
\ncontinually from within and without, ruthlessly blockaded and starved and
\ndeprived of all means of sustenance and action except those it could create for
\nitself out of itself or else conquer, repeatedly brought to the verge of
\ndownfall, it has survived all difficulties and dangers and rather derived
\nalways new strength from misfortune, overcome its internal and withstood its
\nexternal enemies, spread itself in Asia beyond its own borders, organised out
\nof chaos a strong civil and military instrument, and has had the force in the
\nmidst of scarcity, civil strife and foreign menace to lay the initial basis of
\na new type of society. This miracle of human energy is in itself no more. than
\nthat, a repetition under more unfavourable circumstances of the extraordinary
\nachievement of the Jacobins during the French Revolution. More important is the
\npower of the idea that is behind these successes and has made them possible. It
\nis a fact of only outward significance that the<\/font> <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-642<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

Bolsheviks
\nnot so long ago threatened with the loss of Moscow are now on the road to
\nWarsaw. It is of much more significance that the western Powers find themselves
\ndriven at last to negotiate with the first successful communist government of
\nmodern times still denounced by them as a monstrosity to be destroyed and a
\ndanger to civilisation. But the thing of real significance is not these events
\nthat might have gone and might still go otherwise and might turn out to be only
\nan episode; it is rather this fundamental fact affecting future possibilities
\nthat a great nation marked out as one of the coming leaders of humanity has
\ntaken a bold leap into the hidden gulfs of the future, abolished the past
\nfoundations, made and persisted in a radical experiment of communism, replaced
\nmiddle-class parliamentarism by a new form of government and used its first
\nenergy of free life to initiate an entirely novel social order. It is acts of
\nfaith and audacities of this scale that change or hasten the course of human
\nprogress. It does not follow necessarily that what is being attempted now is
\nthe desirable or the definite form of the future society, but is a certain sign
\nthat a phase of civilisation is beginning to pass and the Time-Spirit preparing
\na new phase and a new order.<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>It may well take time for the communistic
\nidea to make its way westward and it may too undergo considerable modifications
\nin the passage, but there is already a remarkable evolution in that sense. The
\nLabour movement is everywhere completing its transformation from a reformist
\ninto a socialistic and therefore necessarily, in spite of present hesitations,
\na revolutionary type. The struggle of Labour for a better social status and a
\nshare in the government has grown obsolete: the accepted ideal is now the
\nabolition of the capitalistic structure of society and the substitution of
\nlabour for wealth as the social basis and the governing power. The differences
\nwithin the body of the movement touch no longer the principle but the means and
\nprocess of the change and precise form to be given to the coming socialistic
\ngovernment and society. It is only this division of counsels that still retards
\nthe onward motion and prevents the joining of the decided issue of battle. It
\nis noticeable that the strength of the socialist and communistic idea increases<\/font>
\nas<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-643<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

one
\ngoes eastward, diminishes in the opposite direction: the movement or progress
\nis no longer from the’ west eastwards but from the east towards the occident.
\nThe more extreme forces are however daily increasing everywhere and are making
\nthem- selves felt even in plutocratic America. In any case, whatever
\nretardation of pace there may be, the direction of the stream is already clear
\nand the result hardly doubtful. The existing European system of civilisation at
\nleast in its figure of capitalistic industrialism has reached its own monstrous
\nlimits, broken itself by its own mass and is condemned to perish. The issue of
\nthe future lies between a labour industrialism not very different except in
\norganisation from its predecessor, some greater spirit and form of socialistic
\nor communistic society such as is being attempted in Russia or else the
\nemergence of a new and as yet unforeseen principle.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The upcoming force that opens a certain
\nlatitude for this last possibility is the resurgence of Asia. It is difficult
\nto believe that Asia once free to think, act and live for herself will be for
\nlong content merely to imitate the past or the present evolution of Europe. The
\ntemperament of her peoples is marked off by too deep-seated a difference, the
\nbuild and movement of their minds is of another character. At present, however,
\nthe movement of resurgence in Asia is finding expression more by a preface, an
\nattempt to vindicate her bare right to live for herself, than by any pregnant effort
\nof independent creative thought or action. The Asiatic unrest is still the
\nsecond prominent feature of the situation. It is manifest in different forms
\nfrom Egypt to China. It takes the shape in the Moslem world of a rejection of
\nprotectorates and mandates and a ferment of formation of independent Asiatic
\nStates. It manifests in India in a growing dissatisfaction with half methods
\nand a constantly accentuated vehemence of the demand for complete and early
\nself-government. It is creating in the Far East obscurer movements the sense of
\nwhich has yet to emerge. This unrest envisages as yet little beyond the
\nbeginnings of a free action and existence. It appeals to the ideas of liberty
\nthat have long been fully self- conscious and the formulas that are systematically
\napplied in Europe, self-government, Home Rule, democracy, national<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-644<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

