{"id":3053,"date":"2013-07-13T01:45:39","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3053"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:45:39","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:39","slug":"07-true-and-false-subjectivism-vol-25-the-human-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/25-the-human-cycle\/07-true-and-false-subjectivism-vol-25-the-human-cycle","title":{"rendered":"-07_True and False Subjectivism.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\">\n<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\" width=\"100%\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"> <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<b><font size=\"4\">Chapter V <\/font> <\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<b><font size=\"4\">True and False Subjectivism <\/font> <\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 0pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<b><font size=\"5\">T<\/font>HE SUBJECTIVE<\/b> stage of human development is that critical juncture in which, having gone forward from<br \/>\n symbols, types, conventions, having turned its gaze superficially on the individual being to discover his truth and right law of action and its relation to the superficial and external truth<br \/>\nand law of the universe, our race begins to gaze deeper, to see and feel what is behind the outside and below the surface and<br \/>\ntherefore to live from within. It is a step towards self-knowledge and towards living in and from the self, away from knowledge<br \/>\nof things as the not-self and from the living according to this objective idea of life and the universe. Everything depends on<br \/>\nhow that step is taken, to what kind of subjectivity we arrive and how far we go in self-knowledge; for here the dangers of error<br \/>\nare as great and far-reaching as the results of right seeking. The symbolic, the typal, the conventional age avoid these dangers by<br \/>\nbuilding a wall of self-limitation against them; and it is because this wall becomes in the end a prison of self-ignorance that it<br \/>\nhas to be broken down and the perilous but fruitful adventure of subjectivism undertaken. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tA psychic self-knowledge tells us that there are in our being many formal, frontal, apparent or representative selves and only<br \/>\none that is entirely secret and real; to rest in the apparent and to mistake it for the real is the one general error, root of all others<br \/>\nand cause of all our stumbling and suffering, to which man is exposed by the nature of his mentality. We may apply this truth<br \/>\nto the attempt of man to live by the law of his subjective being whether as an individual or as a social unit one in its corporate<br \/>\nmind and body. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tFor this is the sense of the characteristic turn which modern<br \/>\ncivilisation is taking. Everywhere we are beginning, though still sparsely and in a groping tentative fashion, to approach things<br \/>\n\t\t\tfrom the subjective standpoint.&nbsp;<br \/>\n &nbsp; <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page <font face=\"Times New Roman\">\u2013<\/font>44<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p> <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\nIn education our object is to know the psychology of the child as he grows into man and<br \/>\nto found our systems of teaching and training upon that basis. The new aim is to help the child to develop his intellectual,<br \/>\naesthetic, emotional, moral, spiritual being and his communal life and impulses out of his own temperament and capacities,<br \/>\n\t\t\t\u2014<br \/>\na very different object from that of the old education which was simply to pack so much stereotyped knowledge into his resisting<br \/>\nbrain and impose a stereotyped rule of conduct on his struggling and dominated impulses.1 In dealing with the criminal the most<br \/>\nadvanced societies are no longer altogether satisfied with regarding him as a law-breaker to be punished, imprisoned, terrified,<br \/>\nhanged or else tortured physically and morally, whether as a revenge for his revolt or as an example to others; there is a<br \/>\ngrowing attempt to understand him, to make allowance for his heredity, environment and inner deficiencies and to change him<br \/>\nfrom within rather than crush him from without. In the general view of society itself, we begin to regard the community, the<br \/>\nnation or any other fixed grouping of men as a living organism with a subjective being of its own and a corresponding growth<br \/>\nand natural development which it is its business to bring to perfection and fruition. So far, good; the greater knowledge, the<br \/>\ntruer depth, the wiser humanity of this new view of things are obvious. But so also are the limitations of our knowledge and<br \/>\nexperience on this new path and the possibility of serious errors and stumblings. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tIf we look at the new attempt of nations, whether subject or imperial, to fulfil themselves consciously and especially at<br \/>\nthe momentous experiment of the subjective German nationality, we shall see the starting-point of these possible errors.