{"id":3153,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:20","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3153"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:20","slug":"35-internationalism-and-human-unity-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/the-ideal-of-human-unity\/35-internationalism-and-human-unity-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","title":{"rendered":"-35_Internationalism and Human Unity.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\nCHAPTER XXXIII <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nINTERNATIONALISM AND HUMAN UNITY<\/b><\/font>
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HE<\/font> great necessity, then, and the great difficulty is to
\nhelp this idea of humanity, which is already at work upon our
\nminds and has even begun in a very slight degree to influence
\nfrom above our actions, and turn it into something more than an
\nidea, however strong, to make it a central motive and a fixed
\npart of our nature. Its satisfaction must become a necessity of
\nour psychological being just as the family idea or the national
\nidea has become each a psychological motive with its own need
\nof satisfaction. But how is this to be done? The family idea had
\nthe advantage of growing out of a primary vital need in our being and therefore
\nit had not the least difficulty in becoming a psychological motive and need; for our readiest and strongest mental
\nmotives and psychological needs are those which grow out of our
\nvital necessities and instincts. The clan and the tribe ideas had a
\nsimilar origin, less primary and compelling, and therefore looser
\nand more dissoluble; but still they arose from the vital necessity
\nin human nature for aggregation and the ready basis given to it
\nby the inevitable physical growth of the family into the clan
\nor tribe. These were natural aggregations, evolutionary forms
\nalready prepared on the animal level. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe nation idea, on the contrary, did not arise from a primary vital need, but from a secondary or even tertiary necessity
\nwhich resulted not from anything inherent in our vital nature,
\nbut from circumstances, from environmental evolution; it arose
\nnot from a vital, but from a geographical and historical necessity.
\nAnd we notice that as one result it had to be created most commonly <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-299<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nby force, force of circumstances partly, no doubt, but
\nalso by physical force, by the power of the king and the conquering tribe converted into a military and dominant State. Or else
\nit came by a reaction against force, a revolt against conquest and
\ndomination that brought a slow or sudden compactness of peoples who, though geographically or even historically and culturally one, had lacked power of cohesion and remained too conscious of an original heterogeneity or of local and regional and
\nother divisions. But still the necessity was there, and the nation
\nform after many failures and false successes got into being, and
\nthe psychological motive of patriotism, a sign of the growth of
\na conscious national ego, arose in the form as the expression of
\nits soul and the guarantee of its durability. For without such a
\nsoul, such a psychological force and presence within the frame,
\nthere can be no guarantee of durability. Without it, what circumstances have created, circumstances easily will destroy. It
\nwas for this reason that the ancient world failed to create nations, except on a small scale, little clan and regional nations of
\nbrief duration and usually of loose structure; it created only artificial empires which went to pieces and left chaos behind them. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nWhat then of this international unity now in the first obscure throes of the preformatory stage resembling a ferment of
\ncells drawing together for amalgamation? What is the compelling
\nnecessity behind it? If we look at outward things only, the necessity is much less direct and much less compelling than any that
\npreceded it. There is here no vital necessity; mankind as a whole
\ncan get on well enough without international unity, so far as
\nmere living goes; it will not be at all a perfect, rational or ideal
\ncollective living of the race,\u2014but after all where is there yet any
\nelement in human life or society which is perfect, rational or
\nideal? As yet at least none; still we get on somehow with life,
\nbecause the vital man in us who is the dominant element in our
\ninstincts and in our actions, cares for none of these things and
\nis quite satisfied with any just tolerable or any precariously or
\npartly agreeable form of living, because that is all to which he is
\naccustomed and all therefore that he feels to be necessary. The <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-300<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nmen who are not satisfied, the thinkers, the idealists are always
\na minority and in the end an ineffectual minority, because
\nthough always in the end they do get their way partly, their
\nvictory yet turns into a defeat; for the vital man remains still the
\nmajority and degrades the apparent success into a pitiful parody
\nof their rational hope, their clear-sighted ideal or their strong
\ncounsel of perfection. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe geographical necessity for a unification of this kind
\ndoes not exist, unless we consider that it has been created through
\nthe drawing closer together of the earth and its inhabitants by
\nScience and her magical lessening of physical distances and attenuation of barriers. But whatever may happen in the future,
\nthis is as yet not sufficient; earth is still large enough and her
\ndivisions still real enough for her to do without any formal
\nunity. If there is any strong need, it may be described\u2014if such
\nan epithet can be applied to a thing in the present and the future\u2014as a historical necessity, that is, a need which has arisen
\nas the result of certain actual circumstances that have grown up
\nin the evolution of international relations. And that need is economic, political, mechanical, likely under certain circumstances
\nto create some tentative or preliminary framework, but not at
\nfirst a psychological reality which will vivify the frame. Moreover, it is not yet sufficiently vital to be precisely a necessity; for
\nit amounts mainly to a need for the removal of certain perils and
\ninconveniences, such as the constant danger of war, and at most
\nto the strong desirability of a better international coordination.
