{"id":3167,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:26","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3167"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:26","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:26","slug":"06-the-inadequace-of-the-state-idea-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\/06-the-inadequace-of-the-state-idea-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","title":{"rendered":"-06_The Inadequace of The State Idea.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nTHE INADEQUACY OF THE STATE IDEA<\/b> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nW<\/font>HAT<\/font>,
\nafter all, is this State idea, this idea of the organised community to which the
\nindividual has to be immolated? Theoretically, it is the subordination of the
\nindividual to the good of all that is demanded; practically it is his
\nsubordination to a collective egoism, political, military, economic, which seeks
\nto satisfy certain collective aims and ambitions shaped and imposed on the great
\nmass of the individuals by a smaller or larger number of ruling persons who are
\nsupposed in some way to represent the community. It is immaterial whether these
\nbelong to a governing class or emerge as in modern States from the mass partly
\nby force of character, but much more by force of circumstances; nor does it make
\nany essential difference that their aims and ideals are imposed nowadays more by
\nthe hypnotism of verbal persuasion than by overt and actual force. In either
\ncase there is no guarantee that this ruling class or ruling body represents the
\nbest mind of the nation or its noblest aims or its highest instincts. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nNothing of the kind can be asserted of the modem
\npolitician in any part of the world; he does not represent the soul of a people
\nor its aspirations. What he does usually represent is all the average pettiness,
\nselfishness, egoism, self-deception that is a about him and these he represents
\nwell enough as well as a great deal of mental incompetence and moral
\nconventionality, timidity and pretence. Great issues often come to him for
\ndecision but e does not deal with them greatly; high words and noble ideas <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-35<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nare on his lips, but they become
\nrapidly the clap-trap of a party The disease and falsehood of modern political
\nlife is patent in every country of the world and only the hypnotised
\nacquiescence of all, even of the intellectual classes, in the great organise
\nsham, cloaks and prolongs the malady, the acquiescence that me yield to
\neverything that is habitual and makes the present atmosphere of their lives. Yet
\nit is by such minds that the good o all has to be decided, to such hands that it
\nhas to be entrusted to such an agency calling itself the State that the
\nindividual being more and more called upon to give up the government of his
\nactivities. As a matter of fact, it is in no way the largest good of all that is
\nthus secured, but a great deal of organised blundering and evil with a certain
\namount of good which makes for re progress, because Nature moves forward always
\nin the midst all stumblings and secures her aims in the end more often spite of
\nman’s imperfect mentality than by its means. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut even if the governing instrument were better
\nconstituted and of a higher mental and moral character, even if some way could
\nbe found to do what ancient civilisations by their enforcement of certain high
\nideals and disciplines tried to dl with their ruling classes, still the State
\nwould not be what the State idea pretends that it is. Theoretically, it is the
\ncollective wisdom and force of the community made available and organised for
\nthe general good. Practically, what controls the engine and drives the train is
\nso much of the intellect and power available in the community as the particular
\nmachinery of Stat organisation will allow to come to the surface; but it is also
\ncaught in the machinery and hampered by it and hampered a well by the large
\namount of folly and selfish weakness that comes up in the emergence. Doubtless,
\nthis is the best that can be done under the circumstances, and Nature, as
\nalways, utilises it for the best. But things would be much worse if there were
\nnot a field left for a less trammelled individual effort doing what the State
\ncannot do, deploying and using the sincerity, energy, idealism of the best
\nindividuals to attempt that which the State has not the wisdom or courage to
\nattempt, getting that done which a <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-36<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ncollective conservatism and
\nimbecility would either leave undone or actively suppress and oppose. It is this
\nenergy of the individual which is the really effective agent of collective
\nprogress. The State sometimes comes in to aid it and then, if its aid doesn’t
\nmean undue control, it serves a positively useful end. As often it stands in the
\nway and then serves either as a brake upon progress or supplies the necessary
\namount of organised opposition and friction always needed to give greater energy
\nand a more complete shape to the new thing which is in process of formation. But
\nwhat we are now tending towards is such an increase of organised State-power and
\nsuch a huge irresistible and complex State activity as will either eliminate
\nfree individual effort altogether or leave it dwarfed and cowed into
\nhelplessness. The necessary corrective to the defects, limitations and
\ninefficiency of the State machine will disappear. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe organised State is neither the best mind of the
\nnation nor is it even the sum of the communal energies. It leaves out of its
\norganised action and suppresses or unduly depresses the working force and
\nthinking mind of important minorities, often of those which represent that which
\nis best in the present and that which is developing for the future. It is a
\ncollective egoism much inferior to the best of which the community is capable.
\nWhat that egoism is in its relation to other collective egoisms we know and its
\nugliness has recently been forced upon the vision and the conscience of mankind.