<br \/>\nThe first danger arises from the historical fact of the evolution of the subjective age out of the individualistic; and the first<br \/>\nenormous stumble has accordingly been to transform the error of individualistic<br \/>\n\t\t\tegoism into the more momentous error of a great communal egoism. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<sup>1 <\/sup><font size=\"2\">There has been a rude set-back to this development in totalitarian States whose theory  is that the individual does not exist and only the life of the community matters, but this<br \/>\nnew larger view still holds its own in freer countries.<\/font> <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page <font face=\"Times New Roman\">\u2013<\/font>45<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p> <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tThe individual seeking for the law of<br \/>\nhis being can only find it safely if he regards clearly two great psychological truths and lives in that clear vision. First, the ego<br \/>\nis not the self; there is one self of all and the soul is a portion of that universal Divinity. The fulfilment of the individual is not the<br \/>\nutmost development of his egoistic intellect, vital force, physical well-being and the utmost satisfaction of his mental, emotional,<br \/>\nphysical cravings, but the flowering of the divine in him to its utmost capacity of wisdom, power, love and universality and<br \/>\nthrough this flowering his utmost realisation of all the possible beauty and delight of existence. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tThe will to be, the will to power, the will to know are perfectly legitimate, their satisfaction the true law of our existence<br \/>\nand to discourage and repress them improperly is to mutilate our being and dry up or diminish the sources of life and growth.<br \/>\nBut their satisfaction must not be egoistic, \u2014 not for any other reason moral or religious, but simply because they cannot so<br \/>\nbe satisfied. The attempt always leads to an eternal struggle with other egoisms, a mutual wounding and hampering, even a<br \/>\nmutual destruction in which if we are conquerors today, we are the conquered or the slain tomorrow; for we exhaust ourselves<br \/>\nand corrupt ourselves in the dangerous attempt to live by the destruction and exploitation of others. Only that which lives<br \/>\nin its own self-existence can endure. And generally, to devour others is to register oneself also as a subject and predestined<br \/>\nvictim of Death. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tNo doubt, so long as we live without self-knowledge, we<br \/>\ncan do no other; men and nations have to act and think egoistically, because in their self-ignorance that is the only life known<br \/>\nto them, and to live is their God-given impulse; therefore they must live egoistically rather than not at all, with whatever curb<br \/>\nof law, ethics and practical common sense of self-restraint nature and experience have taught them. But subjectivism is in<br \/>\nits very nature an attempt at self-knowledge and at living by a true self-knowledge and by an inner strength, and there is no<br \/>\nreal gain in it if we only repeat the old error in new terms. &nbsp; <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page <font face=\"Times New Roman\">\u2013<\/font>46<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p> <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\nTherefore we must find out that the true individual is not the ego, but the divine individuality which is through our evolution<br \/>\npreparing to emerge in us; its emergence and satisfaction and not the satisfaction of the mere egoistic will-to-live for the sake<br \/>\nof one&#8217;s lower members is the true object at which a humanity subjectively seeking to know and fulfil its own deepest law and<br \/>\ntruth should increasingly aim. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tThe second psychic truth the individual has to grasp is this,<br \/>\nthat he is not only himself, but is in solidarity with all of his kind, \u2014 let us leave aside for the moment that which seems to be not<br \/>\nof his kind. That which we are has expressed itself through the individual, but also through the universality, and though each<br \/>\nhas to fulfil itself in its own way, neither can succeed independently of the other. The society has no right to crush or efface<br \/>\nthe individual for its own better development or self-satisfaction; the individual, so long at least as he chooses to live in the world,<br \/>\nhas no right to disregard for the sake of his own solitary satisfaction and development his fellow-beings and to live at war<br \/>\nwith them or seek a selfishly isolated good. And when we say, no right, it is from no social, moral or religious standpoint, but<br \/>\nfrom the most positive and simply with a view to the law of existence itself. For neither the society nor the individual can<br \/>\nso develop to their fulfilment. Every time the society crushes or effaces the individual, it is inflicting a wound on itself and<br \/>\ndepriving its own life of priceless sources of stimulation and growth. The individual too cannot flourish by himself; for the<br \/>\nuniversal, the unity and collectivity of his fellow-beings, is his present source and stock; it is the thing whose possibilities he<br \/>\nindividually expresses, even when he transcends its immediate level, and of which in his phenomenal being he is one result.