\nBut by itself this creates only a possibility, not even a moral certainty, of a first vague sketch and loose framework of unity
\nwhich may or may not lead to something more close and real. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut there is another power than that of external circumstance which we have a right to take into consideration. For behind all the external circumstances and necessities of which we
\nare more easily aware in Nature, there is always an internal
\nnecessity in the being, a will and a design in Nature itself which
\nprecedes the outward signals of its development and in spite of
\nall obstacles and failures must in the long end inevitably get <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-301<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nitself realised. Nowadays we can see this truth everywhere in
\nNature down to her lowest forms; a will in the very seed of the
\nbeing, not quite conscious or only partially conscious in the
\nform itself, but still present there in Nature. It is subconscious
\nor even inconscient if you like, but it is still a blind will, a mute
\nidea which contains beforehand the form it is going to create, is
\naware of a necessity other than the environmental, a necessity
\ncontained in the very being itself, and creates persistently and
\ninevitably a form that best answers to the necessity, however we
\nmay labour to interfere with or thwart its operations. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThis is true biologically, but it is also, though in a more
\nsubtle and variable way, psychologically true. Now the very
\nnature of man is that of an individual who on one side is always
\nemphasising and developing his individual being to the extent
\nof his power but who is also driven by the Idea or Truth within
\nhim to unify himself with others of his species, to join himself
\nto them or agglutinate them to him, to create human groups,
\naggregates and collectivities. And if there is an aggregate or collectivity which it is possible for him to realise but is not yet
\nrealised, we may be sure that that too in the end he will create.
\nThis will in him is not always or often quite conscient or foreseeing; it is often largely subconscient, but even then it is eventually irresistible. And if it gets into his conscious mind, as the
\ninternational idea has now done, we may count on a more rapid
\nevolution. Such a will in Nature creates for itself favourable
\nexternal circumstances and happenings or finds them created
\nfor it in the stress of events. And even if they are insufficient,
\nshe will still often use them beyond their apparent power of
\neffectivity, not minding the possibility of failure, for she knows
\nthat in the end she will succeed and every experience of failure
\nwill help to better the eventual success. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nWell then, it may be said, let us trust to this inevitable will
\nin Nature and let us follow out her method of operation. Let us
\ncreate anyhow this framework, any framework of the aggregate; for she knows already the complete form she intends and she
\nwill work out eventually in her own time by the power of the <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-302<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nidea and our will to realise it, by help of strong force of circumstances, by pressure of all kinds, by physical force even, if need
\nbe, since that too seems still to be a part of her necessary machinery, let us create it. Let us have the body; the soul will grow
\nin the body. And we need not mind if the bodily formation is
\nartificial with at first a small or no conscious psychological reality
\nto vivify it. That will begin to form itself as soon as the body has
\nbeen formed; for the nation too was at first more or less artificially formed out of incoherent elements actually brought together by the necessity of a subconscient idea, though apparently
\nit was done only by physical force and the force of circumstances.
\nAs a national ego formed which identified itself with the geographical body of the nation and developed in it the psychological instinct of national unity and the need of its satisfaction, so
\na collective human ego will develop in the international body
\nand will evolve in it the psychological instinct of human unity
\nand the need of its satisfaction. That will be the guarantee of
\nduration. And that possibly is how the thing will happen, man
\nbeing what he is; indeed if we cannot do better, it will so happen,
\nsince happen somehow it must, whether in the worse way or the
\nbetter. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIt may be as well to review here briefly in the light of this
\nconsideration the main possibilities and powers which are shaping us towards such an end in the present world conditions.
\nThe old means of unification, conquest by a single great power,
\nwhich would reduce part of the world by force and bring the
\nremaining nations into the condition of dependencies, protectorates and dependent allies, the whole forming the basic structure of a great final unification,\u2014this was the character of the
\nancient Roman precedent,\u2014does not seem immediately possible.
