{"id":2612,"date":"2013-07-13T01:42:45","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2612"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:42:45","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:45","slug":"50-a-misunderstanding-of-continents-vol-12-essays-divine-and-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/12-essays-divine-and-human\/50-a-misunderstanding-of-continents-vol-12-essays-divine-and-human","title":{"rendered":"-50_A Misunderstanding of Continents.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Section<\/p>\n

Two <\/b>
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The East and the West
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A Misunderstanding of Continents <\/b><\/span><\/font>
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The peculiar and striking opposition of thought, temperament,
\nculture and manners between Asia and Europe has been a commonplace of observation and criticism since the times when
\nHerodotus noted in his history the objection of both men and women to be seen naked as a curious and amusing trait of Asiatic barbarism. Much water has flown under the bridges since Herodotus wrote and in this respect Asia seems not only to have
\ninfected Europe with this “barbaric” trait of manners, but to have been far outstripped by her pupil in the development of
\nsartorial superfluities. Excessive wealth and gorgeous splendour was also quoted as a characteristic of Asiatic barbarism from
\nthe time of the classical poets. Europe has seen to it that this charge shall only apply now in a very minimum quantity to the
\neastern continent. Asia now stands, not only by choice of her ascetics, but by economic compulsion for the simple life, and the
\nostentation of wealth which was once depreciated as a sign of oriental barbarism now parades itself, much vulgarised, at least
\nto our barbaric eastern notion of aesthetics as the splendid face of occidental civilisation. But if circumstances have changed,
\nthe essential opposition abides; East is still East in its soul and West is still West and the misunderstanding of continents still
\nflourishes, not only in the minds of politicians and “statesmen”,\u2014where one would naturally expect to find it, since it is there
\nthat vulgar prejudices, half-truths, whole untruths and unintelligent commonplaces assume their most solemn and sententious
\nform, coin themselves into glittering phrases or flow in rhetorical periods,\u2014but in the minds too of critics, poets and leading
\nintellectuals. Faced with this continued misunderstanding, one is obliged to ask whether it is really incurable, an antinomy on
\nwhich Nature is resolved to insist until the end of this cycle.
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Some of us, temerarious idealists, have thought that the
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misconception, the want of understanding is not only curable,
\nbut that to cure it as soon as may be is essential to the future interests of humanity. For my part I hold that all antinomies
\nand opposed powers in this world of contradictions would be much better for an attempt to understand each other’s souls and
\nfind their meeting point, would find something helpful not only to tone down their own exaggerations, but to fill in and round
\nthemselves without losing what is essential to their own spirit. Recently there has been a distinct widening in many minds,
\na nearer approach to understanding, almost to fusion. A little while ago in the first lyrical enthusiasm of the war and its “sacred
\nunions” one imagined that a decisive step had been taken and the peoples themselves would now be ready for sympathy and
\nunderstanding. But it seems it is not quite so yet[.]  
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Section Two   The East and the West         A Misunderstanding of Continents   The peculiar and striking opposition of thought, temperament,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12-essays-divine-and-human","wpcat-52-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2612","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=2612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}