{"id":3166,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:25","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3166"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:25","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:25","slug":"12-the-united-states-of-europe-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\/12-the-united-states-of-europe-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","title":{"rendered":"-12_The United States of Europe.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE<\/b><\/font>
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nW<\/font>E HAVE<\/font> had to dwell so long upon the possibilities
\nof the Empire-group because the evolution of the imperial State
\nis a dominating phenomenon of the modern world; it governs the
\npolitical tendencies of the later part of the nineteenth and earlier
\npart of the twentieth centuries very much as the evolution of the
\nfree democratised nation governed the age which preceded ours.
\nThe dominant idea of the French Revolution was the formula of
\nthe free and sovereign people and, in spite of the cosmopolitan
\nelement introduced into the revolutionary formula by the ideal
\nof fraternity, this idea became in fact the assertion of the free,
\nindependent, democratically self-governed nation. That ideal
\nhad not at the time of the great war wholly worked itself out
\neven in the Occidental world; for central Europe was only partly
\ndemocratised and Russia had only just begun to turn its face
\ntowards the common goal; and even now there are still subject
\nEuropean peoples or fragments of peoples.* Nevertheless, with
\nwhatever imperfections, the idea of the free democratic nation
\nhad practically triumphed in all America and Europe. The peoples of Asia have equally accepted this governing ideal of the
\nnineteenth century, and though the movements of democratic nationalism in the eastern countries, Turkey, Persia, India,
\nChina, were not fortunate in their first attempts at self-realisation, the profound and widespread working of the idea cannot
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nNo longer an evident fact, although the substitution of a state of vassalage may still be there. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-85<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nbe doubted by any careful observer. Whatever modifications
\nmay
\narrive, whatever new tendencies intervene, whatever reactions oppose, it could
\nhardly then be doubted that the principal gifts of the French Revolution must
\nremain and be universalised as 
\npermanent acquisitions, indispensable elements in the future
\norder of the world,\u2014national self-consciousness and self-government, freedom and
\nenlightenment for the people and so much  social equality and justice at
\nleast as is indispensable to political 
\nliberty; for with any form of fixed and rigid inequality democratic self-government is incompatible. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut before the great nineteenth century impulse could I
\nwork itself out everywhere, before even it could realise itself
\nentirely in Europe, a new tendency has intervened and a new
\nidea seized on the progressive mind of humanity. This is the idea
\nof the perfectly organised State. Fundamentally, the ideal of the
\nperfectly organised State is socialistic and it is based on the second word of the great revolutionary formula, equality, just as the
\nmovement of the nineteenth century centred round the first,
\nliberty. The first impulse given by the great European upheaval
\nattained only to a certain kind of political equality. An incomplete social levelling still left untouched the one inequality and
\nthe one form of political preponderance which no competitive
\nsociety can eliminate, the preponderance of the haves over the
\nhave-nots, the inequality between the more successful in the
\nstruggle of life and the less successful which is rendered inevitable by difference of capacity, unequal opportunity and the handicap of circumstance and environment. Socialism seeks to get
\nrid of this persistent inequality by destroying the competitive
\nform of society and substituting the cooperative. A cooperative
\nform of human society existed formerly in the shape of the commune; but the restoration of the commune as a unit would imply
\npractically the return to the old city state, and as this is not now
\npossible with the larger groupings and greater complexities of
\nmodern life, the Socialistic idea could only be realised through
\nthe rigourously organised national State. To eliminate poverty not by the crude
\nidea of equal distribution but by the holding of <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-86<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nall property in common and its management through the
\n<\/b>organised State, to equalise opportunity and capacity as far as possible through universal education and training, again by means
\nof the organised State, is the fundamental idea of modern Socialism. It implies an abrogation or at least a rigourous diminution of all individual liberty. Democratic Socialism still clings
\nindeed to the nineteenth century ideal of political freedom; it
\ninsists on the equal right of all in the State to choose, judge, and
\nchange their own governors, but all other liberty it is ready to
\nsacrifice to its own central idea. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe progress of the Socialistic idea would seem therefore to
\nlead towards the evolution of a perfectly organised national State
\nwhich would provide for and control the education and training,
\nmanage and govern all the economic activities and for that purpose as well as for the assurance of perfect efficiency, morality,
\nwell-being and social justice, order the whole or at any rate the
\ngreater part of the external and internal life of its component
\nindividuals. It would effect in fact by organised State control
\nwhat earlier societies attempted by social pressure, rigourous rule
\nof custom, minute code and Shastra. This was always an inherently inevitable development of the revolutionary ideal. It
\nstarted to the surface at first under pressure of external danger in
\nthe Government of France by the Jacobins during the Reign of
\nTerror; it has been emerging and tending to realise itself under
\npressure of an inner necessity throughout the latter part of the
\nnineteenth century; it has emerged not completely but with a first rudimentary sketch of completeness by the combination of
\nthe inner and the outer necessity during the present War. What
\nwas before only an ideal towards which some imperfect initial steps alone were immediately possible, has now become a realisable programme with its entire feasibility established by a
\nevincing, though necessarily hasty and imperfect practical demonstration. It is true that in order to realise it even political 
\nliberty has had to be temporarily abolished; but this, it may be argued, is only an accident of the moment, a concession to temporarily necessity. In freer conditions what was done partly and <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-87<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nfor a time by governments which the people have consented
\ninvest with an absolute and temporarily irresponsible authority may be done,
\nwhen there is no pressure of war wholly and permanently by the self-governing democratic State. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn that case the near future of the human group would
\nseem to be the nation, self-governing, politically free, but aiming
\nat perfect social and economic organisation and ready for that
\npurpose to hand over all individual liberty to the control of the
\norganised national State.* As France was in the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century the great propagandist and the experimental workshop of political liberty and
\nequality, so Germany has been in the end of the nineteenth and
\nbeginning of the twentieth century the chief propagandist and
\nthe experimental workshop of the idea of the organised State.
