{"id":3163,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:24","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3163"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:24","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:24","slug":"04-the-imperfection-of-past-aggregates-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\/04-the-imperfection-of-past-aggregates-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","title":{"rendered":"-04_The Imperfection of Past Aggregates.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE IMPERFECTION OF PAST AGGREGATES<\/b><\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\n <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE<\/font> whole process of Nature depends on a balancing
\nand a constant tendency to harmony between two poles of life,
\nthe individual whom the whole or aggregate nourishes and the
\nwhole or aggregate which the individual helps to constitute. Human life forms no exception to the rule. Therefore the perfection of human life must involve the elaboration of an as yet
\nunaccomplished harmony between these two poles of our existence, the individual
\nand the social aggregate. The perfect society will be that which most entirely favours the perfection of
\nthe individual; the perfection of the individual will be incomplete if it does not help towards the perfect state of the social
\naggregate to which he belongs and eventually to that of the largest possible human aggregate, the whole of a united humanity.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nFor the gradual process of Nature introduces a complication
\nwhich prevents the individual from standing in a pure and direct
\nrelation to the totality of mankind. Between himself and this
\ntoo immense whole there erect themselves partly as aids, partly
\nas barriers to the final unity, the lesser aggregates which it has
\nbeen necessary to form in the progressive stages of human culture. For the obstacles of space, the difficulties of organisation
\nand the limitations of the human heart and brain have necessitated the formation first of small, then of larger and yet larger
\naggregates so that he may be gradually trained by a progressive
\napproach till he is ready for the final universality. The family; the commune, the clan or tribe, the class, the city state or congeries<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-24<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nof tribes, the nation, the empire are so many stages in this 
\nprogress  and constant enlargement. If the smaller aggregates were
\ndestroyed as soon as the larger are successfully formed, this graduation would  result in no complexity; but Nature does not
\nfollow this course. She seldom destroys entirely the types she has once made or only destroys that for which there is no longer any
\nutility; the rest she keeps in order to serve her need or her passion for variety, richness, multiformity and only effaces the
\ndividing lines or modifies the characteristics and relations sufficiently to allow of the larger unity she is creating. Therefore at
\nevery step humanity is confronted with various problems which
\narise not only from the difficulty of accord between the interests
\nof the individual and those of the immediate aggregate, the community but between the need and interests of the smaller integralities and the growth of that larger whole which is to ensphere them all. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nHistory has preserved for us scattered instances of this travail, instances of failure and success which are full of instruction. We see the struggle towards the aggregation of tribes among
\nthe Semitic nations, Jew and Arab, surmounted in the one after
\na scission into two kingdoms which remained a permanent
\nsource of weakness to the Jewish nation, overcome only temporarily in the other by the sudden unifying force of Islam. We see
\nthe failure of clan life to combine into an organised national
\nexistence in the Celtic races, a failure entire in Ireland and Scotland and only surmounted through the crushing out of clan life by a foreign rule and culture, overcome only at the last moment in Wales. We see the failure of the city states and
\nsmall regional peoples to fuse themselves in the history of Greece,
\nthe signal success of a similar struggle of Nature in the development of Roman Italy. The whole past of India for the last two
\nthousand years and more has been the attempt, unavailing in spite of many approximations to success, to overcome the centrifugal
\ntendency of an extraordinary number and variety of disparate elements, the family, the commune, the clan, the caste,
\ne small regional state or people, the large linguistic unit, the  <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-25<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nreligious community, the nation within the nation.
\nWe may
\nperhaps say that here Nature tried an experiment of unparalleled complexity and
\npotential richness accumulating all possible
\ndifficulties in order to arrive at the most opulent result. But in
\nthe end the problem proved insoluble or, at least, was not solve
\nand Nature had to resort to her usual deus ex machina<\/i> denouement, the instrumentality of a foreign rule. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut even when the nation is sufficiently
\norganised,\u2013the
\nlargest unit yet successfully developed by Nature,\u2014entire unity
\nis not always achieved. If no other elements of discord remain
\nyet the conflict of classes is always possible. And the phenomenon leads us to
\nanother rule of this gradual development of
\nNature in human life which we shall find of very considerable
\nimportance when we come to the question of a realisable human
\nunity. The perfection of the individual in a perfected society or
\neventually in a perfected humanity\u2014understanding perfection
\nalways in a relative and progressive sense\u2014is the inevitable aim
\nof Nature. But the progress of all the individuals in a society
\ndoes not proceed pari passu,<\/i> with an equal and equable march.
