... thoroughgoing mechanisation of life. This tendency to mechanisation is the inherent defect of the State idea and its practice. Already that is the defect upon which both intellectual anarchistic thought and the insight of the spiritual thinker have begun to lay stress, and it must immensely increase as the State idea rounds itself into a greater completeness in practice. It is indeed the inherent defect of ...
... On one side is the engrossing authority, perfection and development of the State, on the other the distinctive freedom, Page 290 perfection and development of the individual man. The State idea, the small or the vast living machine, and the human idea, the more and more distinct and luminous Person, the increasing God, stand in perpetual opposition. The size of the State makes no difference... other idealisms to arrive either at a free solitude or a free association—of man as an individual in the more or less organised group. And in the group there are always two types. One asserts the State idea at the expense of the individual,—ancient Sparta, modern Germany; Page 292 another asserts the supremacy of the State, but seeks at the same time to give as much freedom, power and dignity... the noblest and richest possible expression or to realise by it other results which the more strictly organised States have attained or are attaining. And in consequence we find the collective or State idea breaking down the old English tradition and it is possible that before long the great experiment will have come to an end in a lamentable admission of failure by the adoption of that Germanic "d ...
... The Ideal of Human Unity - I The Human Cycle Chapter IV The Inadequacy of the State Idea What, after all, is this State idea, this idea of the organised community to which the individual has to be immolated? Theoretically, it is the subordination of the individual to the good of all that is demanded; practically, it is his subordination to a collective... if some way could be found to do what ancient civilisations by their enforcement of certain high ideals and disciplines tried to do with their ruling classes, still the State would not be what the State idea pretends that it is. Theoretically, it is the collective wisdom and force of the community made available and organised for the general good. Practically, what controls the engine and drives the... machine is quite another consummation. The State is a convenience, and a rather clumsy convenience, for our common development; it ought never to be made an end in itself. The second claim of the State idea that this supremacy and universal activity of the organised State machine is the best means of human progress, is also an exaggeration and a fiction. Man lives by the community; he needs it to develop ...
... chance in political and social development, and the emergence of socialism was no accident or a thing that might or might not have been, but the inevitable result contained in the very seed of the State idea. It was inevitable from the moment that idea began to be hammered out in practice. The work of the Alfreds and Charlemagnes and other premature national or imperial unifiers contained this as a sure... socialisation of united mankind will be the predestined fruit of our labour. This result can only be avoided if an opposite force interposes and puts in its veto, as happened in Asia where the State idea, although strongly affirmed within its limits, could never go in its realisation beyond a certain point, because the fundamental principle of the national life was opposed to its full intolerant... possible in the place of an organised World-State, if the nations of mankind succeed in preserving their developed instinct of nationalism intact and strong enough to resist the domination of the State idea. The result would then be not a single nation of mankind and a World-State, but a single human people with a free association of its nation-units. Or, it may be, the nation as we know it might disappear ...
... to establish perfectly their idea of an absolute human equality and unity. A system of the kind, however established, by whatever forces, governed by the democratic State idea which inspires modern socialism or by the mere State idea socialistic perhaps, but undemocratic or anti-democratic, would stand upon the principle that perfect unity is only to be realised by uniformity. All thought in fact ...
... 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 earlier vital principle... 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, political and military ...
... great complexity in their judicial administration and neither possessed nor felt any need of a uniformity of jurisdiction or of a centralised unity in the source of judicial authority. But as the State idea develops, this unity and uniformity must arrive. It accomplishes itself at first by the gathering up of all these various jurisdictions with the king as at once the source of their sanctions and ...
... constituent nations. But, as far as all present appearances go to show, we are entering into a period in which the ideal of individual liberty is destined to an entire eclipse under the shadow of the State idea, if not to a sort of temporary death or at least of long stupor, coma and hibernation. The constriction and mechanisation of the unifying process is likely to coincide with a simultaneous process ...
... conquests throughout the world before the rulers of Germany were ill-advised enough to rouse the latent force of opposing ideals by armed violence. And even now that which is essential in it, the State idea and the organisation of the life of the community by the State which is common both to Page 319 German imperialism and to German socialism, is far more likely to succeed by the defeat ...
... of political unity; it is the only form indeed which would be immediately practicable, supposing the will to unity to become rapidly effective in the mind of the race. On the other hand, it is the State idea which is now dominant. The State has been the most successful and efficient means of unification and has been best able to meet the various needs which the progressive aggregate life of societies ...
