Lecture 3 of 3
by Rudolf Steiner
Lecture in
Dornach, Switzerland – February 22, 1920
Unabridged
translation by Frank Thomas Smith
When you consider what has been said here
during the past two days you will see that what belongs to the
essence of imperialism is that in an imperialistic community
something that was felt to be part of a mission — not
necessarily justified, but understandable — later continued on
as an automatism, so to speak. In the history of human development
things are retained — simply due to indolence — which
were once justified or explicable, but no longer are.
If a community is obliged to
defend itself for a period of time, then it is surely justified to
create certain professions for that purpose: police and military
professions. But when the danger against which defense was necessary
no longer exists, the professions continue to exist. The people
involved must remain. They want to continue to exercise their
professions and therefore we have something which is no longer
justified by the circumstances. Something develops which, although
perhaps originating due to the necessity for defense, takes on an
aggressive character. It is so with all empires, except the original
imperialism of the first human societies, of which I spoke yesterday,
in which the people's mentality considered the ruler to be a god and
thus justified in expanding his domain as far as possible. This
justification was no longer there in all the subsequent empires. Let
us now consider once again from definite viewpoints what is apparent
in the historical evolution of mankind. We find that in the oldest
times the will of the individual who was seen as divine was the
indisputable power factor. In public life there was in reality
nothing to discuss in such empires; but this impossibility of
discussion was grounded in the fact that a god in human form walked
the earth as the ruler. That was, if I may say so, a secure
foundation for public affairs.
Gradually all that which was based on divine
will and was thus secure passed over to the second stage. In that
stage the things which can be observed in physical life, be they
persons, be they the persons' insignias, be they the deeds of the
governing or ruling persons, it was all symbols, signs. Whereas
during the first phase of imperialism here in the physical world the
spirit was considered directly present, during the second stage
everything physical was thought of as a reflection, as an image, as a
symbol for what is not actually present in the physical world, but
only illustrated by the persons and deeds in the physical world.
Such times, when the second stage appeared,
was when it first occurred to people that a possibility for
discussion of public affairs was possible. What we today call rights
can hardly be considered as existing during the first stage. And the
only political institution worth mentioning was the phenomenon of
divine power exercised by physical people. In social affairs the only
thing that mattered was the concrete will of a physical person. To
try to judge whether this will was justified or not makes no sense.
It was just there. It had to be obeyed. To discuss whether the god in
human form should or should not do this or that made no sense. In
fact it was not done during those times when the conditions I have
described really existed. But if one only saw an image of the
spiritual world in physical institutions, if one spoke of what Saint
Augustine
called the “City of God” — that is, the
state which exists here on earth, but which is really an image of
heavenly facts and personalities, then one can hold the opinion that
what the person does who is a divine image is right, is a true image:
someone else could object and say that it is not a true image. That's
when the possibility of discussion originated. The person of today,
because he is accustomed to criticize everything, to discuss
everything, thinks that to criticize and discuss was always present
in human history. That is not true. Discussing and criticizing are
attributes of the second stage, which I have described for you. Thus
began the possibility to judge on one's own, that is, to add a
predicate to a subject. In the oldest forms of human expression this
personal judging was not at all present in respect to public affairs.
During the second stage what we call today parliament for example was
in preparation; for a parliament only makes sense when it is possible
to discuss public affairs. Therefore, even the most primitive form of
public discourse was a characteristic of the second stage. Today we
live in the third stage, insofar as the characteristic form of the
western countries more or less spreads over the world. This is the
stage of platitudes. This stage of platitudes, as I characterized it
to you yesterday, is the one in which the inner substance has also
disappeared from discussion and therefore everyone can be right, or
at least think that they are right, when it can't be proved that they
are wrong, because basically within the world of platitudes
everything can be affirmed. Nevertheless, previous stages are always
retained within the next stages. Therefore the inner impulse to
imperialism exists. People observe things very superficially. When
the previous German Kaiser wrote in a book that was opened out to
write in: “The king's will is sublime law” — what
did it mean? It meant that he expressed himself in the age of
platitudes in a manner that only had meaning for the first stage. In
the first stage it was really the case that the ruler's will was
highest law. The concept of rights, which includes the right of free
speech, and involves lawyers and courts, is essentially a
characteristic of the second stage, and can only be grasped in its
reality from the viewpoint of the second stage. Whoever has followed
how much discussion has taken place about the origin and character of
rights will have noticed that there is something shimmering in the
rights concept as such, because it is applicable to the symbolic
stage, where the spiritual shimmers through the material, shines, so
that when only the external signs, the legal aspects and words
appear, one can argue and discuss what are rights and the legal
system in public discourse.