\nThere the theory of Socialism has taken rise and there its propaganda has been most effective so that a large proportion of the
\nnation committed itself to the new gospel; there also the great
\nsocialistic measures and those which have developed the control
\nof the individual by the State for the common good and efficiency of the nation have been most thoroughly and admirably
\nconceived and executed. It matters little that this was done by an
\nanti-socialistic, militarist and aristocratic government; the very
\nfact is a proof of the irresistible strength of the new tendency,
\nand the inevitable transference of the administrative power from
\nits past holders to the people was all that was needed to complete
\nits triumph. Throughout the recent decades we have seen the
\ngrowth of German ideas and the increasing tendency to follow
\nthe German methods of State interference and State control in
\nother countries, even in England, the home of individualism.
\nThe defeat of Germany in the European war no more spelt the
\ndefeat of her ideals than the defeat of revolutionary and Napoleonic France by the European coalition and even the temporary triumph of the monarchic and aristocratic system prevented <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* This was done with a stupendous beginning of
\nthoroughness in  Bolshevist Russia, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the necessity or the choice
\nof it threatened at one time to spread everywhere. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-88<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nthe spread of her new ideas over all Europe. Even if German
\nmilitarism and Junkerism was destroyed, the collapse of the imperial form of government can only hasten the more thorough
\ndevelopment and victory of that which has been working behind them and forcing them to minister to it, the great modern tendency of the perfectly organised socialistic State, while the evident result of the war in the nations opposed to her has been
\n<\/b>to
\n<\/b>force them more rapidly towards the same ideal. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIf this were all, the natural development of things aided by
\nthe frustration of the German form of imperialism would lead
\nlogically to a new ordering of the world on the basis of a system
\nof independent but increasingly organised national States associated together more or less closely for international purposes
\nwhile preserving their independent existence. Such is the ideal
\nwhich has attracted the human mind as a yet distant possibility
\nsince the great revolutionary ferment set in; it is the idea of a
\nfederation of free nations, the parliament of man, the federation
\nof the world. But the actual circumstances forbid any hope of
\nany such ideal consummation in the near future. For the nationalistic, democratic and socialistic ideas are not alone at work
\nin the world; imperialism is equally in the ascendant. Only a few
\nEuropean peoples at the present moment are nations confined to
\nthemselves; each is a nation free in itself but dominating over
\nhuman groupings who are not free or only partially free. Even
\nlittle Belgium has its Congo, little Portugal its colonies, little
\nHolland its dependencies in the eastern Archipelago; even the
\nlittle Balkan States have aspired to revive an "empire" and to
\nrule over others not of their own nationality, or have cherished the idea of becoming predominant in the peninsula. Mazzini’s Italy has its imperialistic ventures and ambitions in Tripoli, Abyssinia, Albania, the Greek Islands. This imperialistic tendency
\nis likely to grow stronger for some time in the future rather than to weaken. The idea of a remodelling even of Europe itself on 
\nthe strict principle of nationality which captivated liberal minds in England at the beginning of the war has not yet been made
\npracticable and, if it were effected, there would still remain the <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-89<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nwhole of Asia and Africa as a field for the imperialistic ambitions
\nof the Western nations and Japan. The disinterestedness that
\nled a majority in America to decree the liberation of the Philippines and restrained the desire to take advantage of the trouble
\nof Mexico is not possible to the mentality of the Old World, and
\nit is doubtful how long it can stand even in America against the
\nrising tide of imperialistic sentiment. National egoism, the pride
\nof domination and the desire of expansion still govern the mind
\nof humanity, however modified they may now be in their methods by the first weak beginnings of higher motives and a better
\nnational morality, and until this spirit is radically changed, the
\nunion of the human race by a federation of free nations must remain a noble chimera. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nUndoubtedly, a free association and unity must be the ultimate goal of our development and until it is realised the world
\nmust be subject to constant changes and revolutions. Every established order, because it is imperfect, because it insists on
\narrangements which come to be recognised as involving injustice
\nor which stand in the way of new tendencies and forces, because
\nit outlasts its utility and justification, must end in malaise,<\/i> resistance and upheaval, must change itself or be changed or else
\nlead to cataclysms such as periodically trouble our human advance. But the time has not come when the true principle of
