Lecture 2
by Rudolf Steiner
given at Zurich, 5 February 1919
“A Comparison Between the Attempts at Solving the
Social Question Based on Life's Realities and the Necessity
for a Scientific Spiritual Concept of Life as a Social
Organism.”
With reference to my presentations I would like to ask you to
take these four lectures as a unit. This means the content of
one lecture is not to be taken as independent and judged this
way. The relative theme is so comprehensive that it can only be
manageable by doing a number of lectures.
In
today's lecture I would like to make a provisional outline for
possible solving techniques distilled from actual knowledge of
the being of the social organism, of such solution
possibilities for the social question which do not come out of
some one-sided remark about some or other class, some or other
state, but coming from appropriate reality, coming from the
properly observed evolutionary forces of humanity and in
particular those evolutionary forces which are the most
pronounced at present and valid for the near future of
humanity. If one tries to find a solution for the social
question through the aspirations or the demands of a state, of
a class, out of some part of the social organism, then one does
nothing other than undermine the other elements of the social
organism by calling on yet another class which in some way or
other restrict development or healthy living conditions.
For
our time here, it is relevant to reveal and substantiate my
indications of truths in the following lectures. In modern
life, or it could be called the modern social organism, quite a
particular form is experienced through expressions
characteristic of modern life, through technology, through the
technical operation of economic life and its relationships and
through the capitalistic process which organises this economic
enterprise. Not necessarily only those with a conscious focus
observe this modern technology and modern capitalism as they
were introduced into life, but their focus was on the more or
less conscious or the more or less instinctive, actively
organised forces within the social structure of the human
community.
The
characteristic, particular form of the social question coming
to the fore in modern times can be expressed as follows:
economic life supported by technology and modern capitalism
have worked in a natural self-evident way and brought order
into the modern community. Besides this claim for human
awareness towards technology and capitalism, the awareness was
deflected by other branches, other spheres of the social
organism, where awareness should have become as necessary as
the health of the social organism as it was with the economic
field.
Perhaps I may use a comparison to clearly communicate what I
could call the nerve of a comprehensive, many-sided observation
of the social question. Please consider that with a comparison
I don't mean anything other than a support of human
understanding in order to orientate it towards the healing of
the social question. Whoever wants to consider what we know as
the most complicated organism — that of the human being
— needs to pay attention to the existence of three
operative systems working side by side in the human form. These
three cooperative systems can be characterised in the following
way. One could say in the human, natural organism a system
works incorporating the nerves and senses. One could call the
most important member of this system where the nerves and
senses are centralized, the head organisation.
As
to the second member of the human organism, in order to develop
a real understanding of this organism it is necessary to
consider what I would like to call the rhythmic system, in
relationship with breathing, blood circulation and everything
expressed as rhythmic processes. As a third system, one can
recognise all the organs whose actions relate to metabolism. In
these three systems are the combined effects, when they
interact in a healthy way, of all that is contained in the
human organism. I have tried, in full agreement with all the
research science has claimed, to characterise this threefold
aspect of the human being as an outline in my book
“Riddles of the Soul”
I am clear about all the
aspects to be introduced in the future by biology, physiology
and science regarding the human organism which will see how
this threefold head-, circulation-, (or chest system) and
digestive systems are maintained — that these members
each work in a particular independent way which indicates it is
not an complete centralisation of the organism. These three
systems each have a particular relationship to the outer world;
the head system through the senses, the circulation or rhythmic
system through breathing and the digestive system through the
nutritional organs. In relation to scientific methods we have
not progressed as far as these ideas I'm indicating here, out
of spiritual scientific foundations for natural science as I've
tried to use, in order to present it in scientific circles as a
general statement and in a way, make it desirable for the
evolution of knowledge. This means however that our thinking
habits, the entire way we imagine the world to be has not
completely been adjusted to the example of the human organism
as it is presented in its natural processes. In a way one could
say yes, science can wait, they may gradually rush to their
ideals, they will soon come to the view that such observations
are their own. However, regarding the examination and
especially the processes of the social organism, one can't
wait. Not with some or other expert but for every human soul
— because every human soul shares in the work of the
social organism — at least must take part in the work of
the social organism — at least by an instinctive
knowledge of the necessities of this social organism. Healthy
thought and experience, a healthy will and desire in relation
to the expression of the social order can only develop when
people — whether more or less instinctive — can
understand that this social organism, if it is to be healthy,
must be a natural threefold organism.
Now
I am at the point where I need to be very careful not to be
misunderstood. Since Schäffle wrote a book about
the social organism, there have been repeated attempts at
establishing an analogy between a natural organization, let's
say an organisation of people, and on the other side, a human
community as such. So many efforts have been made to determine
the cell of the social organism, where the cell structure
exists, what the tissues could be and so on! Recently a book
appeared by Aleray,
“Weltmutation”
(mutation of the world), in which certain scientific facts and
scientific laws are simply transferred on to, what they call, the
social organization. With all these analogy games, nothing relates
to what we are considering here. Those who at the end of this
lecture could say: ‘Oh, here we have yet again such a game of
analogy between the natural organism and the social organism’
— would prove that the real spirit within the meaning has
not been penetrated by the listener. This I don't want —
some or other scientific facts adjusted as truth and
transplanted on to the social organisation. What I want is for
human thinking, human feeling to learn through observation of
the natural organism that this method, this way of sensing can
in turn be applied to the social organization. When you simply
take the belief you learnt about natural organisms and apply
that to social organism, like Schäffle has done, like others
have done too, likewise with
“Weltmutation”
then it shows you are unwilling to develop a capability to consider
the social organism as independent, to examine it as such, to
research it according to its own laws, just as you do with
natural organisms. In order for you to understand me I have
made this comparison with a natural organism. The very moment
you continue, like the researcher in nature, objectively
meeting the natural organism, as you would place yourself
before the independence of the social organism in order to
learn about its laws, in that moment the game of analogy
regarding the earnestness of your observation, will stop.