<br \/>\nIts depression strikes eventually at his own sources of life, by its increasing he also increases. This is what a true subjectivism<br \/>\nteaches us, \u2014 first, that we are a higher self than our ego or our members, secondly, that we are in our life and being not only<br \/>\nourselves but all others; for there is a secret solidarity which our egoism may kick at and strive against, but from which we<br \/>\ncannot escape. <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page <font face=\"Times New Roman\">\u2013<\/font>47<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p> <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tIt is the old Indian discovery that our real &quot;I&quot;<br \/>\nis a Supreme Being which is our true self and which it is our business to discover and consciously become and, secondly, that<br \/>\nthat Being is one in all, expressed in the individual and in the collectivity,<sup>2<\/sup> and only by admitting and realising our unity with<br \/>\nothers can we entirely fulfil our true self-being.<sup>3 <\/sup> <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tOf these two truths mankind has had some vague vision in<br \/>\nthe principle with regard to the individual, though it has made only a very poor and fragmentary attempt to regard them in<br \/>\npractice and in nine-tenths of its life has been busy departing from them \u2014 even where it outwardly professed something of<br \/>\nthe law. But they apply not only to the individual but to the nation. Here was the first error of the German subjectivism.<br \/>\nReasoning of the Absolute and the individual and the universal, it looked into itself and saw that in fact, as a matter of life,<br \/>\nThat seemed to express itself as the ego and, reasoning from the conclusions of modern Science, it saw the individual merely as<br \/>\na cell of the collective ego. This collective ego was, then, the greatest actual organised expression of life and to that all ought<br \/>\nto be subservient, for so could Nature and its evolution best be assisted and affirmed. The greater human collectivity exists,<br \/>\nbut it is an inchoate and unorganised existence, and its growth can best be developed by the better development of the most<br \/>\nefficient organised collective life already existing; practically, then, by the growth, perfection and domination of the most<br \/>\nadvanced nations, or possibly of the one most advanced nation, the collective ego which has best realised the purpose of Nature<br \/>\nand whose victory and rule is therefore the will of God. For all organised lives, all self-conscious egos are in a state of war, sometimes overt, sometimes covert, sometimes complete, sometimes partial, and by the survival of the best is secured the highest<br \/>\nadvance of the race. And where was the best, which was the most advanced, self-realising, efficient, highest-cultured nation,<br \/>\nif not, by common admission as well as in Germany&#8217;s own selfvision, Germany<br \/>\n\t\t\titself? <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<sup>2<\/sup><i> <font size=\"2\">vyasti <\/font> <\/i><font size=\"2\">and <i>samasti<\/i>.<\/font><br \/>\n<i>..<\/i><br \/>\n <i>..<\/i> <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<sup>3<\/sup> <font size=\"2\">There is another side of the truth in which this interdependence is not so imperative, but that is a phenomenon of spiritual evolution which has nothing to do with the present<br \/>\n subject.<\/font><br \/>\n &nbsp; <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page <font face=\"Times New Roman\">\u2013<\/font>48<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p> <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tTo fulfil then the collective German ego<br \/>\nand secure its growth and domination was at once the right law of reason, the supreme good of humanity and the mission of the<br \/>\ngreat and supreme Teutonic race.4 <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tFrom this egoistic self-vision flowed a number of logical<br \/>\nconsequences, each in itself a separate subjective error. First, since the individual is only a cell of the collectivity, his life<br \/>\nmust be entirely subservient to the efficient life of the nation. He must be made efficient indeed,<br \/>\n\t\t\t\u2014 the nation should see to<br \/>\nhis education, proper living, disciplined life, carefully trained and subordinated activity,<br \/>\n\t\t\t\u2014 but as a part of the machine or a<br \/>\ndisciplined instrument of the national Life. Initiative must be the collectivity&#8217;s, execution the individual&#8217;s. But