In the age of the platitudes, however,
understanding of what is necessary for rights in society is
completely lost: that the spiritual kingdom shines through into the
physical kingdom. And then one arrives at such definitions as I
described yesterday using the example of
Woodrow Wilson.
I will now
read to you a definition of the law that Woodrow Wilson gave so you
can see how this definition consists of nothing but platitudes. He
said: “The law is the will of the state in respect to those
citizens who are bound by it.” So the state unfolds a will! One
can well imagine that someone who is embedded so strongly in abstract
idealism, not to mention materialism — for they are practically
the same — can claim that the state is supposed to have a will.
He would have to have lost all sense of reality to even conceive of
such a thing let alone write it down. But it is in the book I spoke
to you about yesterday — the codex of platitudes:
The State, Elements of Historical and Practical Politics.
There are other interesting things in it.
Only in parenthesis I would like to draw your attention to what
Wilson says in this book about the German Empire after he describes
how the efforts to found it were finally successful in 1870/71. He
describes this with the following sentences: “The final
incentive for achievement of complete national unity was brought
about by the German-French war of 1870/71. Prussia's brilliant
success in this struggle, fought in the interest of German patriotism
against French impertinence, caused the cool restraint of the central
states towards their powerful neighbor in the northern end; they
united with the rest of Germany and the German Empire was founded in
the royal palace at Versailles on January 18, 1871.” The same
man wrote that who a short time later in Versailles united with those
whose impertinence had once been the motivation for the founding of
the German Empire. Much of present day public opinion derives from
the fact that people are so terribly superficial and pay no attention
to the facts. If you decide to decide according to objective
information, then things look quite different from what is propounded
in public and accepted by thousands upon thousands of people. It
wouldn't have hurt one bit if when Woodrow Wilson arrived in Paris in
glory, praised from all sides, these remarks had been held up to
him. That is what must be striven for, to take the facts into
account, which means also the truth.
So the second stage is when
discussion arises, which is what makes the civil rights concept
possible. The third stage is when economic life is the essential
reality. And yesterday we showed how this [present] age of platitudes
is absolutely necessary in the course of historical evolution in
order that the platitude, which is empty, can open people's eyes to
the fact that the only reality is economic life and how it is
therefore so necessary to propagate spirituality, the new
spirituality in the world.
People have quite a skimpy idea about this
new spiritual life. And it is therefore understandable that it is
burdened with the most ridiculous misunderstandings. For this new
spirituality must penetrate into the depths of human life. And
although those secret societies, about which I spoke yesterday, only
traditionally preserve the old forms, the slogan
“brothers,” meaning not to let social class or an
individual's religion play a part in the lodges, in a certain sense
does prepare for it in the right way.
We say today — I beg you to pay
special attention to this, let's take something quite banal, quite
common: “The tree is green.” This is a manner of speaking
which is common to the second stage of human development. Perhaps you
will understand me better if you imagine that we try to paint this
opinion — that “the tree is green.” You cannot
paint it! There will be some white surface and green will be added,
but nothing about the tree has been painted. And when something of
the tree is painted which isn't green all you do is disturb the
effect even more. If you try to paint “The tree is
green,” you are painting something dead. The way we combine
subject and predicate in our speech is only useful for our view of
the dead, of the non-living in the world. As we still have no idea of
how everything in the world is alive, and how to express ourselves
about what is alive, we form such judgments as “The tree is
green,” which presupposes that a relationship exists between
something and the color green, whereas the color green is itself the
creative element, the force which acts and lives. The transformation
of human thinking and feeling will have to take place within the
innermost life of the soul. This will take a long time to accomplish,
but when it does it will affect social conditions and how people
relate to each other.
