{"id":3069,"date":"2013-07-13T01:45:45","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3069"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:45:45","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:45","slug":"30-the-group-and-the-individual-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\/30-the-group-and-the-individual-vol-25-the-human-cycle","title":{"rendered":"-30_The Group and the Individual.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChapter III <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Group and the Individual <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI<\/font>T IS<\/b> a constant method of Nature, when
\n\t\t\tshe has two elements of a harmony to reconcile, to proceed at first
\n\t\t\tby a long continued balancing in which she sometimes seems to lean
\n\t\t\tentirely on one side, sometimes entirely to the other, at others to
\n\t\t\tcorrect both excesses by a more or less successful temporary
\n\t\t\tadjustment and moderating compromise. The two elements appear then
\n\t\t\tas opponents necessary to each other who therefore labour to arrive
\n\t\t\tat some conclusion of their strife. But as each has its egoism and
\n\t\t\tthat innate tendency of all things which drives them not only
\n\t\t\ttowards self-preservation but towards self-assertion in proportion
\n\t\t\tto their available force, they seek each to arrive at a conclusion
\n\t\t\tin which itself shall have the maximum part and dominate utterly if
\n\t\t\tpossible or even swallow up entirely the egoism of the other in its
\n\t\t\town egoism. Thus the progress towards harmony accomplishes itself by
\n\t\t\ta strife of forces and seems often to be no effort towards concord
\n\t\t\tor mutual adjustment at all, but rather towards a mutual devouring.
\n\t\t\tIn effect, the swallowing up, not of one by the other, but of each
\n\t\t\tby the other, so that both shall live entirely in the other and as
\n\t\t\tthe other, is our highest ideal of oneness. It is the last ideal of
\n\t\t\tlove at which strife tries ignorantly to arrive; for by strife one
\n\t\t\tcan only arrive at an adjustment of the two opposite demands, not at
\n\t\t\ta stable harmony, a compromise between two conflicting egoisms and
\n\t\t\tnot the fusing of them into each other. Still, strife does lead to
\n\t\t\tan increasing mutual comprehension which eventually makes the
\n\t\t\tattempt at real oneness possible. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn the relations between the individual and the group, this constant
\n\t\t\ttendency of Nature appears as the strife between two equally
\n\t\t\tdeep-rooted human tendencies, individualism and collectivism. On one
\n\t\t\tside is the engrossing authority, perfection and development of the
\n\t\t\tState, on the other the distinctive freedom, perfection and
\n\t\t\tdevelopment of the individual man. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 290<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe State idea, the small or the vast living machine, and the human
\n\t\t\tidea, the more and more distinct and luminous Person, the increasing
\n\t\t\tGod, stand in perpetual opposition. The size of the State makes no
\n\t\t\tdifference to the essence of the struggle and need make none to its
\n\t\t\tcharacteristic circumstances. It was the family, the tribe or the
\n\t\t\tcity, the polis<\/i>; it became the clan, the caste and the class,
\n\t\t\tthe kula<\/i>, the gens<\/i>. It is now the nation. Tomorrow or
\n\t\t\tthe day after it may be all mankind. But even then the question will
\n\t\t\tremain poised between man and humanity, between the self-liberating
\n\t\t\tPerson and the engrossing collectivity. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIf we consult only the available facts of history and sociology, we
\n\t\t\tmust suppose that our race began with the all-engrossing group to
\n\t\t\twhich the individual was entirely subservient and that increasing
\n\t\t\tindividuality is a circumstance of human growth, a fruit of
\n\t\t\tincreasing conscious Mind. Originally, we may suppose, man was
\n\t\t\taltogether gregarious, association his first necessity for survival;
\n\t\t\tsince survival is the first necessity of all being, the individual
\n\t\t\tcould be nothing but an instrument for the strength and safety of
\n\t\t\tthe group, and if we add to strength and safety growth, efficiency,
\n\t\t\tself-assertion as well as self-preservation, this is still the
\n\t\t\tdominant idea of all collectivism. This turn is a necessity born of
\n\t\t\tcircumstance and environment. Looking more into fundamental things
\n\t\t\twe perceive that in Matter uniformity is the sign of the group; free
\n\t\t\tvariation and individual development progress with the growth of
\n\t\t\tLife and Mind. If then we suppose man to be an evolution of mental
\n\t\t\tbeing in Matter and out of Matter, we must assume that he begins