\nIt would require a great predominance of force simultaneously
\nby sea and land,* an irresistibly superior science and organisation
\nand with all this a constantly successful diplomacy and an invincible good fortune. If war and diplomacy are still to be the
\ndecisive factors in international politics in the future as in the <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n* Now also by air. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-303<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\npast, it would be rash to predict that such a combination may
\nnot arise, and if other means fail, it must arise; for there is
\nnothing that can be set down as impossible in the chances of the
\nfuture, and the urge in Nature always creates its own means.
\nBut, at present, the possibilities of the future do not seem to
\npoint in this direction. There is, on the other hand, a very strong
\npossibility of the whole earth, or at least the three continents of
\nthe eastern hemisphere, being dominated by three or four great
\nempires largely increased in extent of dominion, spheres of influence, protectorates, and thereby exercising a pre-eminence
\nwhich they could either maintain by agreements, avoiding all
\ncauses of conflict, or in a rivalry which would be the cause of
\nfresh wars and changes. This would normally have been the
\nresult of the great European conflict. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut there has struck across this possibility a revived strength
\nof the idea of nationality expressed in the novel formula of the
\nprinciple of self-determination to which the great world empires
\nhave had to pay at least a verbal homage. The idea of international unity to which this intervention of the revived force
\nof nationality is leading, takes the form of a so-called League of
\nNations. Practically, however, the League of Nations under
\npresent conditions or any likely to be immediately realised would
\nstill mean the control of the earth by a few great powers,\u2014a control that would be checked only by the necessity of conciliating
\nthe sympathy and support of the more numerous smaller or less
\npowerful nations. On the force and influence of these few would
\nrest practically, if not admittedly, the decision of all important
\ndebatable questions. And without it there could be no chance of
\nenforcing the decisions of the majority against any recalcitrant
\ngreat Power or combination of Powers. The growth of democratic institutions would perhaps help to minimise the chances
\nof conflict and of the abuse of power,\u2014though that is not at all
\ncertain; but it would not alter this real character of the combination. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIn all this there is no immediate prospect of any such form
\nof unification as would give room for a real psychological sense <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-304<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof unity, much less necessitate its growth. Such a form might
\nevolve; but we should have to trust for it to the chapter of accidents or at best to the already declared urge in Nature expressed in the internationalist idea. On that side, there was at
\none time a possibility which seemed to be very suddenly and
\nrapidly growing into something more, the emergence of a powerful party in all the advanced countries of the world pledged to
\ninternationalism, conscious of its necessity as a first condition
\nfor their other aims and more and more determined to give it
\nprecedence and to unite internationally to bring it about. That
\ncombination of the intellectuals with Labour which created the
\nSocialist parties in Germany, Russia and Austria, formed anew
\nrecently the Labour party in England and has had its counterparts in most other European countries, seems to be travelling in
\nthat direction. This world-wide movement which made internationalism and Labour rule its two main principles, had already created the Russian revolution and seemed ready to bring
\nabout another great socialistic revolution in central Europe. It
\nwas conceivable that this party might everywhere draw together.
\nBy a chain of revolutions such as took place in the nineteenth
\ncentury and of less violent but still rapid evolutions brought
\nabout by the pressure of their example, or even by simply growing into the majority in each country, the party might control
\nEurope. It might create counterparts of itself in all the American republics and in Asiatic countries. It might by using the
\nmachinery of the League of Nations or, where necessary, by
\nphysical force or economic or other pressure persuade or compel
\nall the nations into some more stringent system of international
\nunification. A World-State or else a close confederation of democratic peoples might be created with a common governing body
\nfor the decision of principles and for all generally important affairs or at least for all properly international affairs and problems; a common law of the nations might grow up and international
\ncourts to administer it and some kind of system of international
\npolice control to maintain and enforce it. In this way, by the
\ngeneral victory of an idea, Socialism after seeking to organise <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-305<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nhumanity according to its own model or by any other yet unforeseen way, a sufficient formal unity might come into existence. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe question then arises, how out of this purely formal
\nunity a real psychological unity can be created and whether it
\ncan be made a living oneness. For a mere formal, mechanical,
\nadministrative, political and economic union does not necessarily create a psychological unity. None of the great empires
\nhave yet succeeded in doing that, and even in the Roman where
\nsome sense of unity did come into being, it was nothing very
\nclose and living; it could not withstand all shocks from within
\nand without, it could not prevent what was much more dangerous, the peril of decay and devitalisation which the diminution
\nof the natural elements of free variation and helpful struggle