Today we are only at the beginning of all
this. But it is necessary to know which paths lead to the light. I
have said that it is meaningful when people get together and each
one's subjective beliefs play no role. And consider it from this
viewpoint — really think about it — the way in which
anthroposophy is described. It is not described through definitions
or ordinary judgments. We try to create images, to present things
from the most varied sides, and it is senseless to try and nail down
something meant in a spiritual-scientific sense with a mere yes or no
opinion. People today always want to do that, but it isn't possible.
It happens ever more frequently — because we are growing out of
the second stage and into the third — that someone asks: What
is good for me in order to counter this or that difficulty in life?
Advice is given. Aha! The person concerned says, so in this or that
situation in life one must do this or that. They generalize. But it
has only a limited meaning, for judgments given from the spiritual
world always have only an individual meaning, are only applicable
to one case. This way of generalizing, which we have become accustomed
to in the second stage, must not continue into the third stage. People
today are very much inclined to carry things over from the past into
the future. One can become disinclined towards the things which are
pernicious for the soul by seeing clearly what is happening.
Yesterday I indicated to you that in many
respects the Catholic Church harks back to the first stage. It
contains something like a sham or a shadow of the first stage of
human evolution, which sometimes solidifies into a kind of spiritual
imperialism, as for example in the 11th century when the
Monks of Cluny
[Cluny Abbey]
really ruled over Europe more
than is thought. From their ranks the powerful, imperialistic Pope
Gregory VII emerged. Therefore Roman Catholic dogma enables the
priest to feel greater than Christ, because he can force him to be
present at the altar. This clearly shows that the institution of the
Catholic Church is a relic, a shadow-image of what existed in the
very first imperialism.
You know that a great enmity existed between
the Catholic Church and the secret societies which used Freemasonry
in the west — a certain form of Freemasonry at least — as
their instrument. It would go too far in this lecture to describe in
detail how this enmity has gradually increased over time. But one
thing can be said, how in these secret societies the opinion is very
strong that the Catholic Church is a relic of the first stage of
imperialism. The Holy Roman Empire used this framework to have
Charlemagne and the Otto's crowned by the pope, thereby using
the imperialism of the soul as the means of mundane anointment. They
took what still remained from older times and poured it into the new.
Thus the imperialism of the second stage was poured into the
framework of the first imperialism.
Now we have arrived at the third
stage, which shows itself to be economic imperialism, especially in
the west. This economic imperialism is connected to a background
culture of secret societies, which are sated with empty symbols. But
while it has become clear that the social constitution of the Church
is a shadow-image of what once existed and no longer has meaning, it
is still not understood that in the second stage the statesmen of the
west still suffer under a great illusion. Woodrow Wilson would no
longer speak of the will of the Church, but he speaks of the will
of the State as being self-evident. But the state only had the
importance attributed to it during the second stage of human
development. Whereas during the oldest, the first stage the Church
was all-powerful, in the second stage the state contains everything
that was attributed to the Church in the first stage. Thus the
economic imperialism of Great Britain and even a certain idea of
freedom has been poured into the state. And those who were educated
in Great Britain see in the state something that can well have a will
of its own.
But we must perceive that this concept of
the state must take the same road the concept of the Church has
traveled. It must be realized: If we retain this concept of the state
for the entire social organism, a mere rights institution, and force
everything else into this rights institution, we are propagating a
shadow just as the Church has propagated a shadow — recognized
as such by the secret societies. There is little awareness of this
though. Think of all the public affairs that people are enthusiastic
about which are pressed into the concept of the political state.