\n\t\t\twith uniformity and subservience of the individual and proceeds
\n\t\t\ttowards variety and freedom of the individual. The necessity of
\n\t\t\tcircumstance and environment and the inevitable law of his
\n\t\t\tfundamental principles of being would then point to the same
\n\t\t\tconclusion, the same process of his historic and prehistoric
\n\t\t\tevolution. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut there is also the ancient tradition of humanity, which it is
\n\t\t\tnever safe to ignore or treat as mere fiction, that the social state
\n\t\t\twas preceded by another, free and unsocial. According to modern
\n\t\t\tscientific ideas, if such a state ever existed, and that is far from
\n\t\t\tcertain, it must have been not merely unsocial but anti-social; it
\n\t\t\tmust have been the condition of man as an isolated animal, living as
\n\t\t\tthe beast of prey, before he became in the process of his
\n\t\t\tdevelopment an animal of the pack.   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 291<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut the tradition is rather that of a golden age in which he was
\n\t\t\tfreely social without society. Not bound by laws or institutions but
\n\t\t\tliving by natural instinct or free knowledge, he held the right law
\n\t\t\tof his living in himself and needed neither to prey on his fellows
\n\t\t\tnor to be restrained by the iron yoke of the collectivity. We may
\n\t\t\tsay, if we will, that here poetic or idealistic imagination played
\n\t\t\tupon a deep-seated race-memory; early civilised man read his growing
\n\t\t\tideal of a free, unorganised, happy association into his race-memory
\n\t\t\tof an unorganised, savage and anti-social existence. But it is also
\n\t\t\tpossible that our progress has not been a development in a straight
\n\t\t\tline, but in cycles, and that in those cycles there have been
\n\t\t\tperiods of at least partial realisation in which men did become able
\n\t\t\tto live according to the high dream of philosophic Anarchism,
\n\t\t\tassociated by the inner law of love and light and right being, right
\n\t\t\tthinking, right action and not coerced to unity by kings and
\n\t\t\tparliaments, laws and policings and punishments with all that tyrant
\n\t\t\tunease, petty or great oppression and repression and ugly train of
\n\t\t\tselfishness and corruption which attend the forced government of man
\n\t\t\tby man. It is even possible that our original state was an
\n\t\t\tinstinctive animal spontaneity of free and fluid association and
\n\t\t\tthat our final ideal state will be an enlightened, intuitive
\n\t\t\tspontaneity of free and fluid association. Our destiny may be the
\n\t\t\tconversion of an original animal association into a community of the
\n\t\t\tgods. Our progress may be a devious round leading from the easy and
\n\t\t\tspontaneous uniformity and harmony which reflects Nature to the
\n\t\t\tself-possessed unity which reflects the Divine. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHowever that may be, history and sociology tell us only \u2014 outside
\n\t\t\tthe attempts of religious or other idealisms to arrive either at a
\n\t\t\tfree solitude or a free association \u2014 of man as an individual in the
\n\t\t\tmore or less organised group.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 292<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t And in the group there are always two types. One asserts the State
\n\t\t\tidea at the expense of the individual, \u2014 ancient Sparta, modern
\n\t\t\tGermany; another asserts the supremacy of the State, but seeks at
\n\t\t\tthe same time to give as much freedom, power and dignity as is
\n\t\t\tconsistent with its control to the individuals who constitute it, \u2014
\n\t\t\tancient Athens, modern France. But to these two has been added a
\n\t\t\tthird type in which the State abdicates as much as possible to the
\n\t\t\tindividual, boldly asserts that it exists for his growth and to
\n\t\t\tassure his freedom, dignity, successful manhood, experiments with a
\n\t\t\tcourageous faith whether after all it is not the utmost possible
\n\t\t\tliberty, dignity and manhood of the individual which will best
\n\t\t\tassure the well-being, strength and expansion of the State. Of this
\n\t\t\ttype England has been until recently the great exemplar, \u2014 England
\n\t\t\trendered free, prosperous, energetic, invincible by nothing else but
\n\t\t\tthe strength of this idea within her, blessed by the Gods with
\n\t\t\tunexampled expansion, empire and good fortune because she has not
\n\t\t\tfeared at any time to obey this great tendency and take the risks of
\n\t\t\tthis great endeavour and even often to employ it beyond the limits
\n\t\t\tof her own insular egoism. Unfortunately, that egoism, the defects
\n\t\t\tof the race and the exaggerated assertion of a limited idea, which