where was that<br \/>\nvague thing, the collectivity, and how could it express itself not only as a self-conscious, but an organised and efficient collective<br \/>\nwill and self-directing energy? The State, there was the secret. Let the State be perfect, dominant, all-pervading, all-seeing, alleffecting; so only could the collective ego be concentrated, find itself, and its life be brought to the highest pitch of strength,<br \/>\norganisation and efficiency. Thus Germany founded and established the growing modern error of the cult of the State and the<br \/>\ngrowing subordination driving in the end towards the effacement of the individual. We can see what it gained, an immense<br \/>\ncollective power and a certain kind of perfection and scientific adjustment of means to end and a high general level of economic,<br \/>\nintellectual and social efficiency, \u2014 apart from the tremendous momentary force which the luminous fulfilment of a great idea<br \/>\ngives to man or nation. What it had begun to lose is as yet only slightly apparent,<br \/>\n\t\t\t\u2014 all that deeper life, vision, intuitive power,<br \/>\nforce of personality, psychical sweetness and largeness which the free individual brings as his gift to the race. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tSecondly, since the State is supreme, the representative of the <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<sup>4<\/sup> <font size=\"2\">The emphasis has somewhat shifted now and taken its stand more upon the crude vitalistic<br \/>\n\t\t\tnotions of blood, race, life-room, but the old idea is there giving<br \/>\n\t\t\tmore force to the later formulation. <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page <font face=\"Times New Roman\">\u2013<\/font>49<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p> <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\nDivine or the highest realised functioning of human existence, and has a divine right to the obedience, the unquestioning service<br \/>\nand the whole activity of the individual, the service of State and community is the only absolute rule of morality. Within<br \/>\nthe State this may include and sanction all other moral rules because there no rebel egoism can be allowed, for the individual ego must be lost in that of the State or become part of it and all condition of covert or overt war must be abrogated in<br \/>\nobedience to the collective good as determined by the collective will. But in relation to other States, to other collective egos the<br \/>\ngeneral condition, the effective law is still that of war, of strife between sharply divided egoisms each seeking to fulfil itself,<br \/>\neach hampered and restricted in its field by the others. War then is the whole business of the State in its relation to other<br \/>\nStates, a war of arms, a war of commerce, a war of ideas and cultures, a war of collective personalities each seeking to possess<br \/>\nthe world or at least to dominate and be first in the world. Here there can enter no morality except that of success, though the<br \/>\npretence of morality may be a useful stratagem of war. To serve the State, the German collectivity which is his greater and real<br \/>\nself is the business of the German individual whether at home or abroad, and to that end everything which succeeds is justifiable.<br \/>\nInefficiency, incompetence, failure are the only immorality. In war every method is justified which leads to the military success<br \/>\nof the State, in peace every method which prepares it; for peace between nations is only a covert state of war. And as war is the<br \/>\nmeans of physical survival and domination, so commerce is the means of economic survival and domination; it is in fact only<br \/>\nanother kind of war, another department of the struggle to live, one physical, the other vital. And the life and the body are, so<br \/>\nScience has assured us, the whole of existence. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tThirdly, since the survival of the best is the highest good of<br \/>\nmankind and the survival of the best is secured by the elimination of the unfit and the assimilation of the less fit, the conquest of the<br \/>\nworld by German culture is the straight path of human progress. But culture is not, in this view, merely a state of knowledge or<br \/>\na system or cast of ideas and moral and aesthetic tendencies; &nbsp; <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page <font face=\"Times New Roman\">\u2013<\/font>50<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p> <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\nculture is life governed by ideas, but by ideas based on the truths of life and so organised as to bring it to its highest efficiency.