There are nationalists, chauvinists and so forth; everything we call
nation, national , chauvinism, it's all incorporated into the
framework of the state. Nationalism is added and the concept of the
“nation-state” is construed. Or we may have a certain
opinion about, say socialism, even radical socialism: the framework
of the state is used. Instead of nationalism, socialism is
incorporated. But then we have no concept; it can only be a
shadow-image, as the constitution of the Church has become. In some
Protestant circles the idea has arisen that the Church is only the
visible institution, that the essence of religion must take root in
people's hearts. But this degree of human development has not yet
arrived in respect to the political state, otherwise we wouldn't be
trying to squeeze all kinds of nationalisms into the political
boundaries which exist as the result of the war [First World War
— trans.] All this neglects to take one thing into
consideration — the fact that what occurs in the historical
development of humanity is life and not mechanism. And a
characteristic of life is that it comes and goes. The imperialistic
approach is different however. According to this approach one does
not think about the future. This is part of the present-day approach
to public affairs, that people have no living thoughts, only dead
ones. They think: Today we instituted something, it is good,
therefore it must remain forever. The feminist movement thinks like
this, as do the socialists and the nationalists. We have founded
something, it begins with us, everything waited for us until we
became clever enough. And now we have discovered the cleverest that
exists and it will continue to exist forever. It's as though I have
brought up a child until he is eighteen years old and I say: I have
brought him up correctly, and he will stay as he is. But he will get
older, and he will also die, as does everything in the course of
human evolution. Now I come to what I mention before about what must
accompany the principle of indifference to one's religious beliefs
and fraternity. What must accompany them is the awareness that life
on earth includes death and that we are aware that the institutions
we create must of necessity also cease to exist, because the death
principle already resides in them and they therefore have no wish to
exist forever, do not consider being permanent. Of course under the
influence of the thinking characteristic of the second stage this is
not possible . But if the feeling of shame of which I spoke yesterday
arises, when we realize that we are living in the kingdom of
platitudes under which only economic imperialism glimmers —
then will we call for the spirit, invisible but real. We will call
for a knowledge of the spirit, one which speaks of an invisible kingdom,
a kingdom which is not of this world in which the Christ-impulse can
actually gain a foothold.
This can only happen when the
social order is tripartite, threefold: The economy is auto-
administered, the political state is no longer the absolute,
all-inclusive entity, but is exclusively concerned with rights alone,
and spiritual/cultural life is truly free, meaning that here in
reality a free spiritual sector can be organized. The spiritual life
of humanity can only be free if it is dependent only upon itself and
when all the institutions responsible for cultivating the spirit,
that is, cultural life, are dependent only upon themselves.
What do we have then, when we have this
tripartite organism, this social organism? We have an economy in
which the living physical earth is predominant. In this sector the
economic forces of the economy itself are active. I doubt anyone will
think that if the economy is organized as described in my book
Towards Social Renewal — Basic Issues of the Social Question
some kind of super-sensible forces will be present. When we eat, when
we prepare our food, when we make our clothing, it is all reality.
Esthetics may be symbolically present, but the actual clothing is the
reality.
When we look at the second sector of the
future social organism [the rights sector], we don't have a symbolism like
the second stage, where the political state constituted the totality,
but we have what is valid for one person being equally valid for the
other. And the third sector will be neither symbol nor platitude, but
a spiritual/cultural reality. The spirit will possess the possibility
of really living within humanity. The inner social order can only be
built through a transition to inner truthfulness. In the age of
platitudes this will be especially difficult though. For during the
age of platitudes people acquire a certain ingenious cleverness,
which is, however, nothing more than a play on words of the old
concepts. Just consider for a moment a characteristic example.
Suddenly from the imperialism of platitudes comes the idea that it
would be good if the queen of England also has the title
“Empress of India.” One can invent the most beautiful
reasons for this, but if it didn't happen, nothing would have
changed. The Emperor of Austria, who now belongs to the deposed
royalty, before he was chased out carried around along with his other
titles a most unusual one: Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria,
Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia,
Slovenia, Galizia, Lodomeria, Illyia and so on. Among all these
titles was also “King of Jerusalem!” The Austrian Emperor
also carried, until he was no longer emperor, the title “King
of Jerusalem.” It came from the crusades. It would be
impossible to give a better example of meaninglessness than this. And
such meaninglessness plays a much greater role than you imagine. It is a
question of whether we can arise to a recognition of the present-day
platitudes. It is made difficult because those who live in platitudes
are the verbal representatives of the old concepts that stagger
around in their brains imitating thoughts. But one can only achieve
real thinking again when the inner soul-life is filled with substance
and that can only come from knowledge of the spiritual world, of
spiritual life. Only by being relieved by the spirit can one become a
complete person, after having been constipated with platitudes. What
I described yesterday as a feeling of shame will result in the call
for the spirit. And the propagation of the spirit will only be
possible if the spiritual/cultural sector is allowed to develop
independently. Otherwise we will always have to take advantage of
loopholes, as was the case with the Waldorf School because the
Württemberg
Province education law had such a loophole which made it possible to
establish a Waldorf school only according to spiritual laws, according to
spiritual principles, something which in practically no other place on
earth would be possible. But one can only organize the things
concerning the spiritual life from the spirit itself if the other two
sectors do not interfere, if everything is taken directly from the
spiritual sector itself.