\nThe individual has usually something at least like a soul, and, at any rate, he
\nmakes up for the deficiencies of the soul by a system of morality and an ethical
\nsense, and for the deficiencies of these again by the fear of social opinion or,
\nfailing that, a fear of the communal law which he has ordinarily either to obey
\nor at least to circumvent; and even the difficulty of circumventing is a check
\non all except the most violent or the most skilful. But the State is an entity
\nwhich, with the greatest amount of power, is the least hampered by internal
\nscruples or external checks. It has no soul or only a rudimentary one. It is a
\nmilitary, political and economic force; but it is only in a slight and
\nundeveloped degree, if at all, an intellectual <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-37<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nand ethical being. And
\nunfortunately the chief use it makes of its undeveloped intellect is to blunt by
\nfictions, catchwords and recently by State philosophies, its ill-developed
\nethical conscience. Man within the community is now at least a half-civilised
\ncreature; but his international existence is still primitive. Until recently the
\norganised nation in its relation with other nations was only a huge beast of
\nprey with appetite which sometimes slept when gorged or discouraged by event but
\nwere always its chief reason for existence. Self-protection and self-expansion
\nby the devouring of others were its dharma <\/i>At the present day there is no
\nessential improvement; there is only a greater difficulty in devouring. A
\n"sacred egoism" is still the ideal of nations, and therefore there is neither
\nany true and enlightened consciousness of human opinion to restrain the
\npredatory State nor any effective international law. There is only the fear of
\ndefeat and the fear, recently, of a disastrous economic disorganisation; but
\nexperience after experience has shown that these checks are ineffective. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nIn its inner life this huge State egoism was once
\nlittle better than in its outer relations.*  Brutal, rapacious, cunning,
\noppressive, intolerant of free action, free speech and opinion, even of freedom
\nof conscience in religion, it preyed upon individuals and classes within as upon
\nweaker nations outside. Only the necessity of keeping alive and rich and strong
\nin a rough sort of way the community on which it lived made its action partially
\nand crudely beneficent. In modern times, there has been much improvement in
\nspite of deterioration in certain directions. The State now feels the necessity
\nof justifying its existence by organising the general economic and animal
\nwell-being of the community and even of all individuals. It is beginning to see
\nthe necessity of assuring the intellectual and, indirectly, the moral
\ndevelopment of the whole community. This attempt of the State to grow into an
\nintellectual and moral being is one of the most <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n* I am speaking of the intermediate age
\nbetween ancient and modern times. In ancient times the State had in some
\ncountries at least ideals and a conscience with regard to the community, but
\nvery little in its dealings with other States.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-38<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ninteresting phenomena of modern
\ncivilisation. Even the necessity of   intellectualising and moralising
\nit in its external relations has been enforced upon the conscience of mankind by
\nthe European catastrophe. But the claim of the State to absorb all free
\nindividual activities, a claim which it increasingly makes as it grows more
\nclearly conscious of its new ideals and its possibilities is to say the least of
\nit, premature and, if satisfied, will surely end in a check to human progress, a
\ncomfortably organised stagnancy such as overtook the Graeco-Roman world after
\nthe establishment of the Roman empire. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe call of the State to the individual to immolate
\nhimself on its altar and to give up his free activities into an organised
\ncollective activity is therefore something quite different from the demand of
\nour highest ideals. It amounts to the giving up of the present form of
\nindividual egoism into another, a collective form, larger but not superior,
\nrather in many ways inferior to the best individual egoism. The altruistic
\nideal, the discipline of self-sacrifice, the need of a growing solidarity with
\nour fellows and a growing collective soul in humanity are not in dispute. But
\nthe loss of self in the State is not the thing that these high ideals mean, nor
\nis it the way to their fulfilment. Man must learn not to suppress and mutilate,
\nbut to fulfil himself in the fulfilment of mankind even as he must learn not to
\nmutilate or destroy, but to complete his ego by expanding it out of its
\nlimitations and losing it in something greater which it now tries to represent.
\nBut the deglutition of the free individual by a huge State machine is quite
\nanother consummation. The State is a convenience, and a rather clumsy
\nconvenience, for our common development; it ought never to be made an end in
\nitself. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe second claim of the State idea that this
\nsupremacy and universal activity of the organised State machine is the best
\nmeans of human progress, is also an exaggeration and a fiction. Man lives by the
\ncommunity; he needs it to develop himself individually as well as collectively.