<br \/>\nTherefore all life not capable of this culture and this efficiency must be eliminated or trodden down, all life capable of it but<br \/>\nnot actually reaching to it must be taken up and assimilated. But capacity is always a matter of genus and species and in<br \/>\nhumanity a matter of race. Logically, then, the Teutonic5 race is alone entirely capable, and therefore all Teutonic races must be<br \/>\ntaken into Germany and become part of the German collectivity; races less capable but not wholly unfit must be Germanised; others, hopelessly decadent like the Latins of Europe and America or naturally inferior like the vast majority of the Africans and<br \/>\nAsiatics, must be replaced where possible, like the Hereros, or, where not possible, dominated, exploited and treated according<br \/>\nto their inferiority. So evolution would advance, so the human race grow towards its perfection.<sup>6<\/sup> <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tWe need not suppose that all Germany thought in this strenuous<br \/>\n\t\t\tfashion, as it was too long represented, or that the majority<br \/>\n\t\t\tthought thus consciously; but it is sufficient that an energetic<br \/>\n\t\t\tminority of thinkers and strong personalities should seize upon the<br \/>\n\t\t\tnational life and impress certain tendencies upon it for these to<br \/>\n\t\t\tprevail practically or at the least to give a general trend<br \/>\n\t\t\tsubconsciously even where the thought itself is not actually<br \/>\n\t\t\tproposed in the conscious mind. And the actual events of the present<br \/>\n\t\t\thour seem to show that it was this gospel that partly consciously,<br \/>\n\t\t\tpartly subconsciously or half articulately had taken possession of<br \/>\n\t\t\tthe collective German mind. It is easy to deride the rigidity of<br \/>\n\t\t\tthis terrible logic or riddle it with the ideas and truths it has<br \/>\n\t\t\tignored, and it is still easier to abhor, fear, hate and spew at it<br \/>\n\t\t\twhile practically following its principles in our own action with<br \/>\n\t\t\tless openness, thoroughness and courage. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<sup>5<\/sup> <font size=\"2\">&quot;Nordic&quot; is now the established term.<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<sup>6<\/sup> <font size=\"2\">This was written more than thirty years<br \/>\n\t\t\tago, but later developments have emphasised and brought out the<br \/>\n\t\t\ttruth of the description which was indeed much less apparent then.<\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page <font face=\"Times New Roman\">\u2013<\/font>51<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p> <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tBut it is more profitable to begin by seeing that behind it there<br \/>\n\t\t\twas and is a tremendous sincerity which is the secret of its force,<br \/>\n\t\t\tand a<br \/>\nsort of perverse honesty in its errors; the sincerity which tries to look straight at one&#8217;s own conduct and the facts of life and the<br \/>\nhonesty to proclaim the real principles of that conduct and not \u2014 except as an occasional diplomacy<br \/>\n\t\t\t\u2014 profess others with the<br \/>\nlips while disregarding them in the practice. And if this ideal is to be defeated not merely for a time in the battle-field and in the collective person of the nation or nations professing it, as happened abortively in the War, but in the mind of man and in the life of<br \/>\nthe human race, an equal sincerity and a less perverse honesty has to be practised by those who have arrived at a better law. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tThe German gospel has evidently two sides, the internal and the external, the cult of the State, nation or community and the<br \/>\ncult of international egoism. In the first, Germany, even if for a time entirely crushed in the battle-field, seems to have already<br \/>\nsecured the victory in the moral sense of the human race. The unsparing compulsion as against the assistance of the individual<br \/>\nby the State7 \u2014 for his and the common good, of course, but who professes to compel for harm?<br \/>\n\t\t\t\u2014 is almost everywhere either<br \/>\ndominant or else growing into a strong and prevailing current of opinion; the champions of individual freedom are now a morally<br \/>\ndefeated and dwindling army who can only fight on in the hope of a future reaction or of saving something of their principle from<br \/>\nthe wreck. On the external side, the international, the battle of ideas still goes on, but there were from the beginning ominous<br \/>\nsigns;8 and now after the physical war with its first psychological results is well over, we are already able to see in which direction<br \/>\nthe tide is likely to flow. War is a dangerous teacher and physical victory leads often to a moral defeat. Germany, defeated in the<br \/>\nwar, has won in the after war; the German gospel rearisen in a sterner and fiercer avatar threatens to sweep over all Europe. