{"id":3161,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3161"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:23","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:23","slug":"21-the-drive-towards-centralisation-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\/21-the-drive-towards-centralisation-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","title":{"rendered":"-21_The Drive Towards Centralisation.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\nCHAPTER XIX <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nTHE DRIVE TOWARDS CENTRALISATION <\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\nAND UNIFORMITY. ADMINISTRATION <\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\nAND CONTROL OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS<\/b><\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nS<\/font>UPPOSING<\/font> the free grouping of the nations according to
\ntheir natural affinities, sentiments, sense of economical and other
\nconvenience to be the final basis of a stable world-union, the
\nnext question that arises is what precisely would be the status of
\nthese nation-units in the larger and more complex unity of mankind. Would they possess only a nominal separateness and become parts of a machine or retain a real and living individuality
\nand an effective freedom and organic life? Practically, this comes
\nto the question whether the ideal of human unity points to the
\nforcible or at least forceful fusing and welding of mankind into
\na single vast nation and centralised World-State with many provinces or to its
\naggregation under a more complex, loose and flexible system into a world-union of free nationalities. If the former
\nmore rigorous idea of tendency or need dominated, we must have
\na period of compression, constriction, negation of national and
\nindividual liberties as in the second of the three historical stages
\nof national formation in Europe. This process would end, if entirely successful, in a centralised world-government which would
\nimpose its uniform rule and law, uniform administration, uniform economic and educational system, one culture, one social
\nprinciple, one civilisation, perhaps even one language and one
\nreligion on all mankind. Centralised, it would delegate some or
\nits powers to national authorities and councils, but only as the centralised
\nFrench government\u2014Parliament and bureaucracy―<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-178 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ndelegate some of their powers to the departmental prefects
\n<\/b>and
\n<\/b>councils and their subordinate officials and communes. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nSuch a state of things seems a sufficiently far-off dream and
\nassuredly not, except to the rigid doctrinaire, a very beautiful
\ndream. Certainly, it would take a long time to become entirely
\npracticable and would have to be preceded by a period of loose
\nformation corresponding to the feudal unity of France or Germany in Mediaeval Europe. Still, at the rate of ever accelerated
\nspeed with which the world is beginning to progress and with
\nthe gigantic revolutions of international thought, outlook and
\npractice which the future promises, we have to envisage it as not
\nonly an ultimate, but it may very well be a not immeasurably
\nfar-off possibility. If things continued to move persistently, victoriously in one direction and Science still farther to annihilate
\nthe obstacles of space and of geographical and mental divisions
\nwhich yet exist and to aggrandise its means and powers of vast
\nand close organisation, it might well become feasible within a
\ncentury or two, at the most even three or four. It would be the
\nlogical conclusion of any process in which force and constraint
\nor the predominance of a few great nations or the emergence of a
\nking-state, an empire predominant on sea and land, became the
\nprincipal instrument of unification. It might come about, supposing some looser unity to be already established, by the triumph throughout the world of the political doctrine and the
\ncoming to political power of a party of socialistic and inter-nationalistic doctrinaires alike in mentality to the unitarian
\nJacobins of the French Revolution who would have no tenderness for the sentiments of the past or for any form of group
\nindividualism and would seek to crush out of existence all their
\nvisible supports so as to establish perfectly their idea of an absolute human equality and unity. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA system of the kind, however established, by whatever
\nforces, governed by the democratic State idea which inspires
\nmodern socialism or by the mere State idea socialistic perhaps,
\nbut undemocratic or anti-democratic, would stand upon the principle that perfect unity is only to be realised by uniformity. All <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-179<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthought in fact that seeks to establish unity by mechanical or
\nexternal means is naturally attracted towards uniformity. Its 
\nthesis would seem to be supported by history and the lessons of
\nthe past; for in the formation of national unity, the trend to
\ncentralisation and uniformity has been the decisive factor, a condition of uniformity the culminating point. The precedent of
\nthe formation of diverse and often conflicting elements of a people into a single national State would naturally be the determining precedent for the formation of the populations of the earth,
\nthe human people, into a single world-nation and World-State.