\nBut is it true that a State-governed action is the most capable of developing
\nthe individual perfectly as well as of serving the common ends of the community?<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-39<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n It is not true. What is
\ntrue is that it is capable or providing the cooperative action of the
\nindividuals in the community with all necessary conveniences and of removing
\nfrom it disabilities and obstacles which would otherwise interfere with its
\nworking. Here the real utility of the State ceases. The non-recognition of the
\npossibilities of human cooperation was the weakness of English individualism;
\nthe turning of an utility for cooperative action into an excuse for rigid
\ncontrol by the State is the weakness of the Teutonic idea of collectivism. When
\nthe State attempts to take up the control of the cooperative action of the
\ncommunity, it condemns itself to create a monstrous machinery which will end by
\ncrushing out the freedom, initiative and serious growth of the human being. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe State is bound to act crudely and in the mass;
\nit is in capable of that free, harmonious and intelligently or instinctively
\nvaried action which is proper to organic growth. For the State is not an
\norganism; it is a machinery, and it works like a machine, without tact, taste,
\ndelicacy or intuition. It tries to manufacture, but what humanity is here to do
\nis to grow and create. We see this flaw in State-governed education. It is right
\nand necessary that education should be provided for all and in providing for it
\nthe State is eminently useful; but when it controls the education, it turns it
\ninto a routine, a mechanical system in which individual initiative, individual
\ngrowth and true development as opposed to a routine instruction become
\nimpossible. The State tends always to uniformity, because uniformity is easy to
\nit and natural variation is impossible to its essentially mechanical nature; but
\nuniformity is death, not life. A national culture, a national religion, a
\nnational education may still be useful things provided they do not interfere
\nwith the growth of human solidarity on the one side and individual freedom of
\nthought and conscience and development on the other; for they give form to the
\ncommunal soul and help it to add its quota to the sum of human advancement; but
\na State education, a State religion, a State culture are unnatural violences.
\nAnd the same rule holds <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-40<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ngood in different ways and to a
\ndifferent extent in other directions of our communal life and its activities.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe business of the State, so long as it continues
\nto be a necessary element in human life and growth, is to provide all possible
\nfacilities for cooperative action, to remove obstacles, to prevent all really
\nharmful waste and friction,\u2014a certain amount of waste and friction is necessary
\nand useful to all natural action, \u2014and, removing avoidable injustice, to secure
\nfor every individual a just and equal chance of self-development and
\nsatisfaction to the extent of his powers and in the line of his nature. To this
\nextent the aim in modern socialism is right and good. But all unnecessary
\ninterference with the freedom of man’s growth is to that extent harmful. Even
\ncooperative action is injurious if, instead of seeking the good of all
\ncompatibly with the necessities of individual growth,\u2014and without individual
\ngrowth there can be no real and permanent good of all,\u2014it immolates the
\nindividual to a communal egoism and prevents so much free room and initiative as
\nis necessary for the flowering of a more perfectly developed humanity. So long
\nas humanity is not full-grown, so long as it needs to grow and is capable of a
\ngreater perfectibility, there can be no static good of all independent of the
\ngrowth of the individuals composing the all. All collectivist ideals which seek
\nunduly to subordinate the individual, really envisage a static condition whether
\nit be a present status or one it soon hopes to establish, after which all
\nattempt at serious change would be regarded as an offence of impatient
\nindividualism against the peace, just routine and security of the happily
\nestablished communal order. Always it is the individual who progresses and
\ncompels the rest to progress; the instinct of the collectivity is to stand still
\nin its established order. Progress, growth, realisation of wider being give his
\ngreatest sense of happiness to the individual; status, secure ease to the
\ncollectivity. And so it "lust be as long as the latter is more a physical and
\neconomic entity than a self-conscious collective soul. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIt is therefore quite improbable that in the
\npresent conditions <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-41<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof the race a healthy unity of
\nmankind can be brought about by State machinery, whether it be by a grouping of
\npowerful and organised States enjoying carefully regulated and legalised
\nrelations with each other or by the substitution of a single world-State for the
\npresent half-chaotic half-ordered comity of nations,\u2014be the form of that
\nworld-State a single Empire like the Roman or a federated unity. Such an
\nexternal or administrative unity may be intended in the near future of mankind
\nin order to accustom the race to the idea of a common life, to its habit, to its
\npossibility, but it cannot be really healthy, durable or beneficial over all the
\ntrue line of human destiny unless something be developed, more profound,
\ninternal and real. Otherwise the experience of the ancient world will be
\nrepeated on a larger scale and in other circumstances. The experiment will break
\ndown and give place to a new reconstructive age of confusion and anarchy.
\nPerhaps this experience also is necessary for mankind; yet it ought to be
\npossible for us now to avoid it by subordinating mechanical means to our true
\ndevelopment through a moralised and even a spiritualised humanity united in its
\ninner soul and not only in its outward life and body. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-42<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER IV   THE INADEQUACY OF THE STATE IDEA   WHAT, after all, is this State idea, this idea of the organised community to which…<\/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-3167","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\/3167","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=3167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}