Sri Aurobindo - The Ideal of Human Unity

Chapter XXXII
Internationalism

THE IDEA of humanity as a single race of beings with a common life and a common general interest is
among the most characteristic and significant products of modern thought. It is an outcome of the
European mind which proceeds characteristically from life-experience to the idea and, without going
deeper, returns from the idea upon life in an attempt to change its outward forms and institutions,
its order and system. In the European mentality it has taken the shape known currently as
internationalism. Internationalism is the attempt of the human mind and life to grow out of the
national idea and form and even in a way to destroy it in the interest of the larger synthesis of
mankind. An idea proceeding on these lines needs always to attach itself to some actual force or
developing power in the life of the times before it can exercise a practical effect. But usually it
suffers by contact with the interests and prepossessions of its grosser ally some lesser or greater
diminution of itself or even a distortion, and in that form, no longer pure and absolute, enters on the
first stage of practice.

The idea of internationalism was born of the thought of the eighteenth century and it took some
kind of voice in the first idealistic stages of the French Revolution. But at that time, it was rather a
vague intellectual sentiment than a clear idea seeing its way to practice; it found no strong force in
life to help it to take visible body. What came out of the French Revolution and the struggle that
grew around it, was a complete and self-conscious nationalism and not internationalism. During the
nineteenth century we see the larger idea growing again in the minds of thinkers, sometimes in a
modified form, sometimes in its own pure idealism, till allying itself with the growing forces of
socialism and anarchism it took a clear body and a recognisable vital force. In its absolute form, it
became the internationalism of Internationalism 549 the intellectuals, intolerant of nationalism as a
narrow spirit of the past, contemptuous of patriotism as an irrational prejudice, a maleficent
corporate egoism characteristic of narrow intellects and creative of arrogance, prejudice, hatred,
oppression, division and strife between nation and nation, a gross survival of the past which the
growth of reason was destined to destroy. It is founded on a view of things which looks at man in his
manhood only and casts away all those physical and social accidents of birth, rank, class, colour,
creed, nationality, which have been erected into so many walls and screens behind which man has
hidden himself from his fellow-man; he has turned them into sympathy-proof shelters and trenches
from which he wages against him a war of defence and aggression, war of nations, war of
continents, war of classes, war of colour with colour, creed with creed, culture with culture. All this
barbarism the idea of the intellectual internationalist seeks to abolish by putting man face to face
with man on the basis of their common human sympathy, aims, highest interests of the future. It is
entirely futurist in its view; it turns away from the confused and darkened good of the past to the
purer good of the future when man, at last beginning to become a truly intelligent and ethical being,
will shake away from him all these sources of prejudice and passion and evil. Humanity will become
one in idea and feeling, and life be consciously what it now is in spite of itself, one in its status on
earth and its destiny.

The height and nobility of the idea is not to be questioned and certainly a mankind which set its life
upon this basis would make a better, purer, more peaceful and enlightened race than anything we
can hope to have at present. But as the human being is now made, the pure idea, though always a
great power, is also afflicted by a great weakness. It has an eventual capacity, once born, of taking
hold of the rest of the human being and forcing him in the end to acknowledge its truth and make
some kind of attempt to embody it; that is its strength. But also because man at present lives more
in the outward than in the inward, is governed principally by his vital existence, sensations, feelings
and customary mentality rather than by his higher thought-mind and feels himself in these to be
really alive, really to exist and 550 The Ideal of Human Unity be, while the world of ideas is to him
something remote and abstract and, however powerful and interesting in its way, not a living thing,
the pure idea seems, until it is embodied in life, something not quite real; in that abstractness and
remoteness lies its weakness.

The sense of this abstractness imposes on the idea an undue haste to get itself recognised by life and
embodied in a form. If it could have confidence in its strength and be content to grow, to insist, to
impress itself till it got well into the spirit of man, it might conceivably become a real part of his
soullife, a permanent power in his psychology and might succeed in remoulding his whole life in its
image. But it has inevitably a desire to get as soon as possible admitted into a form of the life, for
until then it does not feel itself strong and cannot quite be sure that it has vindicated its truth. It
hurries into action before it has real knowledge of itself and thereby prepares its own
disappointment, even when it seems to triumph and fulfil its object. For in order to succeed, it allies
itself with powers and movements which are impelled by another aim than its own, but are glad
enough to get its aid so that they may strengthen their own case and claim. Thus when it realises
itself at last, it does it in a mixed, impure and ineffective form. Life accepts it as a partial habit, but
not completely, not quite sincerely. That has been the history of every idea in succession and one
reason at least why there is almost always something unreal, inconclusive and tormented about
human progress.

