Many critics and some friends of Mahatma Gandhi have found fault with
his desire to introduce simpler methods of spinning and weaving and to
do away with much of the complicated machinery of Modern Civilisation.
The reason why they object is that they fear such methods mean not
progress towards a higher state but relapse into a primitive condition
of civilisation or even of barbarism. His denunciation of the age of
machinery and of the Industrial System has been criticised by many as
the ravings of a visionary and of one who is merely an impracticable
idealist. This is a strange criticism to come from those who give their
allegiance to a form of civilisation or 'Culture' which has led to the
unprecedented horrors of the late European War and the century-old
disgraces of the Industrial System. Is this present modern civilisation
so very desirable that we should wish it to continue in perpetuity?
Every civilisation in the History of Man has reached a certain point
after which there has been one possibility only for it and that was
absolute relapse into semi-darkness in order to give place to a new and
higher civilisation. The common starting point of all the civilisations
is a kind of night-time. In order that the Babylonian (or Despotic)
Civilisation might give way to the Roman (or Heroic), and the Roman give
way to the Modern (or Intellectual) Civilisation, it was necessary for
each in turn to sink completely into this common night-time. Without
this entire destruction of the ancient structure, there would have been
only a patchwork of the old, and not a harmonious building of the New.
As Christ said: "Ye cannot put old wine into new bottles." The debris of
the Past has to be cleared away in order to make way for the structure
of the Future. Now with regard to Modern Civilisation, all the signs of
the times show that it has failed lamentably and is gradually tottering
to a dishonoured grave. Why make any attempts to prop up what Nature so
evidently has decided to throw on the scrap-heap? Such attempts are
contrary to the teaching of past history. But anything, which tends to
reach the common roots of all civilisations, should be encouraged. In
order that the spiritual civilisation of the Future may have a real
chance of growing in an atmosphere congenial to it, Mahatma Gandhi's
demonstration of the right path should be welcomed. His emphasis on
simplicity of life and on the simplification of the machinery of living
must be realised as a supremely essential condition of the coming of the
new Era. In the civilisation of the Future, an Era of natural harmonious
living will be inaugurated, and artificial, luxurious and pompous living
will be entirely rooted out.
Simplicity of life being a condition of spiritual perfection, we may
look forward to an Era of Civilisation in the Future, greatly superior
to all the civilisations of the Past, if only we accept simplicity of
life as the best method of living. The failure and decline of Western
or Modern Civilisation need not alarm us; for the experience of History
is full of similar declines of once powerful cultures. When Babylonian
Civilisation had reached its height, it had to come down to what we may
term the zero-point of all civilisation from which Roman Civilisation
had made its start. But when Roman Civilisation had reached its zenith,
it was much superior to the zenith Civilisation of Babylon, as the
zenith Babylonian was superior to the zero-civilisation. And so also of
full-fledged Modern Civilisation. We may say that until it returns to
the common zero-point, there is no hope of a full and perfect
development of a civilisation moulded by spiritual ideals.
Let critics of Mahatma Gandhi then look to History before they condemn
him for trying to bring this much belauded Modern Civilisation down to
the common starting point of all great civilisations. We are at the dawn
of a New Era, and Mahatma Gandhi is the one leader who shows to us the
right path. He at least is watering the roots, while all others who try
to keep alive the Civilisation of the Western nations are like foolish
gardeners who lavish water on the withering leaves of a dying tree and
never think of watering its roots.