At present the tendency is the reverse. But
this tendency does not reckon with the fact that with every new
generation a new spiritual/cultural life appears on earth. It's
immaterial whether a dictatorship or a republic is established, if it
is not understood that everything which appears is subject to life
and must be continuously transformed, must pass through death and be
formed anew, pass through metamorphoses, then all that will be
accomplished is that every new generation will be revolutionary.
Because only what is considered good for the present will be
established. A fundamental concept for the western areas which are so
mired in platitudes must be to see the social organism as something
living. And one sees it as living only when it is considered in its
threefold nature. It is just those whose favorable economic position
allows them to spread an [economic] imperialism over practically the
whole world who have the terrible responsibility of recognizing that
the cultivation of a true spiritual life must be poured into this
imperialism. It is ironic that an economic empire which spread over
the whole world was founded on the British Isles and then when they
were seeking mystical spirituality turned to those whom they had
economically conquered and exploited. [India — Tr.] The
obligation exists to allow one's own spiritual substance to flow into
the social organism. That is the awareness which our British friends
should take with them, that now, in this worldwide important historic
moment, in all the world's economic institutions where English is
spoken, the responsibility exists to introduce true spirituality into
the exterior economic empire. It's an either/or situation: Either
efforts remain exclusively oriented towards the economy — in
which case the fall of earthly civilization is the inevitable result
— or spirit will be poured into this economic empire, in which
case what was intended for earthly evolution will be achieved. I
would like to say: Every morning we should bear this in mind very
seriously and all activities should be organized according to this
impulse. The bell tolls with extreme urgency at present — with
terrible urgency. In a certain sense we have reached the climax of
platitudes. In an age when all content has been squeezed out of
platitudes, content which came to humanity previously but which no
longer has any meaning, we must absorb real substantial content into
our psychological and social life. We must be clear about the fact
that this either/or must be decided by each individual for him or her
self and that each must participate in this decision with his most
inner force of soul. Otherwise he does not participate in the affairs
of humanity.
But the attraction for illusion is
especially strong in the age of platitudes. We wish so to sweep away
the seriousness of life. We avoid looking at the truth inherent in
our evolution. How could people let themselves be deceived by
Wilsonian ideas if they really had the intense desire for truthful
clarity? It must come. The desire for truth must grow in humanity.
Above all, the desire for the liberation of spiritual/cultural life
must grow along with the knowledge that nobody has the right to call
himself a Christian who has not grasped the saying: “My kingdom
is not of this world.”
This means that the kingdom of
Christ must become an invisible kingdom, a truly invisible empire, an
empire of which one speaks as of invisible things. Only when spiritual
science gains in importance will people speak of this empire. Not some
church, not some state, not some economic empire can create this empire.
Only the will of the individual who lives in a liberated
spiritual/cultural life can create this empire.
It is difficult to believe that in the lands
in which people are downtrodden much can be done to free spiritual
life. Therefore it must be done in those lands where the people are
not downtrodden politically, economically and, obviously, not
spiritually downtrodden. Above all it must be realized that we have
not arrived at the day when we say: Until now things have gone
downhill, they will go uphill again! No, if people do not act for
this objective out of the spirit, things will not go uphill again,
but will continue downhill. Humanity does not live today from what it
has produced — for to produce again a spiritual impulse is
necessary — humanity lives today from reserves, from old
reserves, and they are being used up. And it is childish and
naïve to think that a low point is reached
some day and things will get better then, even with our hands in our laps.