independence.
\nAt the same time there is involved, subconscient as yet in the great Asiatic
\nmasses but already defining itself in more awakened minds, another issue that
\nmay seem at first sight incompatible or at least disparate with this imitative
\nseizing on principles associated with the modern forms of freedom and progress,<\/font>
\n–<\/font> an ideal
\nof spiritual and moral independence and the defence against the European invasion
\nof the subtle principle of Asiatic culture. In India the notion of an Asiatic,
\na spiritualised democracy has begun to be voiced, though it is as yet vague and
\nformless. The Khilafat agitation has a religious and therefore a cultural as
\nwell as a political motive and temper. The regime of the mandate is resisted
\nbecause it signifies the political control and economic exploitation of Asia by
\nEurope, but there is another more latent source of repugnance. The effective
\nexploitation is impossible without the breaking and recasting of Asiatic life
\ninto the harsh moulds of European capitalism and industrialism and, although
\nAsia must learn to live no longer in the magnificent but insufficient past but
\nin the future, she must too demand to create that future in her own image. It
\nis this twofold claim carrying in it the necessity of a double, an inner and an
\nouter resistance that is the present meaning of the Asiatic unrest and the
\ndestined meaning of the Asiatic resurgence.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The capitalistic governments of Europe
\nembarrassed by Asiatic unrest and resistance attempt to meet it with a con-
\ncession in form and a denial in fact and principle. India is granted not the
\nbeginning of responsible government, but a first "substantial" step
\ntowards it; but it is a step hedged in with a paralysing accumulation of
\nsafeguards for British political and capitalistic interests and a significant
\ncondition that her farther progress must depend on the extent to which she is
\nprepared to reform herself politically, economically and socially in the image
\nof the British spirit. A French military force occupies Damascus, expels the
\nking and government elected by the people, but promises to establish an
\nindigenous government subservient to the European interest and its mandate. England
\noffers Mesopotamia an Arab government saddled with an Anglo"lndian
\nadministration and the moral and material<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-645<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

benefits
\nof the exploitation of the oil of the Mosul; meanwhile she is fighting the
\ninsurgent population in order to force on it its own greater good against its
\nown barbarous and ignorant will to independence. A British control is to
\nguarantee the integrity of Persia. Palestine is to be colonised by a Jewish
\nimmigration from Europe and to be administered by a High Commissioner in the
\ninterests<\/font> –<\/font> but against the will<\/font>
\n–<\/font> of all its races. The Turkish
\npeople stripped of temporal empire and the prestige of the Khalifate are to be
\nfree under a strict and close international control and to be compelled by a
\nGreek army to accept this unprecedented happiness and this unequalled
\nopportunity of becoming a civilised modern nation. Here much more than against
\nthe organised forces of Labour the old regime has the material power to enforce
\nits dictates. It remains nonetheless certain that a solution of this kind will
\nnot put an end to the unrest of Asia. The attempt is likely to recoil upon
\nitself, for these new burdens must impose a greatly added strain on an already
\nimpossible financial condition and hasten the social and economic revolution in
\nEurope. And even if it were other- wise, the resurgence of a great continent
\ncannot be so held under. One day it will surely prevail against whatever
\ndifficulties and possess its inevitable future.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>These two predestined forces of the
\nfuture, socialism and the Asiatic resurgence, tend for the moment to form at
\nleast a moral alliance. The Labour and socialistic parties in the now dominant
\nnations are strongly opposed to the policy of their governments and extend
\ntheir support to the claims of subject or menaced nationalities in Asia as well
\nas in Europe. In the more advanced Asiatic countries, as in Ireland, the
\nnational movement allies itself closely with a nascent labour movement.
\nBolshevik Russia is in alliance with or sovietises and controls the policy of
\nthe existing independent States of central Asia, casts a ferment into Persia
\nand lends whatever moral support it can to the Turk or the Arab. This tendency
\nmay have in itself little meaning beyond the sympathy created by reaction
\nagainst a common pressure. Forces and interests in action are always
\nopportunist and grasp in emergency at help or convenience from whatever
\nquarter; but these alliances of pure interest, unless they find some more
\npermanent<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-646<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

