... recent European struggle. It was suggested that the sin of Germany in this war was due to its exaggerated egoistic idea of the nation and its disregard of the larger idea of Europe to which the nation-idea must now be subjected and subordinated. The total life of Europe must now be the all-engrossing unity, its good the paramount Page 351 consideration, and the egoism of the nation must... Such movements would be a prolongation of the old line of human development and set at nought the new cosmopolitan conditions created by modern culture and Science; but they are inevitable if the nation-idea in the West is to merge into the Europe-idea, that is to say, into the continental idea rather than into the wider consciousness of a common humanity. If, therefore, any new supra-national order ...
... altogether; even now the rejection of the nation-idea has begun, the opposite idea of the sans-patrie , the citizen of the world, has been born and was a growing force before the war; and though temporarily overborne, silenced and discouraged, it is by no means slain, but is likely to revive with an increased violence hereafter. On the other hand, the nation-idea may persist in full vitality or may assert ...
... imperfect. The political arrangement of the world hitherto has rested on an almost entirely physical and vital, that is to say, a geographical, commercial, political and military basis. Both the nation idea and the State idea have been built and have worked on this foundation. The first unity aimed at has been a geographical, commercial, political and military union, and in establishing this unity the... interests, community of language, community of culture, and all these in unison have evolved a psychological idea, a psychological unity, which finds expression in the idea of nationalism. But the nation idea and the State idea do not everywhere coincide, and in most cases the former has been overridden by the latter and always on the same physical and vital grounds—grounds of geographical, economic, ...
... it is pointed out to them, in the plainest language possible, they will have the Page 168 patience to do so and recognise this essential peculiarity of our infant national life. The nation-idea in India will realise itself, in all its departments, along what may be called federal lines,—it will be a union of different nationalities, each preserving its own specific elements both of organisation ...
... mere word. But, first, the intuition-sense we share with the animals by means of the emotional heart, then the reason seeking to find a cause, a formula and justification for the vitality of the nation-idea and, finally, the intuitive mind, looking behind the phenomena of the senses, begin to draw near to the real truth. In real truth a nation is an existence in the universal Consciousness, an Idea-Force ...
... continuation of a habitual form of things or else by a ceremonial, legal, intellectual or sentimental fiction. It is such a fiction that some think to Page 323 create as a bridge from the nation-idea to the empire-idea of political unity. That which unites men most securely now is the physical unity of a common country to live in and defend, a common economic life dependent on that geographical ...
... extension of Socialism to all the nations; an international unity could then have been created by its innate tendencies which turned naturally towards an overcoming of the dividing force of the nation-idea with its separatism and its turn towards competitions and rivalries often culminating in open strife; this could have been regarded as the natural road and could have turned in fact into the eventual ...
... and his culture has got a wonderful capacity for assimilation, but always provided that India's central truth is recognized. Did India have the national idea in the modern sense? The "nation idea" India never had. By that I mean the political idea of the nation. It is a modern growth. But we had in India the cultural and spiritual idea of the nation____ Present-day Indians have got ...
... according to Sri Aurobindo, perishable political unities, in contrast to the nation, a real unity, which is immortal and which will remain so until a greater living unit can be found into which nation idea can merge in obedience to a superior attraction. Again, dwelling upon the distinction between political unity and real unity, Sri Aurobindo states that this distinction must be made because ...
... Certainly, no one can confidently predict that the hour will victoriously prevail over the whole future. We know not what surprises of the great human drama, what violent resurgence of the old nation-idea, what collisions, failures, unexpected results in the working out of the new social tendencies, what revolt of the human spirit against a burdensome and mechanical State collectivism, what growth ...
... psychological unit? Page 322 × All three have been broken by the effects of revolution and war, but, if the nation idea dwindled, the last might still at some future date revive: the second, if Communism destroyed the national idea, may still be a possibility. ...
... they ignore this law of the natural evolution. Empires are still perishable political units; the nation is immortal. And so it will remain until a greater living unit can be found into which the nation idea can merge in obedience to a superior attraction. And then the question arises whether the empire is not precisely that destined unit in course of evolution. The mere fact that at present not the ...
