A real and psychological unity

Sri Aurobindo (The Ideal of Human Unity) inspired me and I wanted to transcribe some of what I read for you as I feel that its addition is highly relevant--as well as my own!

The thrust of my argument is that there are competing visions and some are backed by lots of power. These visions become attractive for a variety of reasons, even if a people were initially conquered to begin with. While a vision prevailed in Rome for a while, manifesting as empire, efforts to impose empire after had only had limited success. Was this an imagination or impulse of Nature?

We read on page 9 of the introduction that when the Spanish came to the New World, their sense of wonder over the Indians soon grew into the desire to ‘linguistically and materially appropriate the Americas, abetted by the European sense of moral and cultural superiority.’ This was conquest. In the beginning there was some experience of ‘otherness,’ commonality and even equality but only for a moment. This experience capitulates into the double movement: difference becomes inferiority, and the possibility of a common humanity requires assimilation. Thus, universal claims, as was in the wars of religion, offer the justification for dominating another. The authors state that what is precluded by this double movement is the possibility of recognizing the other as both different and equal.

Is this the end of the story? No. Is it realistic to expect that an extremely powerful, technologically advanced, highly moralistic and religiously based powerful people would believe that there civilization is equal to the Indians? These Indians did not have advanced agricultural techniques, own private property, read, or have the ability to forge efficient weaponry. If the Indians would have had tanks we would not be having an entirely different conversation. Power is a fact in international relations. Okay, now that I have got your attention with the tank comment, I would like to expand on this notion of power--because this goes way beyond brute force or perceived inferiority. The "universal" idea and spirit of Christendom was a power of its own—just as Islam, Hindusim and being a Roman citizen. It was a force to be reckoned with (it still is). It was sweeping across the globe for various reasons, some mysterious. Once again folks, time for a brief interlude: Yes, one very powerful reason the Spanish went to South America—raping the countryside, leaving an abysmal colonial legacy and weak institutions—was to extract natural resources. However, universal doctrines are spread for reasons other than material gain, the Americas included.

The point I am trying to make is that the power of the ideas and the intrinsic force within Christianity, as in the other great religions, impelled them forward by empowering people to build great civilizations and to be able to make these dangerous journeys. Why these groups (the Europeans and the Indians) had this date with destiny and why the former would seek to impose a universal system on the ladder goes to the deepest questions of life: why did they have the power to do this? It cannot be reduced to strictly a material reason as Marx would have us believe through the economic interpretation of history—even though I readily admit that the Spanish were compelled by a economic lust and drive to subdue the Southern Cone. Yet, is this the only reason?

Nevertheless, let us begin with an example that I find more readily accessible to tie these factors together: the Roman Empire. This interpretation is useful for deploying as a lens when looking at the many universalisms in history. The true problem of empire, says Sri Aurobindo, still remains how to transform the artificial political unity of a heterogeneous empire, heterogeneous in racial composition, language and culture, into a real and psychological unity. The Romans accomplished this by military conquest [power] and military colonization; but once that conquest was assured, they were not content with holding it together as an artificial political unity, nor did they trust solely to the political convenience of a good, efficient and well-organized government economically and administratively beneficent which made it first acceptable to the conquered people.

I am very interesting in analyzing competing and often highly incompatible visions, believing that power and vitality may be the reason why these universalisms spread and die. Why they have power is a question of deep significance; what role Nature has is another. Awareness of how and why they have spread in the past is a fascinating question of history still relevant to today--that Aurobindo has helped me think through. Thank you Aurobindo, classmates and P. Jackson! Take care all! posted by Sir Francis Bacon Wednesday, December 07, 2005 at 2:08 PM