support,
\nare fragile and ephemeral combinations. Bolshevist Russia may set up Soviet
\ngovernments in Georgia and Azerbaijan, but if these are only governments of
\noccasion, if Sovietism does not correspond to or touch something more profound
\nin the instinct, temperament and idea of these peoples, they are not likely to
\nbe durable. British Labour, although it makes no present conditions, expects a
\nself-governing India to evolve in the sense of its own social and economic
\nidea, but it is conceivable that a self- governing India may break away from
\nthe now normal line of development and discover her own and unexpected social
\nand economic order. All that we can say certainly at present is that the
\ndominant governments of Europe have so managed that they find their scheme of
\nthings in opposition at once to the spirit and menaced by the growth of two
\ngreat world forces, both compressed and held back by it and both evident
\npossessors of the future.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>That means that we are as yet far from a
\ndurable order and can therefore look forward to no suspension of the earth’s
\ntroubles. The balance of the present, if such a chaotic fluctuation of shifts
\nand devices can be called a balance, has no promise of duration, is only a
\nmoment of arrest, and we must expect, as soon as the sufficient momentum can
\ncome or circumstance open a door of escape for the release of compressed
\nforces, more surprising and considerable movements, radical reversals and
\nimmense changes. The subject of supreme interest is not the circumstance that
\nwill set free their paths, for fate when it is ready takes ad- vantage of any
\nand every circumstance, but the direction they will take and the meaning they
\nwill envelop. The evolution of a socialistic society and the resurgence of Asia
\nmust effect great changes and yet they may not realise the larger human hope.
\nSocialism may bring in a greater equality and a closer association into human
\nlife, but if it is only a material change, it may miss other needed things and
\neven aggravate the mechanical burden of humanity and crush more heavily towards
\nthe earth its spirit. The resurgence of Asia, if it means only a redressing or
\nshifting of the international balance, will be a step in the old circle, not an
\nelement of the renovation, not a condition of the step forward and out of the
\ngroove that is now felt however vaguely to be the one thing needful. The
\npresent international policy of Labour<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nPage-647<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

carries
\nin itself indeed at its end,<\/font> –<\/font> provided Labour in power is faithful to the mind of
\nLabour in opposition,<\/font> –<\/font> one considerable promise, a juster equation between
\nthe national and the international idea, an international comity of free
\nnations, a free, equal and democratic league of peoples in place of the present
\nclose oligarchy of powers that only carries the shadow of an un- real League as
\nits appendage. An international equality and co- operation in place of the past
\ndisorder or barbaric order of domination and exploitation is indeed a first
\nimage that we have formed of the better future. But that is not all: it is only
\na frame- work. It may be at lowest a novel machinery of international
\nconvenience, it may be at most a better articulated body for the human race.
\nThe spirit, the power, the idea and will that are meant to inform or use it is
\nthe greater question, the face and direction of destiny that will be decisive.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The two forces that are arising to
\npossess the future represent two great things, the intellectual idealism of
\nEurope and the soul of Asia. The mind of Europe laboured by Hellenism and
\nChristianity and enlarging its horizons by free thought and science has arrived
\nat an idea of human perfectibility or progress expressed in the terms of an
\nintellectual, material and vital freedom, equality and unity of close
\nassociation, an active fraternity or comradeship in thought and feeling and
\nlabour. The difficulty is to make of the component parts of this idea a
\ncombined and real reality in practice and the effort of European progress has
\nbeen a labour to discover and set up a social machinery that shall automatically
\nturn out this production. The first equation discovered, an individualistic
\ndemocracy, a system of political liberty and equality before the law, has
\nhelped only to a levelling as between the higher orders, the competitive
\nliberty of the strongest and most skilful to arrive, an inhuman social
\ninequality and economic exploitation, an incessant class’ war and a monstrous
\nand opulently sordid reign of wealth and productive machinery. It is the turn
\nnow of another equation, an equality as absolute as can be fabricated amid the
\ninequalities of Nature by reason and <\/font>social science and machinery,
\n–<\/font> and most of all an equal association in the labour and the common profits of a
\ncollective life. It is not certain that this formula will succeed very much
\nbetter<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-648<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

