{"id":3154,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:21","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3154"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:21","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:21","slug":"05-the-group-and-the-individual-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\/05-the-group-and-the-individual-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","title":{"rendered":"-05_The Group And The Individual.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL<\/b><\/font>
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nI<\/font>T<\/font> is a constant method of Nature, when she has two
\nelements of a harmony to reconcile, to proceed at first by a long continued
\nbalancing in which she sometimes seems to lean entirely on one side, sometimes entirely to the other, at others to
\ncorrect both excesses by a more or less successful temporary adjustment and moderating compromise. The two elements appear
\nthen as opponents necessary to each other who therefore labour
\nto arrive at some conclusion of their strife. But as each has its
\negoism and that innate tendency of all things which drives them
\nnot only towards self-preservation but towards self-assertion in
\nproportion to their available force, they seek each to arrive at a
\nconclusion in which itself shall have the maximum part and
\ndominate utterly if possible or even swallow up entirely the
\negoism of the other in its own egoism. Thus the progress towards
\nharmony accomplishes itself by a strife of forces and seems often
\nto be no effort towards concord or mutual adjustment at all, but
\nrather towards a mutual devouring. In effect, the swallowing up,
\nnot of one by the other, but of each by the other, so that both
\nshall live entirely in the other and as the other, is our highest
\nMeal of oneness. It is the last ideal of love at which strife tries ignorantly
\nto arrive; for by strife one can only arrive at an adjustment or the two opposite demands, not at a stable harmony, a
\ncompromise between two conflicting egoisms and not the fusing
\nthem into each other. Still, strife does lead to an increasing, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-29<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nmutual comprehension which eventually makes the attempt a
\nreal oneness possible. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn the relations between the individual and the group, this
\nconstant tendency of Nature appears as the strife between two
\nequally deep-rooted human tendencies, individualism and collectivism. On one side is the engrossing authority, perfection
\nand development of the State, on the other the distinctive freedom, perfection and development of the individual man. The
\nState idea, the small or the vast living machine, and the human
\nidea, the more and more distinct and luminous Person, the in
\ncreasing God, stand in perpetual opposition. The size of the State
\nmakes no difference to the essence of the struggle and need make
\nnone to its characteristic circumstances. It was the family, the
\ntribe or the city, the polis;<\/i> it became the clan, the caste and the
\nclass, the kula,<\/i> the gens<\/i>. It is now the nation. Tomorrow or
\nthe day after it may be all mankind. But even then the question
\nwill remain poised between man and humanity, between, the
\nself-liberating Person and the engrossing collectivity. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIf we consult only the available facts of history and sociology, we must suppose that our race began with the all-engrossing
\ngroup to which the individual was entirely subservient and that
\nincreasing individuality is a circumstance of human growth, a <\/i>fruit of increasing conscious Mind. Originally, we may suppose
\nman was altogether gregarious, association his first necessity for
\nsurvival; since survival is the first necessity of all being, the individual could be nothing but an instrument for the strength
\nand safety of the group, and if we add to strength and safety
\ngrowth, efficiency, self-assertion as well as self-preservation, this
\nis still the dominant idea of all collectivism. This turn is a necessity born of circumstance and environment. Looking more into
\nfundamental things we perceive that in Matter uniformity is the
\nsign of the group; free variation and individual development
\nprogresses with the growth of Life and Mind. If then we suppose
\nman to be an evolution of mental being in Matter and out of
\nMatter, we must assume that he begins with uniformity an"
\nsubservience of the individual and proceeds towards variety <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-30<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nand freedom of the individual. The necessity of circumstance
\nand environment and the inevitable law of his fundamental principles of being would then point to the same conclusion, the
\nsame process of his historic and prehistoric evolution. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut there is also the ancient tradition of humanity, which
\nit is never safe to ignore or treat as mere fiction, that the social
\nstate was preceded by another, free and unsocial. According to
\nmodern scientific ideas, if such a state ever existed, and that is
\nfar from certain, it must have been not merely unsocial but antisocial; it must have been the condition of man as an isolated
\nanimal, living as the beast of prey, before he became in the process of his development an animal of the pack. But the tradition
\nis rather that of a golden age in which he was freely social without society. Not bound by laws or institutions but living by natural instinct or free knowledge, he held the right law of his living
\nin himself and needed neither to prey on his fellows nor to be
\nrestrained by the iron yoke of the collectivity. We may say, if we
\nwill, that here poetic or idealistic imagination played upon a
\ndeep-seated race-memory; early civilised man read his growing
\nideal of a free, unorganised, happy association into his race-memory of an unorganised, savage and anti-social existence. But
\nit is also possible that our progress has not been a development
\nin a straight line, but in cycles, and that in those cycles there
\nhave been periods of at least partial realisation in which men
\ndid become able to live according to the high dream of philosophic Anarchism, associated by the inner law of love and light
\nand right being, right thinking, right action and not coerced to
\nunity by kings and parliaments, laws and policings and punishments with all that tyrant unease, petty or great oppression and
\nrepression and ugly train of selfishness and corruption which
\nattend the forced government of man by man. It is even possible
\nthat our original state was an instinctive animal spontaneity of
\ntee and fluid association and that our final ideal state will be an
\nlightened, intuitive spontaneity of free and fluid association.