\nIn modern times there have been significant examples of the
\npower of this trend towards uniformity which increases as civilisation progresses. The Turkish movement began with the ideal
\nof toleration for all the heterogeneous elements\u2014races, languages, religions, cultures\u2014of the ramshackle Turkish empire,
\nbut inevitably the dominant young Turk element was carried
\naway by the instinct for establishing, even by coercion, a uniform
\nOttoman culture and Ottoman nationality. This trend has found
\nits completion, after the elimination of the Greek element and
\nthe loss of the empire, in the small purely Turkish state of today,
\nbut curiously the national uniformity has been topped by the
\nassociation with it and assimilation of European culture and
\nsocial forms and habits. Belgium, composed almost equally of
\nTeutonic Flemings and Gallic Walloons, grew into a nationality
\nunder the aegis of a Franco-Belgian culture with French as the
\ndominant language; the Fleming movement which should logically have contented itself with equal rights for the two languages,
\naimed really at a reversal of the whole position and not merely
\nthe assertion but the dominance of the Flemish language and an
\nindigenous Flemish culture. Germany, uniting her ancient elements into one body, suffered her existing states with their governments
\nand administrations to continue, but the possibility of
\nconsiderable diversities thus left open was annulled by the centralisation of national life in Berlin; a nominal separateness
\nexisted, but overshadowed by a real and dominant uniformity which all but
\nconverted Germany into the image of a larger Prussia <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-180 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nin spite of the more democratic and humanistic tendencies
\nand institutions of the Southern States. There are indeed apparent types of a freer kind of federation, Switzerland, the
\nUnited States, Australia, South Africa, but even here the spirit
\nof uniformity really prevails or tends to prevail in spite of variation in detail and the latitude of free legislation in minor matters conceded to the component States. Everywhere unity seems
\nto call for and strive to create a greater or less uniformity as its
\nsecure basis. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe first uniformity from which all the rest takes its start,
\nis that of a centralised government whose natural function is to
\ncreate and ensure a uniform administration. A central government is necessary to every aggregate which seeks to arrive at an
\norganic unity of its political and organic life. Although nominally
\nor to begin with this central government may be only an organ
\ncreated by several States that still claim to be sovereign within
\ntheir own borders, an instrument to which for convenience’s
\nsake they attribute a few of their powers for common objects,
\nyet in fact it tends always to become itself the sovereign body and
\ndesires always to concentrate more and more power into its hands
\nand leave only delegated powers to local legislatures and authorities. The practical inconveniences of a looser system strengthen
\nthis tendency and weaken gradually the force of the safeguards
\nerected against an encroachment which seems more and more to
\nbe entirely beneficial and supported by the logic of general utility. Even in the United States with its strong attachment to its
\noriginal constitution and slowness in accepting constitutional
\ninnovations on other than local lines, the tendency is manifesting itself and would certainly have resulted by this time in great
\nand radical changes if there had not been a supreme Court missioned to nullify any legislative interference with the original
\nInstitution or if the American policy of aloofness from foreign affairs and complications had not removed the pressure of those
\nnecessities that in other nations have aided the central government to engross all real power and convert itself into the source
\nas well as the head or centre of national activities. The traditional <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-181 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\npolicy of the United States, its pacificism, its anti-militarism, its aversion to entanglement in European complications
\nor any close touch with the politics of Europe, its jealousy of
\ninterference by the European powers in American affairs in spite
\nof their possession of colonies and interests in the Western hemisphere, are largely due to the instinct that this separateness is
\nthe sole security for the maintenance of its institutions and the
\npeculiar type of its national life. Once militarised, once cast into
\nthe vortex of Old-World politics, as it at times threatens to be,
\nnothing could long protect the States from the necessity of large
\nchanges in the direction of centralisation and the weakening of
\nthe federal principle.* Switzerland owes the security of its federal constitution to a similarly self-centred neutrality. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nFor the growth of national centralisation is due to two
\nprimary needs of which the first and most pressing is the necessity of compactness, single-mindedness, a single and concentrated
\naction against other nations, whether for defence against external aggregation or for aggression upon others in the pursuit of
\nnational interests and ambitions. The centralising effect of war
\nand militarism, its call for a concentration of powers, has been a
\ncommonplace of history from the earliest times. It has been the
\nchief factor in the evolution of centralised and absolute monarchies, in the maintenance of close and powerful aristocracies,
\nin the welding together of disparate elements and the discouragement of centrifugal tendencies. The nations which, faced with
\nthis necessity, have failed to evolve or to preserve this concentration of powers, have always tended to fare ill in the battle of life,
\neven if they have not shared the fate long endured by Italy and
\nPoland in Europe or by India in Asia. The strength today or
\ncentralised Japan, the weakness of decentralised China, was a
\nstanding proof that even in modern conditions the ancient rule
\nholds good. Only yesterday the free States of Western Europe
\nfound themselves compelled to suspend all their hard-earned
\nliberties and go back to the ancient Roman device of an irresponsible  <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n*The Roosevelt policy and the difficulties it encountered illustrates vividly
\nthe power of these two conflicting forces in the United States; and the
\ntowards the strengthening of the federal case, however slow, is unmistakable <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-182 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nSenate and even to a covert dictatorship in order to meet
\nthe concentrated strength of a nation powerfully centralised and
\norganised for military defence and attack. If the sense of this
\nnecessity could covertly or overtly survive the actual duration of
\nwar, there can be no doubt that democracy and liberty would
\nreceive the most dangerous and possibly fatal blow they have yet
\nsuffered since their re-establishment in modern times.* <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe power of Prussia to take the life of Germany into its
\ngrasp was due almost wholly to the sense of an insecure position
