Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s7: Haushofer and Wüst on the Unreality of Higher Units

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s7

Language
English

Haushofer and Wüst on the Unreality of Higher Units

c7.s7.1

The facts of Hindu political evolution and culture-history like those of the historic races in the diverse regions of the world should but lead to the conclusion at which the exponents of a new science, namely, *Geopolitik* (Geopolitics) have been arriving under the leadership of Karl Haushofer.¹⁵ According to Wüst a world-view such as can actually transcend the limitations of space is impossible both as a concept and as a fact. The so-called "higher unit" which is alleged to be established by the break-up of a previous world-view of a different character through assimilation, absorption, transformation etc. is very questionable and in the long run is liable to disruption. It is impossible to emancipate the world-view from its space-limitations. The attempts to establish artificial world-languages, e.g., Esperanto, Ido, Novial, Volapuek, have not been able to advance beyond their crude beginnings. Coudenove-Kalergi's Pan-Europa movement is like the League of Nations idea a still-born phenomenon. The abolition of the Caliphate by Kamal Pasha is but the last item in an inevitable development, namely, the disappearance of Pan-Islam, unnatural as it is. By enunciating the doctrine that every world-view is by nature nothing but national or territorial although it can to a certain extent transform the space and even transcend it Wüst has exposed the philosophical bankruptcy of internationalism as a cult. It is demonstrated by other writers that neither religion nor art, nor language, nor technocracy, nor economic developments, nor colonialism nor imperialism can in the last analysis lead to the genuine transcending of space or region. All the so-called international or internationalizing endeavours are essentially *raumgebunden* (space-limited and space-conditioned).

c7.s7.2

¹⁵ *Raumüberwindende Mächte* (Leipzig 1934) pp. 167, 170-178, 195, 207, 230-232, 259, 272-273, 277, 340-341, 351-352.

c7.s7.3

There is no mysticism or metaphysics in Haushofer's social philosophy. In the midst of all internationalizing ideologies his geopolitics teaches the world to remain awake to the one great reality of life, namely, that it is nothing but nationalism that rules mankind and that the eternal problem of today is, as our *Mahābhārata* has taught for all ages, to study the science and art of *Macht*, i.e., *śakti* or power. In geopolitics the student of Hindu societal theories will thus come across such dicta of Somadeva's *Nīti-vākyāmrita* as *na hi kulagatā kasyāpi bhūmih* (no body's territory is derived from his family) and *vīrabhogyā vasundharā* (it is by the powerful that the Earth can be enjoyed).

c7.s7.4

Finally, in the state-systems of the Hindus for over half a millennium the sociologists will have to see but a verification of the law enunciated by Jacques de Morgan in *Préhistoire Orientale* (p. 216) that history knows nothing but *précipiter les masses humaines les unes contre les autres* (hurling the human groups against one another). This is what he calls the "perpetual renewal or renovation in which history consists." The Hindu state-systems have likewise exhibited the *perpetual combat contre la mort* (eternal struggle against death) and the solicitude for *la paix dont la possession, en fin de compte, n'est reservée qu'aux justes qui sont forts* (peace, the possession of which, in the last balance-sheet is reserved only to those righteous who are strong). In Lasbax's analysis of the new social forces in operation since the last Great War (1914-18), this struggle and this solicitude such as inspired the Hindu state-makers of all ages are today inspiring the nations of the world to remain equipped with "defensive patriotism" and with "collective health" in view of the wars that are going to break out tomorrow (*des guerres surgiront encore*).¹⁶

c7.s7.5

¹⁶ E. Lasbax: *La Cité Humaine* (Paris) Vol. II. (1927) pp. 352-357.

Linked texts (2)