TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE AND THE CIVILIZED WORLD
[Note 16]
The German people believed that its imperial structure, erected half a
century ago, would last for an unlimited time. In August 1914, it felt
that the imminent catastrophe of war would prove this structure
invincible. Today, only its ruins are left. After such an experience
retrospection is in order, for this experience has proved the opinions
of half a century, especially the dominant thoughts of the war years,
to be tragically erroneous. What are the reasons behind this erroneous
thinking? This question must induce retrospection in the minds of the
German people. Its potentiality for life depends on whether the
strength exists for this kind of self-examination. Its future depends
on whether it can earnestly ask the following question: how did we
fall into error? If the German people asks itself this question today,
it will realize that it established an Empire half a century ago, but
omitted to assign to this Empire the mission which corresponds to the
inner essence of its people.
The Empire was established. At first it was occupied with bringing its
inner life into harmony with the requirements of tradition and the new
needs which developed from year to year. Later, efforts were directed
toward consolidating and enlarging the outward power structure, which
was based on material strength. At the same time, means were employed
which were directed at the social demands of the day-in some cases
appropriate to the needs- but which lacked the larger goal which
should have resulted from knowledge of the evolutionary forces to
which mankind must direct itself. Therefore, the Empire was placed in
the world without a substantial goal to justify its existence. The
war-catastrophe revealed this fact in a tragic way. Previous to the
war's outbreak, those in the non-German world could see nothing in the
conduct of the Empire's affairs which could lead them to think that
its authorities were fulfilling a historic mission that should not be
swept away. The fact that these authorities did not encounter such a
mission necessarily engendered an attitude in the non-German world
which was, to one who has a real insight, the more profound reason for
the German downfall.
A very great deal depends upon the German people's objective
discernment of this fact. The insight which has remained hidden for
the past fifty years should emerge during these calamitous times. In
place of trivial thinking about immediate requirements, a broader view
of life should now appear, which strives with powerful thinking to
recognize modern humanity's evolutionary forces, and is courageously
dedicated to them. The petty attempts to neutralize all those who pay
heed to these evolutionary forces must cease. The arrogance and
superciliousness of those who imagine themselves to be practical, but
whose practicality is the disguised narrow-mindedness which has in
fact induced the calamity, must cease. Attention should be paid to
what those who are decried as idealists, but who in reality are the
practical ones, have to say about the evolutionary needs of modern
times.
Practical people of every persuasion have seen the advent
of new human demands for a long time. But they wanted to deal with
these demands within the framework of the old traditional
thought-habits and institutions. Modern economic life has produced
these demands. To satisfy them by means of private initiative seemed
impossible. The transfer of private enterprise to community enterprise
in some cases appeared necessary to a certain class of people; and
this was carried out where they thought it was useful. Radical
transfer of all individual enterprise to community enterprise was the
goal of another class which was not interested in retaining the
customary private objectives in the new economy.
All the efforts relating to the new requirements which have been made
until now have one thing in common. They strive toward the
socialization of the private sector and reckon with it being taken
over by the communities (state, municipality), which have developed
from conditions which have nothing to do with present requirements.
Or, they reckon with newer kinds of communities (cooperatives, for
example), which are not fully in harmony with these new requirements,
having been copied from the old forms using traditional thought-habits.
The truth is that no form of community which corresponds to these old
thought-habits can cope with such requirements. The forces of the
times are pressing for knowledge of a social structure for mankind
which is completely different from what is commonly envisaged. Social
communities hitherto have, for the most part, been formed by human
instincts. To penetrate their forces with full consciousness is a
mission of the times.
The social organism is formed like the natural organism. As the
natural organism must provide for thinking by means of the head and
not the lungs, the formation of the social organism in systems
none of which can assume the functions of the others, although each
must cooperate with the others while always maintaining its autonomy
is necessary.
The economy can prosper only if it develops, as an autonomous member
of the social organism, according to its own forces and laws, and if
it does not introduce confusion into its structure by letting itself
be drained by another member of the social organism the
politically active one. This politically active member must function,
fully autonomous, alongside the economy, as the respiratory system
functions alongside the head system in the natural organism. Healthy
cooperation cannot be attained by means of a single legislative and
administrative organ, but by each system having its own mutually
cooperating legislature and administration. The political system, by
absorbing the economy, inevitably destroys it; and the economic system
loses its vital force when it becomes political.
A third member of the social organism, in full autonomy and formed
from its own potentialities, must be added to these two: that of
spiritual production, to which the spiritual parts of the other two
sectors, supplied to them by this third sector, belong. It must have
its own legitimate rules and administration and not be administered or
influenced by the other two, except in the sense that the members of
the natural organism mutually influence each other.
Already today one can scientifically substantiate and develop in
detail what has been said here about the social organism's needs. In
this presentation only a general indication can be given for all those
who wish to pursue them.
The German Empire was founded at a time when these needs were
converging on mankind. Its administrators did not understand the need
for setting the Empire's mission accordingly. A view to these
necessities would not only have given the Empire the correct inner
structure; it would also have lent justification to its foreign
policy. The German people could have lived together with the
non-German peoples through such a policy.
Insight should now mature from the calamity. One should develop a will
for the best possible social organism. Not a Germany which no longer
exists should face the world, but a spiritual, a political and an
economic system should propose to deal as autonomous delegations,
through their representatives, with those who crushed that Germany
which became an impossible social structure due to the confusion of
its three systems.
One can anticipate the experts who object to the complexity of these
suggestions and find it uncomfortable even to think about three
systems cooperating with each other, because they wish to know nothing
of the real requirements of life and would structure everything
according to the comfortable requirements of their thinking. This must
become clear to them: either people will accommodate their thinking to
the requirements of reality, or they will have learned nothing from
the calamity and will cause innumerable new ones to occur in the
future.