\nbrought with it. A complete world-union would have indeed
\nthis advantage that it would have no need to fear forces from
\nwithout, for no such forces would any longer exist. But this very
\nabsence of outer pressure might well give greater room and power
\nto internal elements of disintegration and still more to the opportunities of decay. It might indeed for a long time foster an
\ninternal intellectual and political activity and social progress
\nwhich would keep it living; but this principle of progress would
\nnot be always secure against a natural tendency to exhaustion
\nand stagnation which every diminution of variety and even the
\nvery satisfaction of social and economic well-being might well
\nhasten. Disruption of unity would then be necessary to restore
\nhumanity to life. Again, while the Roman Empire appealed only
\nto the idea of Roman unity, an artificial and accidental principle,
\nthis World-State would appeal to the idea of human unity, a real
\nand vital principle. But if the idea of unity can appeal to the
\nhuman mind, so too can the idea of separative life, for both
\naddress themselves to vital instincts of his nature. What guarantee will there be that the latter will not prevail when man has
\nonce tried unity and finds perhaps that its advantages do not
\nsatisfy his whole nature? Only the growth of some very powerful
\npsychological factor will make unity necessary to him, whatever <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-306<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nother changes and manipulations might be desirable to satisfy
\nhis other needs and instincts. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe formal unification of mankind would come <\/b> in upon us
\nin the shape of a system which would be born, grow, come to its
\nculmination. But every system by the very nature of things tends
\nafter its culmination to decay and die. To prevent the organism
\ndecaying and dying there must be such a psychological reality
\nwithin as will persist and survive all changes of its body. Nations
\nhave that in a sort of collective national ego which persists
\nthrough all vital changes. But this ego is not by any means self-existent and immortal; it supports itself on certain things with
\nwhich it is identified. There is the geographical body, the country; the common interests of all who inhabit the same country,
\ndefence, economic well-being and progress, political liberty; thirdly, a common name, sentiment, culture. But we have to
\nmark that this national ego owes its life to the coalescence of the
\nseparative instinct and the instinct of unity; for the nation
\nfeels itself one as distinguished from other nations; it owes its
\nvitality to interchange with them and struggle with them in all
\nthe activities of its nature. Nor are all these altogether sufficient; there is a deeper factor. There must be a sort of religion of country, a constant even if not always explicit recognition not only
\nof the sacredness of the physical mother, the land, but also, in
\nhowever obscure a way, of the nation as a collective soul which
\nit is the first duty and need of every man to keep alive, to defend
\nfrom suppression or mortal attaint or, if suppressed, then to
\nwatch, wait and struggle for its release and rehabilitation, if sick-lied over with the touch of any fatal spiritual ailment, then to
\nlabour always to heal and revivify and save alive. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe World-State will give its inhabitants the great advantages of peace, economic well-being, general security, combination for intellectual, cultural, social activity and progress. None
\nof these are in themselves sufficient to create the thing needed.
\nPeace and security we all desire at present, because we have
\nthem not in sufficiency; but we must remember that man has <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-307<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nalso within him the need of combat, adventure, struggle, almost
\nrequires these for his growth and healthy living; that instinct
\nwould be largely suppressed by a universal peace and a Hat security, and it might rise up successfully against suppression. Economic well-being by itself cannot permanently satisfy, and the
\nprice paid for it might be so heavy as to diminish its appeal and
\nvalue. The human instinct for liberty, individual and national,
\nmight well be a constant menace to the World-State, unless it so
\nskillfully arranged its system as to give them sufficient free-play.
\nA common, intellectual, cultural activity and progress may do
\nmuch, but need not by themselves be sufficient to bring into
\nbeing the fully powerful psychological factor that would be required. And the collective ego created would have to rely on the
\ninstinct of unity alone; for it would be in conflict with the separative instinct which gives the national ego half its vitality. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIt is not impossible that the indispensable inner factor for
\nthis outer frame might be increasingly created, in its very process
\nof growth, but certain psychological elements would have to be
\npresent in great strength. There would be needed, to make the
\nchange persist, a religion of humanity or an equivalent sentiment much more powerful, explicit, self-conscious, universal in
\nits appeal than the nationalist’s religion of country; the clear
\nrecognition by man in all his thought and life of a single soul in
\nhumanity of which each man and each people is an incarnation
\nand soul-form; and ascension of man beyond the principle of ego
\nwhich lives by separativeness,\u2014and yet there must be no destruction of individuality, for without that man would stagnate; a
\nprinciple and arrangement of the common life which would give
\nfree play to the individual variation, interchange in diversity and
\nthe need of adventure and conquest by which the soul of roan
\nlives and grows great, and sufficient means of expressing all the
\nresultant complex life and growth in a flexible and progressive
\nform of human society. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-308<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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