\nSome advance, others remain stationary\u2014absolutely or relatively,
\n\u2014others fall back. Consequently the emergence of a dominant
\nclass is inevitable within the aggregate itself, just as in the constant clash between the aggregates the emergence of dominant
\nnations is inevitable. That class will predominate which develops most perfectly the type Nature needs at the time for her
\nprogress or, it may be, for her retrogression. If she demands
\npower and strength of character, a dominant aristocracy emerges; if knowledge and science, a dominant literary or savant class; it
\npractical ability, ingenuity, economy and efficient organisation, a
\ndominant bourgeoisie or Vaishya class, usually with the lawyer
\nat the head; if diffusion rather than concentration of general
\nwell-being and a close organisation of toil, then even the domination of an artisan class is not impossible. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut this phenomenon, whether of dominant classes or dominant nations, can never be more than a temporary necessity
\nfor the final aim of Nature in human life cannot be the exploitation <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-26<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nof the many by the few or even of the few by the many,
\ncan never be the perfection of some at the cost of the abject submergence and ignorant subjection of the bulk of humanity; these
\ncan only be transient devices. Therefore we see that such domination bear always in them the seed of their own destruction.
\nThey must pass either by the ejection or destruction of the exploiting element or else by a fusion and equalisation. We see
\nin Europe and America that the dominant Brahmin and the  dominant Kshatriya have been either abolished or are on the
\npoint of subsidence into equality with the general mass. Two
\nrigidly separate classes alone remain, the dominant propertied
\nclass and the labourer, and all the most significant movements of
\nthe day have for their purpose the abolition of this last superiority. In this persistent tendency, Europe has obeyed one great
\nlaw of Nature’s progressive march, her trend towards a final
\nequality. Absolute equality is surely neither intended nor possible, just as absolute uniformity is both impossible and utterly
\nundesirable; but a fundamental equality which will render the
\nplay of true superiority and difference inoffensive, is essential to
\nany conceivable perfectibility of the human race. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nTherefore, the perfect counsel for a dominant minority is
\nalways to recognise in good time the right hour for its abdication
\nand for the imparting of its ideals, qualities, culture, experience
\nto the rest of the aggregate or to as much of it as is prepared for
\nthat progress. Where this is done, the social aggregate advances
\nnormally and without disruption or serious wound or malady; otherwise a disordered progress is imposed upon it, for Nature
\nwill not suffer human egoism to baffle for ever her fixed intention and necessity. Where the dominant classes successful
\navoid her demand upon them, the worst of destinies is likely to
\novertake the social aggregate-as in India where the final refusal
\nof the min and other privileged classes to call up the bulk of the nation as far as possible to their level,
\ntheir fixing of an unbridgeable gulf of superiority between themselves and the
\nrest of society, has been a main cause of eventual decline and degeneracy For where her aims are frustrated, Nature inevitably <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-27<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nwithdraws her force from the offending unit till she has brought
\nin and used other and external means to reduce the obstacle to a nullity. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut even if the unity within is made as perfect as sc
\nadministrative and cultural machinery can make it, the question of the individual still remains. For these social units or aggregates
\nare not like the human body in which the component cells are
\ncapable of no separate life apart from the aggregate. The human
\nindividual tends to exist in himself and to exceed the limits of
\nthe family, the clan, the class, the nation; and even, that self,
\nsufficiency on one side, that universality on the other are the
\nessential elements of his perfection. Therefore, just as the sys\u00ab terns of
\nsocial aggregation which depend on the domination of a
\nclass or classes over others must change or dissolve, so the social
\naggregates which stand in the way of this perfection of the individual and seek
\nto coerce him within their limited mould and
\ninto the rigidity of a narrow culture or petty class or national
\ninterest, must find their term and their day of change or destruction under the irresistible impulsion of progressing Nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n\t\t\tPage-28<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER II   THE IMPERFECTION OF PAST AGGREGATES   THE whole process of Nature depends on a balancing and a constant tendency to harmony between…<\/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-3163","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\/3163","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=3163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}