\n\t\t\tis the mark of our human ignorance, have prevented her from giving
\n\t\t\tit the noblest and richest possible expression or to realise by it
\n\t\t\tother results which the more strictly organised States have attained
\n\t\t\tor are attaining. And in consequence we find the collective or State
\n\t\t\tidea breaking down the old English tradition and it is possible that
\n\t\t\tbefore long the great experiment will have come to an end in a
\n\t\t\tlamentable admission of failure by the adoption of that Germanic
\n\t\t\t"discipline" and "efficient" organisation towards which all
\n\t\t\tcivilised humanity seems now to be tending. One may well ask oneself
\n\t\t\twhether it was really necessary, whether, by a more courageous faith
\n\t\t\tenlightened by a more flexible and vigilant intelligence, all the
\n\t\t\tdesirable results might not have been attained by a new and freer
\n\t\t\tmethod that would yet keep intact the dharma <\/i>of the race. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWe must, again, note one other fact in connection with the claim of
\n\t\t\tthe State to suppress the individual in its own interest, that it is
\n\t\t\tquite immaterial to the principle what form the State may assume.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 293<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe tyranny of the absolute king over all and the tyranny of the
\n\t\t\tmajority over the individual \u2014 which really converts itself by the
\n\t\t\tparadox of human nature into a hypnotised oppression and repression
\n\t\t\tof the majority by itself \u2014 are forms of one and the same tendency.
\n\t\t\tEach, when it declares itself to \u00b4<\/i> be the State with its
\n\t\t\tabsolute "L’etat, c’est moi"<\/i>, is speaking a profound truth
\n\t\t\teven while it bases that truth upon a falsehood. The truth is that
\n\t\t\teach really is the self-expression of the State in its
\n\t\t\tcharacteristic attempt to subordinate to itself the free will, the
\n\t\t\tfree action, the power, dignity and self-assertion of the
\n\t\t\tindividuals constituting it. The falsehood lies in the underlying
\n\t\t\tidea that the State is something greater than the individuals
\n\t\t\tconstituting it and can with impunity to itself and to the highest
\n\t\t\thope of humanity arrogate this oppressive supremacy. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn modern times the State idea has after a long interval fully
\n\t\t\treasserted itself and is dominating the thought and action of the
\n\t\t\tworld. It supports itself on two motives; one appeals to the
\n\t\t\texternal interest of the race, the other to its highest moral
\n\t\t\ttendencies. It demands that individual egoism shall immolate itself
\n\t\t\tto a collective interest; it claims that man shall live not for
\n\t\t\thimself but for the whole, the group, the community. It asserts that
\n\t\t\tthe hope of the good and progress of humanity lies in the efficiency
\n\t\t\tand organisation of the State. Its way to perfection lies through
\n\t\t\tthe ordering by the State of all the economic and vital arrangements
\n\t\t\tof the individual and the group, the "mobilisation", to use a
\n\t\t\tspecious expression the war has set in vogue, of the intellect,
\n\t\t\tcapacity, thought, emotion, life of the individual, of all that he
\n\t\t\tis and has, by the State in the interest of all. Pushed to its
\n\t\t\tultimate conclusion, this means the socialistic ideal in full force
\n\t\t\tand towards that conclusion humanity seems to be heading with a
\n\t\t\tremarkable rapidity. The State idea is rushing towards possession
\n\t\t\twith a great motor force and is prepared to crush under its wheels
\n\t\t\teverything that conflicts with its force or asserts the right of
\n\t\t\tother human tendencies. And yet the two ideas on which it bases
\n\t\t\titself are full of that fatal mixture of truth and falsehood which
\n\t\t\tpursues all our human claims and assertions. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 294<\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt is necessary to apply to them the solvent of a searching and
\n\t\t\tunbiassed thought which refuses to be cheated by words, if we are
\n\t\t\tnot to describe helplessly another circle of illusion before we
\n\t\t\treturn to the deep and complex truth of Nature which should rather
\n\t\t\tbe our light and guide.   <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 295<\/p>\n

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

Chapter III   The Group and the Individual   IT IS a constant method of Nature, when she has two elements of a harmony to…<\/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-3069","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\/3069","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=3069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3069\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}