... native or indispensable to the essence of the collectivist ideal. It is the individual who demands liberty for himself, a free movement for his mind, life, will, action; the collectivist trend and the State idea have rather the opposite tendency, they are self-compelled to take up more and more the compulsory management and control of the mind, life, will, action of the community—and the individual's as ...
... the central infinity-focussing sense and develop out of its ancient spiritual potencies a new Page 24 vision that is no less recognisably Indian for all its modernism and secular State-idea. Lastly, Jana Gana Mana keeps a cleavage between the concept of India and the concept of the Divine, instead of making them converge and fuse: India here is only the country whose destiny is ...
... 38 But it is not easy to peer so far into the dim vistas of the remotest past. Sri Aurobindo therefore confines his inquiry to the historic period when, with whatever vicissitudes, the 'state' idea has been trying to live with or contain or suppress individualist urges and stances. 'Society', it must be remembered, is not the same thing as 'State', for the latter is a more deliberate, and hence ...
... influenced German thinking by positing the superiority of the German people and its mission for the salvation of humankind, the insignificance of the individual and the all-importance of the State. These ideas can be found, sometimes verbatim, in the völkisch publications, in those of the Pan-Germans and in the literature of the Nazis. In fact, several anthologies of sayings by the romantic and idealist... the salvation of the world. And (once again) the freedom of the individual lay in the voluntary submission to the State, which was to be revered as something divine in an earthly form. Such a kind of thinking, comments Ley, “means factually the incorporation of the individuals in the state and encourages any kind of totalitarianism”. 390 These are a few examples of a school of thought which has deeply... occult, semi-spiritual side of existence would remain in the background, although it was always present behind the other two elements of the triad.) Bearing this in mind, it is no simplification to state that the Romantic movement throughout Europe was a reaction against the preponderant role Reason played in “the Age of Reason”, as the century of the Enlightenment was called (in German Aufklärung ...
... present unitarian national type could not be the proper instrument of a free world-union of this large and complex kind; it could only be the instrument of a unitarian World-State. The idea of a world-federation, if by that be understood the Germanic or American form, would be equally inappropriate to the greater diversity and freedom of national development which this type of world-union would hold... large masses of men not otherwise allied to each other in a single State would be the greater influence arising from mass and population. But this influence could not work if the inclusion were against the will of the nations brought together in the State; for then it would rather be a source of weakness and disunion in the State's international action—unless indeed it were allowed in the international... power in the firm frame of a united humanity. What precise form the framework might take, it is impossible to forecast and useless to speculate; only certain now current ideas would have to be modified or abandoned. The idea of a Page 545 world-parliament is attractive at first sight, because the parliamentary form is that to which our minds are accustomed; but an assembly of the present ...
... English food, I should be content with stating the idea in this its simplest form, and spare myself a laborious exegesis; but I do not forget that I am addressing minds formed by purely English influences and therefore capable of admitting the rooted English prejudice that what is logically absurd, may be practically true. At present however I will simply state the motive principle of progress exemplified... in the artistic and municipal forces of Parisian life, in the firm settled executive, in the great vehement heart of the French populace—and that has ever beaten most highly in unison with the grand ideas of Equality and Fraternity, since they were first enounced on the banner of the great and terrible Republic. Hence though by the indiscreet choice of a machine, they have been compelled to copy the... these distinct lines of feeling accord distinct types of racial character. The social ideal is naturally limited to peoples distinguished by a rare social gift and an unbounded receptivity for novel ideas along with a large amount of practical capacity. The ancient Athenian, pre-eminent for lightness of temper and lucidity of thought, was content with the simplest and most nakedly logical machinery, ...
... forms of giants can be half glimpsed. Certain ideas suggested by the present status of forces and by past experience are all that we can permit ourselves in so hazardous a field. We have ruled out of consideration as a practical impossibility in the present international conditions and the present state of international mentality and morality the idea of an immediate settlement on the basis of an... ly cosmopolitan United States and the Latin republics of Central and South America which may in certain contingencies materialise itself into Page 401 a confederate inter-American State. The idea of a confederate Teutonic empire, if Germany and Austria had not been entirely broken by the result of the war, might well have realised itself in the near future; and even though they are now... large natural aggregates would have the advantage of simplifying a number of difficult world-problems and with the growth of peace, mutual understanding and larger ideas might lead to a comparatively painless aggregation in a World-State. Another possible solution is suggested by the precedent of the evolution of the nation-type out of its first loose feudal form. As there the continual clash of ...
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