Twenty Articles From
The Newspaper:
The Threefold Social Order
Real Enlightenment as the Basis of Social Thought
An
ever-increasing number of people
are beginning to declare that no way out of the social chaos of our
time will be found unless our minds and hearts take a new turn toward
the spirit. It is a confession to which many are led by disappointment
with the results of a political economy that tried to base its ideas
merely on the production and distribution of material wealth.
It is
also quite clear how few are the fruits of this profession of the spirit
in our times. If expected to produce ideas for political economy, this
profession is a failure; more is wanted than mere reference to the spirit.
This does no more than give expression to a need; when it comes to the
satisfaction of the need, it is helpless. One should recognize in this
fact one of the problems of the present day and ask oneself, “How
is it that even those who today regard this turning toward the spirit
as necessary for social life do not get beyond talking about the necessity
of it? Why do they never quite manage actually to suffuse our political-economic
thought with spirituality?”
The answer
to this question will be found by observing the form the evolution of
thought has taken in modern times among the civilized portion of humanity.
Those representatives of modern civilization who have found their
way to a world-conception, consider it a mark of their superior “cultivation”
to speak of “the unknowable” behind all things. It has gradually
become a widespread belief that only a very unenlightened person still
talks about the inherent “essence of things” or “the
invisible causes of the visible.” Now this thinking can be maintained
for a time regarding the study of nature. The phenomena of nature lie
before our eyes, and even those who will not hear of inquiring into
their causes can describe them, and so arrive at a certain substantiality
of thought.
In matters
of political economy, however, such a mode of thinking is bound to break
down. For here the phenomena proceed ultimately from human beings; demands
arise from human wants and preferences. Within us there lives as substance
that to which people shut their eyes when they accustom themselves
to talk about “the unknowable” (as do many disciples of the
newer schools of thought). So it has come about that the age just passed
has continued to evolve its habits of thought into the present —
habits of thought which break down completely in matters of political
economy. One can observe the freezing of water or the development of
the embryo, and talk in a very “distinguished” manner of “the
unknowable” in the world, cautioning one's contemporaries
not to be led into fantastic speculations about this unknowable realm.
But one cannot master economic matters with a way of thinking based
on such a disposition, for economic affairs require that one should
enter into the fullness of human life. Here one finds spirit and soul
at work, even though they are revealed only in the demand for the satisfaction
of material needs.
We shall
not develop the science of political economy that modern times require
until people cease to be content with merely “referring” to
the spirit and the soul, and cease to stigmatize all endeavors to arrive
at an actual knowledge of the spirit as “unscientific” and
unworthy of any enlightened person. The human soul will remain beyond
their understanding until they recognize its connection with what they
desire to avoid in their study of nature.
If one
speaks today from one's own perception of the supersensible, and argues
that the only way to overcome the prevailing materialism is through
research into the supersensible, one is met with the reply that materialism
has been overcome “scientifically.” There have, it is claimed,
been ample discussions on the subject which prove, on “genuinely”
scientific grounds, that materialism is insufficient to explain the
processes of nature. To this assertion it must be replied that such
discussions may be very interesting theoretically, but they cannot overcome
materialism. Materialism will be overcome only when it is not merely
proven theoretically that there are more facts in the world than are
perceived by our senses, but when living spirit inspires our study of
the world and its processes. Only this spirit, directing human
vision, can survey the many mingling currents at work in the material
life of human communities. One can go on forever proving that “life”
is not merely a chemical process; materialism will in no way suffer.
One will combat materialism effectively only when one has the courage
not only to say, “Our views of the world must be suffused with
spirit,” but really to make this spirit the focus of their consciousness.
The idea of the threefold social order addresses itself to people who
have this courage. Courage of this kind does not stop short at the externalities
of life, but seeks to penetrate its inner being. It grasps the necessity
of the cultivation of a free, independent spiritual-cultural life because
it perceives that a spiritual-cultural life in bondage can, at most,
“refer” to the spirit, but it cannot live in the spirit. It
also grasps the necessity of a self-subsistent legal life, because it
has learned that our sense of right and justice has its roots in regions
of the human soul that must remain independent of both the spiritual-cultural
and the economic spheres. One perceives this only by recognizing the
human soul. World-views inculcated by the theory of the unknowable (this
is the line of much modern thought) will always tend to the fallacy
that one can devise a social framework determined solely by the material
facts of economic life.
This courage
will not be daunted by the theory that men are not mature enough for
such a radical change of thought and feeling. Their “immaturity”
will last only as long as science expounds to them that recognition
of the spirit is an unwarranted assumption. Immaturity is not causing
the present chaos; the chaos is caused by the belief that recognition
of the spirit is a mark of unenlightenment. All attempts at shaping
social life that proceed from this spiritless enlightenment are doomed
to failure because they exclude the spirit. The moment one banishes
the spirit from one's conscious mind, it asserts its claims in
the unconscious regions. The spiritual forces can further human aims
only when we do not work against the spirit. Only those who take the
spirit into their conscious mind work with the spirit. There must he
an overcoming of the false enlightenment that has arisen from a mistaken
view of nature, and has become a sort of lay-gospel among widespread
masses of people. Only then will the ground be prepared for a genuine
social science that can have a fruitful influence upon real life.
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