\nOur destiny may be the conversion of an original animal association into a community of the gods. Our progress may be a devious <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-31<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nround leading from the easy and spontaneous uniformity an
\nharmony which reflects Nature to the self-possessed unity which
\nreflects the Divine. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nHowever that may be, history and sociology tell us only
\noutside the attempts of religious or other idealisms to arrive
\neither at a free solitude or a free association\u2014of man as an individual in the more or less organised group. And in the group
\nthere are always two types. One asserts the State idea at the
\nexpense of the individual,\u2014ancient Sparta, modern Germany
\nanother asserts the supremacy of the State but seeks at the same
\ntime to give as much freedom, power and dignity as is consistent
\nwith its control to the individuals who constitute it,\u2014ancient Athens, modern
\nFrance. But to these two has been added a third type in which the State
\nabdicates as much as possible to the individual, boldly asserts that it exists
\nfor his growth and to assure his freedom, dignity, successful manhood,
\nexperiments with a courageous faith whether after all it is not the utmost
\npossible liberty, dignity and manhood of the individual which will best assure
\nthe well-being, strength and expansion of the State. Of this type England has
\nbeen until recently the great exemplar,\u2014England rendered free, prosperous,
\nenergetic, invincible by nothing else but the strength of this idea within her, blessed by the Gods with unexampled expansion, empire and
\ngood fortune because she has not feared at any time to obey this great tendency and take the risks of this great endeavour and,
\neven often to employ it beyond the limits of her own insular
\negoism. Unfortunately, that egoism, the defects of the race and
\nthe exaggerated assertion of a limited idea which is the mark of
\nour human ignorance have prevented her from giving it the noblest and richest possible expression or to realise by it other results which the more strictly organised States have attained or
\nare attaining. And in consequence we find the collective or State
\nidea breaking down the old English tradition and it is possible
\nthat before long the great experiment will have come to an end
\nin a lamentable admission of failure by the adoption of that
\nGermanic "discipline" and "efficient" organisation, towards <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-32<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nwhich all civilised humanity seems now to be tending. One may
\nwell ask oneself whether it was really necessary, whether, by a more courageous faith enlightened by a more flexible and vigilant
\nintelligence, all the desirable results might not have been attained by a new and freer method that would yet keep intact
\nthe dharma<\/i> of the race. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nWe must, again, note one other fact in connection with the
\nclaim of the State to suppress the individual in its own interest,
\nthat it is quite immaterial to the principle what form the State
\nmay assume. The tyranny of the absolute king over all or the
\ntyranny of the majority over the individual\u2014which really converts itself by the paradox of human nature into a hypnotised
\noppression and repression of the majority by itself\u2014are forms of
\none and the same tendency. Each, when it declares itself to be
\nthe State with its absolute "L’etat, c’est moi,"<\/i> is speaking a profound truth even while it bases that truth upon a falsehood. The
\ntruth is that each really is the self-expression of the State in its
\ncharacteristic attempt to subordinate to itself the free will, the
\nfree action, the power, dignity and self-assertion of the individuals constituting it. The falsehood lies in the underlying idea
\nthat the State is something greater than the individuals constituting it and can with impunity for itself and to the highest hope
\nof humanity arrogate this oppressive supremacy. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn modern times the State idea has after a long interval
\nfully reasserted itself and is dominating the thought and action
\nor the world. It supports itself on two motives; one appeals to
\nthe-external interest of the race, the other to its highest moral
\ntendencies. It demands that individual egoism shall immolate itself to a collective interest; it claims that man shall live not for
\nhimself but for the whole, the group, the community. It asserts
\nthat the hope of the good and progress of humanity lies in the
\nefficiency and organisation of the State. Its way to perfection lies through the
\nordering by the State of all the economic and vital arrangements of the individual and the group, the "mobilisation," to use a specious expression the war has set in vogue, of
\nthe intellect, capacity, thought, emotion, life of the individual, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-33<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nof all that he is and has, by the State in the interest of all
\nPushed to its ultimate conclusion, this means the socialistic idea
\nin full force and towards that conclusion humanity seems to be
\nheading with a remarkable rapidity. The State idea is rushing
\ntowards possession with a great motor force and is prepared to
\ncrush under its wheels everything that conflicts with its force a
\nasserts the right of other human tendencies. And yet the two
\nideas on which it bases itself are full of that fatal mixture of
\ntruth and falsehood which pursues all our human claims and
\n<\/i>assertions. It is necessary to apply to them the solvent of a searching and unbiassed thought which refuses to be cheated by
\nwords, if we are not to describe helplessly another circle of illusion before we return to the deep and complex truth of Nature
\nwhich should rather be our light and guide. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n Page-34<\/font><\/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":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-ideal-of-human-unity","wpcat-63-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154","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=3154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}