\nbetween two great and hostile nations and to the feeling of encirclement and insecurity for its expansion which was imposed
\non the Reich by its peculiar placement in Europe. Another example of the same tendency was the strength which the idea of
\nconfederation acquired as a result of war in England and her
\ncolonies. So long as the colonies could stand aloof and unaffected
\nby England’s wars and foreign policy, this idea had little chance
\nof effectuation; but the experience of the war and its embarrassments and the patent inability to compel a concentration of all
\nthe potential strength of the empire under a system of almost
\ntotal decentralisation seem to have made inevitable a tightening
\nup of the loose and easy make of the British Empire which may
\ngo very far once the principle has been recognised and put initially into practice.\u2020 A loose federation in one form or another
\nserves well where peace is the rule; wherever peace is insecure or
\nthe struggle of life difficult and menacing, looseness becomes a
\ndisadvantage and may turn even into a fatal defect, the opportunity of fate for destruction. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe pressure of peril from without and the need of expansion create only the tendency towards a strong political and <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n* Even as it is the direction of the drive of forces tends to he evidently
\naway from democracy towards a more and more rigid State control and regimentation. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n\u2020 As yet this has only gone so far as equality of status with close consultation in foreign affairs, attempts at a closer economic cooperation; but a
\ncontinuation of large wars might either according to its fortunes dissolve the
\nstill loose or compel a more coherent system. At present, however, this possibility is held back by the arrival of true Dominion status and the Westminster
\nStatute which make federation unnecessary for any practical purpose and even
\nPerhaps undesirable for the sentiment in favour of a practical independence.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-183 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nmilitary centralisation; the growth of uniformity arises from the
\nneed of a close internal organisation of which the centre thus
\ncreated becomes the instrument. This organisation is partly
\ncalled for by the same needs as create the instrument, but much
\nmore by the advantages of uniformity for a well-ordered social
\nand economic life based upon a convenience of which life is
\ncareless but which the intelligence of man constantly demands
\n\u2014a clear, simple and as far as the complexity of life will allow, a
\nfacile principle of order. The human intelligence, as soon as it
\nbegins to order life according to its own fashion and not according
\nto the more instinctively supple and flexible principle of organic
\norder inherent in life, aims necessarily at imitating physical Nature in the fixity of her uniform fundamental principles of arrangement, but tries also to give to them, as much as may be, a
\nuniform application. It drives at the suppression of all important
\nvariations. It is only when it has enlarged itself and feels more
\ncompetent to understand and deal with natural complexities
\nthat it finds itself at all at ease in managing what the principle of
\nlife seems always to demand, the free variation and subtly diverse application of uniform principles. First of all in the ordering of a national society, it aims naturally at uniformity in that
\naspect of it which most nearly concerns the particular need of
\nthe centre of order which has been called into existence, its
\npolitical and military function. It aims first at a sufficient and
\nthen at an absolute unity and uniformity of administration. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe monarchies which the need of concentration called
\ninto being, drove first at a preliminary concentration, a gathering
\nof the main threads of administration into the hands of the central authority. We see this everywhere, but the stages of the process are most clearly indicated in the political history of France; for there the confusion of feudal separatism and feudal jurisdictions created the most formidable difficulties, and yet by a
\nconstant centralising insistence and a final violent reaction from
\ntheir surviving results it was there that they were most successfully resolved and removed. The centralising monarchy, brought
\nto supreme power by the repeated lessons of the English invasions <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-184 <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n the Spanish pressure, the civil wars, developed inevitably
\nthat absolutism which the great historic figure of Louis XIV so
\nstrikingly personifies. His famous dictum "I am the State" expressed really the need felt by the country of the development
\nof one undisputed sovereign power which should concentrate
\nin itself all military, legislative and administrative authority as
\nagainst the loose and almost chaotic organisation of feudal
\nFrance. The system of the Bourbons aimed first at administrative
\ncentralisation and unity, secondarily at a certain amount of administrative uniformity. It could not carry this second aim to an
\nentirely successful conclusion because of its dependence on the
\naristocracy which it had replaced, but to which it was obliged to
\nleave the confused debris of its feudal privileges. The Revolution
\nmade short work of this aristocracy and swept away the relics of
\nthe ancient system. In establishing a rigorous uniformity it did
\nnot reverse but rather completed the work of the monarchy. An
\nentire unity and uniformity\u2014legislative, fiscal, economical, judicial, social\u2014was the goal towards which French absolutism, monarchical or democratic, was committed by its original impulse.
\nThe rule of the Jacobins and the regime of Napoleon only
\nbrought rapidly to fruition what was slowly evolving under the
\nmonarchy out of the confused organism of feudal France. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nIn other countries the movement was less direct and the
\nsurvival of old institutions even after the loss of their original
\nreason for existence more obstinate; but everywhere in Europe,
\neven in Germany* and Russia, the trend has been the same and
\nthe eventual result is inevitable. The study of that evolution is
\nof considerable importance for the future; for the difficulties to
\nbe surmounted were identical in essence, however different in
\nform and extent to those which would stand in the way of the
\nevolution of a World-State out of the loose and still confused organism of the modern civilised world. <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nNote the absolute culmination of this drive in Germany, in the unprecedented centralisation, the rigid standardisation and uniformity of the Nationalist  Socialistic regime under Hitler. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-185 <\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XIX   THE DRIVE TOWARDS CENTRALISATION AND UNIFORMITY. ADMINISTRATION AND CONTROL OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS   SUPPOSING the free grouping of the nations according 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-3161","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\/3161","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=3161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}