than
\nits predecessor. This equality can only be presently secured by strict
\nregulation, and that means that liberty at least for a time must go under. And
\nat any rate the root of the whole difficulty is ignored, that nothing can be
\nreal in life that is not made real in the spirit. It is only if men can be made
\nfree, equal and united in spirit that there can be a secure freedom, equality
\nand brother- hood in their life. The idea and sentiment are not enough, for
\nthey are incomplete and combated by deep-seated nature and instinct and they
\nare besides inconstant and fluctuate. There must be an immense advance that
\nwill make freedom, equality and unity our necessary internal and external
\natmosphere. This can come only by a spiritual change and the intellect of
\nEurope is beginning to see that the spiritual change is at least a necessity;
\nbut it is still too intent on rational formula and on mechanical effort to
\nspare much time for discovery and realisation of the things of the spirit.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Asia has made no such great
\nendeavour, no such travail of social effort and progress. Order, a secure
\nethical and religious framework, a settled economical system, a natural,
\nbecoming fatally a conventional and artificial, hierarchy have been her
\nordinary methods, everywhere indeed where she reached a high development of
\nculture. These things she founded on her religious sense and sweetened and made
\ntolerable by a strong communal feeling, a living humanity and sympathy and
\ncertain accesses to a human equality and closeness. Her supreme effort was to
\ndiscover not an external but a spiritual and inner freedom and that carried
\nwith it a great realisation of spirituality, equality and oneness. This
\nspiritual travail was not universalised nor any endeavour made to shape the whole
\nof human life in its image. The result was a disparateness between the highest
\ninner individual and the outward social life, in India the increasing ascetic
\nexodus of the best who lived in the spirit out of the secure but too narrow
\nwalls of the ordinary existence and the sterilising idea that the greatest
\nuniversal truth of spirit discovered by life could yet not be the spirit of
\nthat life and is only realisable outside it. But now Asia enduring the powerful
\npressure of Europe is being forced to face the life problem again under the
\nnecessity of another and a more active solution. Assimilative, she may re-<\/font> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Page-649<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

produce
\nor imitate the occidental experiment of industrialism, its first phase of
\ncapitalism, its second phase of socialism; but then her resurgence will bring
\nno new meaning or possibility into the human endeavour. Or the closer meeting
\nof these two halves of the mind of humanity may set up a more powerful
\nconnection between the two poles of our being and realise some sufficient
\nequation of the highest ideals of each, the inner and the outer freedom, the
\ninner and the outer equality, the inner and the outer unity. That is the
\nlargest hope that can be formed on present data and circumstance for the human
\nfuture.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>But also, as from the mixing of various
\nelements an un- foreseen form emerges, so there may be a greater unknown
\nsomething concealed and in preparation, not yet formulated in the experimental
\nlaboratory of Time, not yet disclosed in the design of Nature. And that then,
\nsome greater unexpected birth from the stress of the evolution may be the
\njustifying result of which this unquiet age of gigantic ferment, chaos of ideas
\nand inventions, clash of enormous forces, creation and catastrophe and
\ndissolution is actually amid the formidable agony and tension of this great
\nimperfect body and soul of mankind in creative labour.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-650<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the War                                THE great war has for some time been over: it is already receding into the near distances of the past….<\/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-1197","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\/1197","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=1197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}