There are many conditions and tendencies in human life at present which are favourable to the
progress of the internationalist idea. The strongest of these favourable forces is the constant
drawing closer of the knots of international life, the multiplication of points of contact and threads of
communication and an increasing community in thought, in science and in knowledge. Science
especially has been a great force in this direction; for science is a thing common to all men in its
conclusions, open to all in its methods, available to all in its results: it is international in its very
nature; there can be no such thing as a national science, but only the nations’ contributions to the
work and growth of Internationalism 551 science which are the indivisible inheritance of all
humanity. Therefore it is easier for men of science or those strongly influenced by science to grow
into the international spirit and all the world is now beginning to feel the scientific influence and to
live in it. Science also has created that closer contact of every part of the world with every other
part, out of which some sort of international mind is growing. Even cosmopolitan habits of life are
now not uncommon and there are a fair number of persons who are as much or more citizens of the
world as citizens of their own nation. The growth of knowledge is interesting the peoples in each
other’s art, culture, religion, ideas and is breaking down at many points the prejudice, arrogance and
exclusiveness of the old nationalistic sentiment. Religion, which ought to have led the way, but
owing to its greater dependence on its external parts and its infrarational rather than its spiritual
impulses has been as much, or even more, a sower of discord as a teacher of unity, — religion is
beginning to realise, a little dimly and ineffectively as yet, that spirituality is after all its own chief
business and true aim and that it is also the common element and the common bond of all religions.
As these influences grow and come more and more consciously to cooperate with each other, it
might be hoped that the necessary psychological modification will quietly, gradually, but still
irresistibly and at last with an increasing force of rapidity take place which can prepare a real and
fundamental change in the life of humanity.

But this is at present a slow process, and meanwhile the internationalist idea, eager for effectuation,
allied and almost identified itself with two increasingly powerful movements which have both
assumed an international character, Socialism and Anarchism. Indeed, it is this alliance that most
commonly went by the name of internationalism. But this socialistic and anarchistic internationalism
was recently put to the test, the fiery test of the European war, and thus tried, it was found sadly
wanting. In every country, the Socialist party shed its internationalist promise with the greatest ease
and lightness, German socialism, the protagonist of the idea, massively leading the way in this
formidable abjuration. It is true that a small minority in 552 The Ideal of Human Unity each country
either remained heroically faithful to its principles or soon returned to them, and as the general
weariness of the great international massacre grew, even the majority showed a sensible turn in the
same direction; but this was rather the fruit of circumstance than of principle. Russian socialism, it
may be said, has, at least in its extremer form, shown a stronger root of internationalistic feeling. But
what it has actually attempted to accomplish is a development of Labour rule on the basis of a
purified nationalism, non-aggressive except for revolutionary purposes and self-contained, and not
on the larger international idea. In any case, the actual results of the Russian attempt show only up
to the present a failure of the idea to acquire the vital strength and efficiency which would justify it
to life; it is possible to use them much more as a telling argument against internationalism than as a
justification of its truth or at least of its applicability in the present stage of human progress.

But what is the cause of this almost total bankruptcy of the international ideal under the strong test
of life? Partly it may be because the triumph of socialism is not necessarily bound up with the
progress of internationalism. Socialism is really an attempt to complete the growth of the national
community by making the individual do what he has never yet done, live for the community more
than for himself. It is an outgrowth of the national, not of the international idea. No doubt, when the
society of the nation has been perfected, the society of nations can and even must be formed; but
this is a later possible or eventual result of Socialism, not its primary vital necessity. In the crises of
life it is the primary vital necessity which tells, while the other and remoter element betrays itself to
be a mere idea not yet ready for accomplishment; it can only become powerful when it also
becomes either a vital or a psychological necessity. The real truth, the real cause of the failure is that
internationalism is as yet, except with some exceptional men, merely an idea; it is not yet a thing
near to our vital feelings or otherwise a part of our psychology. The normal socialist or syndicalist
cannot escape from the general human feeling and in the test he too turns out, even though he
were a professed sans-patrie in ordinary times, in Internationalism 553 his inner heart and being a
nationalist. As a vital fact, moreover, these movements have been a revolt of Labour aided by a
number of intellectuals against the established state of things, and they have only allied themselves
with internationalism because that too is an intellectual revolt and because its idea helps them in
the battle. If Labour comes to power, will it keep or shed its internationalistic tendencies? The
experience of countries in which it is or has been at the head of affairs does not give an encouraging
answer, and it may at least be said that, unless at that time the psychological change in humanity
has gone much farther than it has now, Labour in power is likely to shed more of the internationalist
feeling than it will succeed in keeping and to act very much from the old human motives.

No doubt, the European war itself was an explosion of all that was dangerous and evil in successful
nationalism, and the resulting conflagration may well turn out to have been a purificatory process
that has burned up many things that needed to die. It has already strengthened the international
idea and forced it on governments and peoples. But we cannot rely too greatly on ideas and
resolutions formed in a moment of abnormal crisis under the violent stress of exceptional
circumstances. Some effect there may be in the end, some first recognition of juster principles in
international dealings, some attempt at a better, more rational or at least a more convenient
international order. But until the idea of humanity has grown not only upon the intelligence but in
the sentiments, feelings, natural sympathies and mental habits of man, the progress made is likely to
be more in external adjustments than in the vital matters, more in a use of the ideal for mixed and
egoistic purposes than at once or soon in a large and sincere realisation of the ideal. Until man in his
heart is ready, a profound change of the world conditions cannot come; or it can only be brought
about by force, physical force or else force of circumstances, and that leaves all the real work to be
done. A frame may have then been made, but the soul will have still to grow into that mechanical
body.