That's not how it is. And I would like to see that the words spoken
here kindle a fire in the hearts of those who belong to the
anthroposophical movement. I would hope that the specter which
perhaps haunts those who find their way to this anthroposophical
movement be overcome by the spirit meant here. It is certainly true
that someone who finds his way to such a movement often seeks
something for himself, for his soul. Of course he can have that, but
only in order to stand with his soul in the service of the whole. He
should advance, certainly, for himself, but only so mankind can
advance through him. I cannot say that often enough. It should be
added to those things I said should be thought about every morning.
If we had really taken the inner impulse of this movement seriously,
we would have been much farther along. But perhaps what is done in
our circles does not help advance towards the future, but is often a
hindrance. We should ask ourselves why this is so. It is very
important. And above all we should not think that the sharpest powers
of opposition are not active from all sides against what strives for
the well-being of humanity. I have already indicated to you what is
being done in the world in opposition to our movement, what hostility
is activated against us. I feel myself obliged to make these things
known to you, so that you should never say to yourself: We have
already refuted this or that. We have refuted nothing, because these
opponents are not interested in the truth. They prefer to ignore as
much as possible the facts and simply aim slanderous accusations from
all corners.
I would like to read part of a letter to you
which arrived recently from Oslo. “One of our anthroposophical
friends works in a so-called people's college in Oslo together with a
certain Schirmer. This Mr. Schirmer is in a certain sense quite a
proficient teacher, but is also a fanatical racist and a sworn
anti-Semite. At a people's meeting where three of us gave lectures
about the Threefold Society, he talked against us, or rather against
Dr. Steiner's Towards Social Renewal, although without much success.
The guy has a certain influence in teachers' circles and he works in
his own way in the sense of the social triformation in the school
insofar as he is for freedom, but on the other hand he works against
the social triformation and Dr. Steiner for the simple reason
that he suspects that Dr. Steiner is a Jew. That is perhaps
not so bad. We must expect and overcome more serious opposition. But
now he has received confirmation of his suspicion. He turned to an
‘authority,’ namely the editor of the political
anthropological monthly, Berlin-Steglitz. This purely anti-Semitic
magazine wrote to him that Dr. Steiner is a Jew through and through.
He is associated with the Zionists. And the editor added that they,
the anti-Semites, have had their eye on you [Dr Steiner] for a long
time. Mr. Schirmer also says that a persecution of the Jews is
beginning now in Germany, and that all the Jews on the anti-Semites'
blacklist should be simply shot down or, as they say, rendered
harmless.” and so on.
You see, this has nothing to do with
anti-Semitism as such, that's only on the face of it. They choose
slogans in these situations, with which they try to accomplish as
much as possible with people who listen to slogans. But such things
clearly indicate what most people don't want to see, what they want
to ignore more and more. It is today much more serious that you
think, and we should not ignore the seriousness of the times, but
should realize that we are only at the beginning of these things
which are opposed to everything that is intended to advance human
progress. And that we should never, without neglecting our
responsibilities, divert our attention from what is a radical evil
within humanity, what manifests as a radical evil within humanity.
The worst that can happen today is paying attention to mere slogans
and platitudes, and believing that outdated concepts somehow have
roots in human reality today — if we do not initiate a new
reality from the sources of the spirit itself.
That, my dear friends, was what I wanted to
tell you today, first of all to all of you, but especially to those
whose visit has pleased us greatly — especially to our English
friends, so that when they return to their own country, where it will
be so important, they will have something on which to base their
activities. You will have seen that I have not spoken in favor or
against anyone, nor have I flattered anyone. I only speak here in
order to say the truth. I have known theosophists who when they speak
to members of a foreign nation begin to talk about what an honor it
is to be able to spread the teachings about the spiritual life in a
nation which has accumulated so much glory. Such things cannot be
said to you here. But I believe that you have come here to hear the
truth and I think that I have best served you by really trying to
tell the unvarnished truth. You will have learned during your trip
that telling the truth nowadays is not a comfortable thing, for the
truth calls forth opposition now more than ever. Do not be afraid of
opposition, for they are one and the same: to have enemies and to
tell the truth. And we will understand each other best when our
mutual understanding is based on the desire to hear the unvarnished
truth. Before I leave for Germany, this is what I wanted to say to
you today, and especially to our English friends.
|