Twenty Articles From
The Newspaper:
The Threefold Social Order
The Fundamental Fallacy in Social Thought
An
idea such as the threefold social
organism is constantly met with the following objection: “What the
social movement is striving for is the elimination of economic
inequalities. How will this end be attained through changes in the
cultural life and the legal system when these are governed quite
independently of the economic process?”
This
kind of objection is made by people who can see the existence
of the economic inequalities, but do not see that these inequalities
are produced by the human beings living together in the social body.
They see that society's economic order finds expression in people's
life conditions. They aim at making it possible for large numbers of
people to enjoy what seems to them to be better life conditions. They
believe that when the changes in the social order that they have in
mind come about, this possibility will exist.
For anyone who looks more deeply into the state of human affairs, the
principal cause of today's social evils is seen in the very fact that
such a way of thinking has become the prevalent one. In the eyes of
many people, the economic system lies too far removed from any of their
concepts of the cultural and the legal spheres for them possibly to
perceive how the one can be connected with the others in the whole chain
of human existence. People's economic conditions are an outcome of the
positions they assume toward each other through their spiritual faculties
and through the legal code that prevails among them. Anyone who perceives
this will not imagine he could devise any system of economics that could,
of itself, place people living under it in life conditions that will
seem suitable to them. In any economic system, whether one's own services
meet with the reciprocal services needed for a suitable life situation
will depend on how the people in this economic system are spiritually
attuned in their minds, and on how their sense of right and justice
leads them to regulate their mutual affairs.
During
the last three or four centuries, the civilized portion of humanity
has owed its evolution to impulses that make it exceedingly difficult
for them to have any perception of the real relation existing between
economics and culture. We have become entwined in a complex network
of interrelationships; the achievements of industrial technology have
made a mark upon it that no longer corresponds to the cultural and legal
concepts we have developed historically. People have become accustomed
to viewing the cultural progress of recent years with unalloyed appreciation;
but in doing so they overlook one thing: this cultural progress has
been achieved mainly in fields directly connected with industry.
Science undoubtedly has tremendous achievements to record; but its achievements
are greatest where they have been called forth in the economic field
by the demands of industrial life.
Under
the influence of this particular kind of cultural progress the leading
circles have developed a mental habit of basing their opinions in all
life's affairs upon economic grounds. In most cases, they are not aware
of forming their opinions this way. They employ this mode of judgement
unconsciously. They believe that they act out of all sorts of ethical
and aesthetic motives; but, unconsciously, they act upon opinions originating
within the technical-industrial economy. They think in economic
terms, but believe that their principles are ethical, religious,
and aesthetic.
This mental habit of the ruling classes has been made into a dogma
in recent years by the socialists. They believe that all life is conditioned
by economics because those from whom their notions are inherited had
acquired, more or less unconsciously, this economic way of thinking.
Thus these socialist thinkers want to change the system of economics
according to the same viewpoint that led to what they believe so urgently
needs changing. They fail to notice that they would call forth even
more strongly the very thing they do not want if their actions were
guided by ideas that have led to the very thing they wish to change.
The reason for this is that men cling much more tenaciously to their
ideas and their habits of mind than they do to external institutions.
Today, however, a point has been reached in human evolution when the
very character of this evolution demands progress not only in our institutions,
but also in our thoughts and habits of mind. This is a demand of human
history; and the fate of the social movement depends on whether this
demand is heeded. Strange as it still may sound to many people, it is
nevertheless true that modern life has assumed a shape which can no
longer be mastered by the old kinds of ideas.
Many say,
correctly, that the social problem must be approached in a way different
from that, for example, of St. Simon or Owen or Fourier; that spiritual
impulses like theirs are of no use in effecting a change in economic
life. Thus they conclude that spiritual impulses are entirely incapable
of exerting a transforming effect on social life. The truth of the matter
is that these thinkers drew their mental concepts from a form of spiritual
life that, of its very nature, was no longer adequate to the economic
life of modern times. Instead of then coming to the sound conclusion,
“In that case, what is needed is a new form of spiritual and legal
life,” people form the opinion that desired social conditions to
rise up of themselves out of the economic sphere. But economic chaos
will result unless the further progress of evolution is effected by
a step forward in the spiritual-cultural and legal spheres such as the
new age demands.
All that
must come about in the social sphere now and in the near future, depends
on the courage to take this step forward in the cultivation of the spirit
and the establishment of law. Whatever does not spring from this courage
may be very well meant, but will not lead to a sustainable state of
affairs. Therefore the greatest social need is to arouse far and
wide a clear perception that the only basis upon which humanity can
evolve in a healthy way is the cultivation of a new spiritual life.
The fruits of this cultivation will be borne in the structuring of the
economy. If economic life tries of itself to evolve a new form, it will
only propagate — and intensify— its old evils. As long as
economic life is expected to make of us what we may become, new evils
will be added to the old. Not until humanity comes to understand that
the human being — out of his own spirit — must give to the
economic life what it needs, will men be able to pursue as a conscious
aim what they are demanding unconsciously.
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