\norder can replace those which are artificial and imperfect. It is
\nidle to hope for a federation of free nations until either the present inequalities between nation and nation are removed or else
\nthe whole world rises to a common culture based upon a higher
\nmoral and spiritual status than is now actual or possible. The
\nimperial instinct, being alive and dominant and stronger at present than the principle of nationalism, the evolution of great
\nempires can hardly fail to overshadow for a time at least the
\ntendency to the development of free nationalities. All that can
\nbe hoped is that the old artificial, merely political empire may be
\nreplaced by a truer and more moral type, and that the existing empires, driven
\nby the necessity of strengthening themselves and by an enlightened self-interest, may <\/b> come to see that the recognition <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-90<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof national autonomy is a wise and necessary concession to
\nthe still vital instinct of nationalism and can be used so as to strengthen instead of weakening their imperial strength and
\nunity. In this way, while a federation of free nations is for the present impossible, a system of federated empires and free nations drawn together in a closer association than the world has
\nvet seen is not altogether impossible; and through this and other
\nsteps some form of political unity for mankind may at a more
\n<\/b>or
\n<\/b>less distant date be realisable.* <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe war brought up many suggestions for such a closer
\nassociation, but as a rule they were limited to a better ordering
\nof the international relations of Europe. One of these was the
\nelimination of war by a stricter international law administered
\nby an international court and supported by the sanction of the
\nnations which shall be enforced by all of them against any offender. Such a solution is chimerical unless it is immediately
\nfollowed up by farther and far-reaching developments. For the
\nlaw given by the Court must be enforced either by an alliance of
\nsome of the stronger Powers, as, for instance, the coalition of the
\nvictorious allies dominating the rest of Europe, or by a concert
\nof all the European Powers or else by a United States of Europe
\nor some other form of European federation. A dominating alliance of great Powers would be simply a repetition in principle
\nof the system of Metternich and would inevitably break down
\nafter some lapse of time, while a concert of Europe must mean,
\nas experience has shown, the uneasy attempt of rival groupings
\nto maintain a precarious understanding which may postpone but
\ncannot eventually prevent fresh struggles and collisions. In such imperfect systems the law would only be obeyed so long as it was
\nexpedient, so long only as the Powers who desired new changes
\nand readjustments not admitted by the others did not consider the moment opportune for resistance. The Law within a nation
\nis only secure because there is a recognised authority empowered<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n *The appearance of Hitler and the colossal attempt at German world
\ndomination have paradoxically helped by his defeat, and the reaction against him
\nentirely altered the world circumstances: the United States of Europe is
\na practical possibility and has begun to feel towards self-accomplishment. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-91<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nto determine it and to make the necessary changes and possessed
\nof a sufficient force to punish all violation of its statutes. An
\ninternational or an inter-European law must have the same advantages if it is to exercise anything more than a merely moral
\nforce which can be set at nought by those who are strong enough
\nto defy it and who find an advantage in the violation. Some form of European
\nfederation, however loose, is therefore essential 
\nthe idea behind these suggestions of a new order is to be made
\npractically effective, and once commenced such a federation
\nmust necessarily be tightened and draw more and more toward
\nthe form of a United States of Europe. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nWhether such a European unity can be formed or whether,
\nif formed, it can be maintained and perfected against the many
\nforces of dissolution, the many causes of quarrel which would
\nfor long try it to the breaking-point, only experience can show.
\nBut it is evident that in the present state of human egoism it
\nwould, if formed, become a tremendously powerful instrument
\nfor domination and exploitation of the rest of the world by the
\ngroup of nations which are at present in the forefront of human
\nprogress. It would inevitably awaken in antagonism to it an idea
\nof Asiatic unity and an idea of American unity, and while such
\ncontinental groupings replacing the present smaller national
\nunities might well be an advance towards the final union of all
\nmankind, yet their realisation would mean cataclysms of a kind
\nand scope which would dwarf the present catastrophe and in
\nwhich the hopes of mankind might founder and fatally collapse
\nrather than progress nearer to fulfilment. But the chief objection
\nto the idea of a United States of Europe is that the general sense
\nof humanity is already seeking to travel beyond its continental
\ndistinctions and make them subordinate to a larger human idea.
