Harmonious Economics or The New World Order. Vladimir Emelyanovich Chabanov

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СКАЧАТЬ time, it gets beyond harmony to encourage global egotism. This is why capitalism, based on the individualism cult, is alien to eastern mentality and ends up distorting it. The West does not admit other economic system than one driven by self-interest, the most shameful among the human qualities, and not by the desire to provide people with the means of existence, that is why unmercenary economics would not work as well in the West as in the East.

      Selfish economics conforms more to western mentality, and, consequently, it is more beneficial for it, assuring prosperity of the West. However, people of other cultures feel uncomfortable within such economic system, and that is why they often lose to the West. Western economy is detrimental for the life of other cultures, and it does not correspond to their understanding of Truth and Justice.

      The East admits that the common prosperity stands above personal well-being: “The manifestation of unity vanquishes even armies… The entire world is divided along a boundary line between individual and general welfare. If we act within the sphere of the general welfare with sincere intentions, then in support of us stands the entire reservoir of cosmic accumulations’ (Agni Yoga – The Living Ethics).21 The East is capable to “learn above all to separate Head-learning from Soul-Wisdom, the ‘Eye’ from the ‘Heart’ doctrine’ (Helena Blavatsky ^[15])22. The West, meanwhile, keeps worshipping logic, intelligence and rationality, and often ignores the heart with its uncertain, illogical and erratic ways.

      In the East, people understand that even though the accumulation of all the necessary things is indeed a source of well-being, no material goods would satisfy the inner world. That is why it is no surprise for the East that in the quest for pleasures humans are pestered by a growing hunger. And the greater the pleasures, the stronger the hunger. The man himself becomes the object of someone else’s craving, as well as a source of trouble and other unknown calamities. The multidimensionality and the duality of the world are to blame here.

      The lack of spiritual orientation in the West borders on mental anarchy. By consequence, any religious or philosophic dogma contributes to setting up some kind of order, and becomes a source of new knowledge and of psychic duality. As dogmas can be assimilated with spiritual hygiene they contribute to the variety of knowledge. On the contrary, the East proves sufficient, peaceful, and composed. The West generates hundreds of world visions, none of which is complete or fully feasible. And there is no surprise in this, as all of such theories aim at resolving some local issues, instead of uncovering their nature and relation with other phenomena. The main tool such theories use is the analysis of circumstances and not their synthesis.

      As the result, the multitude of doctrines produced in the West do not only fail to enrich the human beings, but even deprive people of the feeling of unity of the Universe, of self-confidence, and of the chance to get to know the World they live in. In the end, people are obliged to obey the element, instead of controlling it with the help of their reason. This is how competition and market are born, instead of a plan, of cooperation, harmony, and unity. At the same time, these developments cannot protect the man of the West from personal dissatisfaction. He ends up better protected from poor harvest and flood than from spiritual defects or psychic epidemics, as he is unfamiliar with any immutable principles. “The world wars have shown what a European is capable of when his intellect, having grown alienated from Nature, runs free’23 (C. G. Jung ^[17]).

      The East is different because it has always seen the mental reality as the main and the only condition of human existence. The East realizes that human soul is rich enough to avoid borrowing from the outside world. This vision of the world lets an Indian build a strong body, shaping the images of his mental state into specific real forms that replace the outer world to him. For this reason, despite not always understanding the reality, an Indian retains an inner order and harmony. As opposed to the multiple environment, in Indian can boast the integrity of his inner world.

      As the two civilisations we have been dealing with so far understand the main questions of the world in strikingly different ways, the life within each of them is easily disconnected from the whole reality to become artificial and inhuman. This is exactly why “The ancient intellectual cultures of Europe ended in disruptive doubt and sceptical impotence, the pieties of Asia in stagnation and decline’ (Sri Aurobindo ^[18]).

      Thus, the differences between the civilisations that we have studied above turned out to be so profound that any convergence would lead to mutual destruction. The relation between the two cultures is that of the water and the fire. “East and West… have two ways of looking at life which are opposite sides of one reality. Between the pragmatic truth on which the vital thought of modern Europe enamoured of the vigour of life, all the dance of God in Nature, puts so vehement and exclusive a stress and the eternal immutable Truth to which the Indian mind enamoured of calm and poise loves to turn with an equal passion for an exclusive finding, there is no such divorce and quarrel as is now declared by the partisan mind, the separating reason, the absorbing passion of an exclusive will of realisation’ (Sri Aurobindo ^[18]).

      The West is too intellectual, too much concentrated on the outer world to see the true state of things, while India is too deeply immersed in itself, so it lacks the determination necessary for balancing the principles it lives by with what it sees and understands. And although without unilaterality the human spirit could not develop in its complexity, due to their maximalism both the western and the eastern civilisation lose half of their total and become functionally incomplete.

      On the other hand, civilisations shape people and their opportunities, and determine the most appropriate economic system for them. This is why in order to survive in this complex environment modelled by the quantitative-qualitative patterns of the Universe the human beings try to adapt to this world, making it cosy and comfortable for themselves. Hence the inevitable conflict of the unilaterality of human philosophic perception and lifestyle. Besides, the spread of a foreign civilisation into an inappropriate ground unavoidably gives birth to mutants instead of healthy and well-balanced individuals.

      In the light of the foregoing, both civilisations need an intermediary capable of reconciling them. Someone who would bring together the opposites and match their values in order to shape a new attitude to culture, economy, spirituality, and quality of life. They need an incentive to unite their multiplicity rather than separate it, to compose a symphony that would replace the cacophony. The Russian mentality has been the one to come closest to this ideal. This is why Russia is the only candidate for the role of the intermediary, as no other global civilisation possesses the qualities required for the mission.

      1.1.3. Russia and Europe, collision of civilisations

      Ages for you, for us the briefest space,

      We raised the shield up as your humble lieges

      To shelter you, the European race

      From the Mongolians’ savage raid and sieges.24

      Alexander Blok, The Scythians

      The meeting of the East and the West on the vast Russian territory sparked a tendency for mutual complement of the opposites reflected in their cultures. As the result, Russia emerged as a natural link between the western and the eastern civilisations, as it could become a successor for neither of them. “Russia is a bridge between the godless man of the West and the inhuman God of the East’ (Vladimir Solovyov). “It is in Russia СКАЧАТЬ