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;line-height:150%\">\n\t\t\t<sup>7<\/sup><font size=\"2\"> Not always in the form of Socialism, Bolshevik Communism or Fascism. Other forms<br \/>\nof government that are nominally based on the principles of individualistic democracy and freedom have begun to follow the same trend under the disguise or the mere<br \/>\nprofession of its opposite. <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;line-height:150%\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;line-height:150%\">\n\t\t\t<sup>8<\/sup> <font size=\"2\">The League of Nations was at no time a contrary sign. Whatever incidental or  temporary good it might achieve, it could only be an instrument for the domination of<br \/>\nthe rest of the earth by Europe and of all by two or three major nations. &nbsp;<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page <font face=\"Times New Roman\">\u2013<\/font>52<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p> <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tIt is necessary, if we are not to deceive ourselves, to note that even in this field what Germany has done is to systematise<br \/>\ncertain strong actual tendencies and principles of international action to the exclusion of all that either professed to resist or did<br \/>\nactually modify them. If a sacred egoism \u2014 and the expression did not come from Teutonic lips<br \/>\n\t\t\t\u2014 is to govern international<br \/>\nrelations, then it is difficult to deny the force of the German position. The theory of inferior and decadent races was loudly<br \/>\nproclaimed by other than German thinkers and has governed, with whatever assuaging scruples, the general practice of military domination and commercial exploitation of the weak by the strong; all that Germany has done is to attempt to give it<br \/>\na wider extension and more rigorous execution and apply it to European as well as to Asiatic and African peoples. Even the<br \/>\nseverity or brutality of her military methods or of her ways of colonial or internal political repression, taken at their worst,<br \/>\nfor much once stated against her has been proved and admitted to be deliberate lies manufactured by her enemies, was only a<br \/>\ncrystallising of certain recent tendencies towards the revival of ancient and mediaeval hardheartedness in the race. The use and<br \/>\neven the justification of massacre and atrocious cruelty in war on the ground of military exigency and in the course of commercial<br \/>\nexploitation or in the repression of revolt and disorder has been quite recently witnessed in the other continents, to say nothing<br \/>\nof certain outskirts of Europe.9 From one point of view, it is well that terrible examples of the utmost logic of these things<br \/>\nshould be prominently forced on the attention of mankind; for by showing the evil stripped of all veils the choice between good<br \/>\nand evil instead of a halting between the two will be forced on the human conscience. Woe to the race if it blinds its conscience<br \/>\nand buttresses up its animal egoism with the old justifications; for the gods have shown that Karma is not a jest. <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\tBut the whole root of the German error lies in its mistaking life and the body for the self. It has been said that this gospel <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<sup>9<\/sup> Witness Egypt, Ireland, India, and afterwards Abyssinia, Spain, China<br \/>\n\t\t\t\u2014 wherever still man tries to dominate by force over man or nation over nation.<br \/>\n &nbsp; <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page <font face=\"Times New Roman\">\u2013<\/font>53<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p> <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\nis simply a reversion to the ancient barbarism of the religion of Odin; but this is not the truth. It is a new and a modern gospel<br \/>\nborn of the application of a metaphysical logic to the conclusions of materialistic Science, of a philosophic subjectivism to<br \/>\nthe objective pragmatic positivism of recent thought. Just as Germany applied the individualistic position to the realisation<br \/>\nof her communal subjective existence, so she applied the materialistic and vitalistic thought of recent times and equipped it with<br \/>\na subjective philosophy. Thus she arrived at a bastard creed, an objective subjectivism which is miles apart from the true goal of<br \/>\na subjective age. To show the error it is necessary to see wherein lies the true individuality of man and of the nation. It lies not<br \/>\nin its physical, economic, even its cultural life which are only means and adjuncts, but in something deeper whose roots are<br \/>\nnot in the ego, but in a Self one in difference which relates the good of each, on a footing of equality and not of strife and<br \/>\ndomination, to the good of the rest of the world. &nbsp; <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page <font face=\"Times New Roman\">\u2013<\/font>54<\/font><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t<span lang=\"en-gb\"><br \/>\n\t<\/font> <\/font><br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chapter V &nbsp; True and False Subjectivism &nbsp; THE SUBJECTIVE stage of human development is that critical juncture in which, having gone forward from symbols,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-25-the-human-cycle","wpcat-58-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053","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=3053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}