... and the ready basis given to it by the inevitable physical growth of the family into clan or tribe. These were natural aggregations, evolutionary forms already prepared on the animal level. The nation idea, on the contrary, did not arise from a primary vital need, but from a secondary or even tertiary necessity which resulted not from anything inherent in our vital nature, but from circumstances, from ...
... wonderful capacity for assimilation, but always' provided that her Central Truth is recognised. Disciple : Did India have the national idea in the modern sense ? Sri Aurobindo : The "Nation" idea India never had. By that I mean the political idea of the nation. It is a modern growth. But we had in India the cultural and spiritual idea of the nation. Disciple : Is it possible to ...
... present costly system, which is doing harm to our nation. Both these movements seek to develop our national energies and the habit of independence; that is the real meaning of Swadeshi as we understand it in Bengal. I am addressing you in the English language. I am an Indian. You are all Indians. I am trying to preach to the nation certain ideas which will bring prosperity to our country. I got... shall use goods produced and manufactured in our country. The object of the boycott of foreign goods is self-protection. When boycott comes by an effort of a nation and by an effort of its people, it protects the trade of the country. Every nation has a right to protect its life from starvation and famine, just as everyone is entitled to the right of self-defence. It is the exercise of a natural right... self-government. It has been defined by Dadabhai Naoroji as a self-governing colony. In our view, self-government is merely one aspect of Swaraj. We believe that India itself is entirely a separate nation. As a nation it is not part of the Anglo-Saxons. When we speak of Swaraj we mean the principle of national life independent of any form of government. The word Swaraj is not a new word but an old one. It ...
... necessarily added to the social life, even predominates for a time over the economic and we have the nation or State. If we give their due value to these fundamental characteristics and motives of collective existence, it will seem natural enough that the development of the collective and cooperative idea of society should have culminated in a huge, often a monstrous overgrowth of the vitalistic, economic... into the larger self. All has been therefore a half-ordered confusion of the struggle for life corrected by the need and instinct of association, a struggle of individuals, clans, tribes, parties, nations, ideas, civilisations, cultures, ideals, religions, each affirming itself, each compelled into contact, association, strife with the others. For while Nature imposes the ego as a veil behind which she... colonisation, discovery, commercial victory, travel, adventure, the full possession and utilisation of the earth. All this life still takes as its cadre the old existing forms, the family, the society, the nation and it has two impulses, individualistic and collective. The primary impulse of life is individualistic and makes family, social and national life a means for the greater satisfaction of the vital ...
... the Jews as a state within a state that would undermine the German nation. Jewish ideas were as obnoxious as French ideas. The only way in which he could concede giving rights to the Jews, he said, would be ‘to cut off all their heads in one night, and to set new ones on their shoulders, which should contain not a single Jewish idea’.” 565 Lucy Dawidowicz sees the Jewish emancipation progressing... open attacks on the Jews will no longer be felt to be a general matter of opinion or racial theory, but a necessary defence of the well-being of the nation. The seriousness of this defence was directly proportional to the seriousness of the Germans’ idea about their value as a Volk and the vocation of this Volk in the world. The Jewish “foreign body”, though a minority of one percent, was considered... Jews or with other subhumans? Fichte was “the philosopher of the German war of national liberation against Napoleon”, in which quality we have met him before. His famous Addresses to the German Nation (1808) were delivered while French troops still occupied Berlin. In these addresses he said as one of the very first that, if Germany went down, the rest of the world would go down with it. “Called ...
... number of individuals of the same genus or species as by local association, community of interests and community of ideas; and these limits tend always to be overcome in the widening of human thoughts and sympathies brought about by the closer intermingling of races, nations, interests, ideas, cultures. Still, if overcome in their separatism, they are not abolished in their fact, because they repose on... animal, of an inner evolution, a progression from higher to higher type, a constant self-transcending. This evolution takes place at present by a conflict and progress of ideas applied to life. In their primary aspect human ideas of life are simply a mental translation of the forces and tendencies of life itself as they emerge in the form of needs, desires and interests. The human mind has a practical... their growth by his will and intelligence, others he rejects, discourages and even succeeds in eliminating. But from this elementary process there emerges a second and more advanced character of man's ideas about life; he passes beyond the mere mental translation and ready dynamic handling to a regulated valuation of the forces and tendencies that have emerged or are emerging in him and his environment ...
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