\nA division on the continental basis might therefore be from this
\npoint of view a reactionary step of the gravest kind and might be
\nattended with the most serious consequences to human progress. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nEurope indeed is in this anomalous position that it is at
\nonce ripe for the Pan-European idea and at the same time under
\nthe necessity of over-passing it. The conflict of the two tendencies<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-92<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nwas curiously exemplified not so
\nlong ago by certain speculations on the nature of the recent European struggle. It was
\nsuggested that the sin of Germany in this war was due to its exaggerated egoistic idea of the nation and its disregard of the
\nlarger idea of Europe to which the nation-idea must now be
\nsubjected and subordinated. The total life of Europe must now
\nkg the all-engrossing unity, its good the paramount consideration
\nand the egoism of the nation must consent to exist only as an
\norganic part of this larger egoism. In effect, this is the acceptance
\nafter so many decades of the idea of Nietzsche who insisted
\nthat nationalism and war were anachronisms and the ideal of all
\nenlightened minds must be not to be good patriots but good Europeans. But immediately the question arose, what then of the
\nincreasing importance of America in world-politics, what of Japan and China, what of the renewed stirrings of life in Asia?
\nThe writer had therefore to draw back from his first formula and
\nto explain that by Europe he meant not Europe but all nations
\nthat had accepted the principles of European civilisation as the
\nbasis of their policy and social organisation. This more philosophical formula has the obvious or at least the specious advantage, that it brings in America and Japan and thus recognises
\nall the actually free or dominant nations in the circle of the
\nproposed solidarity and holds out too the hope of admission into
\nthe circle to others whenever they can prove, after the forceful
\nmanner of Japan or otherwise, that they too have come up to
\nthe European standard. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIndeed, though Europe is still strongly separate in its own
\nconception from the rest of the world,\u2014as was shown by the often expressed resentment of the continual existence of Turkey in Europe and the desire to put an end to this government of
\nEuropeans by Asiatics,\u2014yet as a matter of fact it is inextricably tangled up with America and Asia. Some of the European nations have colonies in America, all have possessions and ambitions in Asia, where Japan alone is outside the shadow cast by
\nEurope, or in Northern Africa which is culturally one with Asia The United States of Europe would therefore mean a <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-93<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nfederation of free European nations dominant over a half-subject
\nAsia and possessor of parts of America and there standing in
\nuneasy proximity to nations still free and necessarily troubled
\nalarmed and overshadowed by this giant imminence. The inevitable result would be in America to bring together more closely
\nthe Latin Centre and South and the English-speaking North and
\nto emphasise immensely the Munro Doctrine with consequences
\nwhich cannot easily be foreseen, while in Asia there could be
\nonly one of two final endings to the situation, either the disappearance of the remaining free Asiatic States or a vast Asiatic
\nresurgence and the recoil of Europe from Asia. Such movements
\nwould be a prolongation of the old line of human development
\nand set at nought the new cosmopolitan conditions created by
\nmodern culture and Science; but they are inevitable it the
\nnation-idea in the West is to merge into the Europe-idea, that is
\nto say, into the continental idea rather than into the wider consciousness of a common humanity. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIf therefore any new supra-national order is to evolve
\nsooner or later as a result of the present upheaval, it must be an
\nassociation that will embrace Asia, Africa and America as well
\nas Europe and it must be in its nature and organisation of international life constituted by a number of free Nations such as
\nSweden, Norway, Denmark, the United States, the Latin republics and a number of imperial and colonising nations such as
\nare most of the peoples of Europe. Either the latter would remain as they now are, free in themselves but masters of subject
\npeoples who, with the advance of time, would become more and
\nmore intolerant of the yoke imposed on them or else they would
\nbe, by an ethical advance which is as yet very far from accomplished, partly centres of free federal empires, partly nations
\nholding in trust races yet backward and undeveloped until they
\narrived at the capacity of self-administration, as the United States
\nhave now claimed to hold the Philippines. In the former case, the unity, the
\norder, the common law established would perpetuate and be partly founded on an
\nenormous system of  injustice and exposed to the revolts and revolutions of
\nNature <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-94<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nand the great revenges by which she finally vindicates the human
\nspirit against wrongs which she tolerates for a time as necessary incidents of human development. In the latter, there would be
\ng chance that the new order, however far in its beginnings
\nfrom the ultimate ideal of a free association of free human aggregates might lead peacefully and by a natural unfolding of the
\nspiritual and ethical progress of the race to such a secure, just
\nand healthy political, social and economic foundation as might
\nenable mankind to turn from its preoccupation with these lower
\ncares and begin at last that development of its higher self which
\nis the nobler part of its potential destiny, or if not that,\u2014for who
\nknows whether Nature’s long experiment in the human type is
\nforedoomed to success or failure,\u2014at least the loftiest possibility
\nof our future which the human mind can envisage. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-95<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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