I
want to call your attention now to how this play of analogies
must come to an end. The examination of the social organism
— here it involves something becoming, something which
must come into existence first — in as far as it must be
healthy, leads to the three members of this social organism,
but they both can only be recognised as independent as such,
when considered objectively. On the one side, you can
distinguish three members of the human organism, on the other
side the objective, independent members of the social organism.
If you look for analogies, then you most likely will experience
the following. You would say that this human head- or
nerve-system relates to human spiritual life with its spiritual
abilities; the circulatory system rules the relation with this
spiritual system with the crudest system, and the materialistic
system with the digestive system. The digestive system could be
considered through certain fundamental experiences as the
crudest of systems in the human organism. What then, if you
continued the game of analogy, would be the next thing? The
next thing would be to say the social organism divides into
three branches.
Spiritual life develops within a person. That is one member.
Within a person his actual political life develops too —
we will speak about this division of branches afterwards
— and also his economic or business life develops within.
You could, if you wanted to play the analogy game, believe that
spiritual life as in spiritual culture in the social organism
is subject to the same kind of laws which allow a comparison
with the laws in the nervous and sense systems. The system
considered as unrefined, the most materialistic, the digestive
system, can in the game of analogy probably be compared with
what one calls the crude system of material business life.
Whoever can consider things for themselves and stay far away
from the mere game of analogy will know that in reality, things
are actually reversed in comparison with what comes out of mere
analogy. See, the social organism lies opposite the economic
production and consumption, opposite the economic circulation
of goods at the basis of life's rules, just like the natural
human organism's laws are at the foundation of the nerves- and
sense-life, which is its spiritual system. Certainly the life
of public law, the actual political life, life which is often
too all-encompassing, which can be described as the actual
civil life, allows itself to be between the two systems of the
digestive and the nerve-sense systems where the rhythmic system
lies, the regulating system of the breathing and heart. Only by
comparing how the human organism has, between its digestive and
nerve-systems the central circulation or rhythmic systems, so
between the public rights and the economic system stand the
actual life of spiritual culture. This life of spiritual
culture, this spiritual life of the social organism has no laws
which can be thought of as analogous to laws of human talents,
laws of human sense and nerve existence but the spiritual life
in the social organism has laws which can only be compared with
laws in the crudest system, the metabolic system.
This leads to an objective observation of the social organism.
Regarding this particular point the assumption must be clear in
order for no misunderstanding to arise in a belief that the
physiological or biological elements are simply transferred on
to the social organism. The social organism must be considered
as an independent organism throughout for its success towards
recovery to take place. In various areas in central and eastern
Europe the word “socializing” is heard. This
socializing will not become a healing process but a fake
process in the social organism, perhaps even a disturbing
process if the human heart, the soul does not have insight with
instinctive knowledge of the necessity for a threefoldness in
the social organism. This social organism has in every case, if
it is to work in a healthy way, three members. The first
member, to begin with from the one side — one could
understandably also start on the side of the spiritual life but
for now we will start on the economic side as this obviously
controls the rest of life through modern technology in modern
capitalism — therefore, the first member of the social
organism as business life, or economic life, will be looked at.
This economic life, we will partly today and partly in the
course of these lectures see it has to be an independent member
within the social organism just as in comparison, the nerve-
sense system is relatively independent in the human organism.
Our economic life is connected to all that takes place in the
production, circulation and consumption of goods. With
everything connected to these three things, economy is linked.
We will soon consider its characteristics in order to
understand it more closely.
As
a second member of the social organism we observe the life of
public law, the actual political life, for the purposes of the
old constitutional state it could be called the actual life of
the state. Meanwhile economic life involves the business of
everything which the human being brings out of nature as his
own production, because the economic life involves the
circulation and consumption of goods, so this second member of
the social organism is involved with everything with a human
foundation with its relationships of people with people. This I
ask you to consider comprehensively, because it is important
for knowledge of the members of the social organism to know the
difference between public laws which relate to the foundation
of one human being to another, while in the economic system it
involves the production, circulation and consumption of goods.
One must be able to distinguish between the natural human
system in relation to the lungs and outer air, the processing
of this outer air, how this differs from the manner and way
nourishment is transformed in the third natural system within
the human being.
As
a third member which must be placed independently from the
others, there has to be a distinction from everything in the
social order which involved spiritual life. More precisely the
name ‘spiritual culture’ does not cover everything connected to
spiritual life; it should be everything flowing into the social
organism which depends on the natural gift of individuals, the
natural spiritual and physical talents coming from single
individuals. Similar to the first system, the economic system
which needs to exist for humanity to relates and regulates the
outer world, the second system which must exist in the social
organism, relates to everything happening between one person
and another; there we have the third system. In order for this
third system to have a name it will be called the spiritual
system, involved with everything which is created out of the
single human individuality and needing to be incorporated into
the social organism.
Even as true as it is that modern technology and modern
capitalism have given a stamp to our modern community life, it
actually is so necessary for the wounds of humanity beaten from
this side to be healed and thus enable people and communities
to develop the right relationship to the threefold social order
I am characterizing here.
Economic life has in our modern time taken on particular forms.
It has so to speak penetrated human life with its own rules.
Both the other members of the social organism are in the
position to bring their own independent laws in the right way
into this social organism. For them it is necessary that people
out of independence and from a point of awareness carry out the
social membership, each in its place, where it is positioned.
For the purpose of finding solutions to the social question
which we are considering, every single person has a social task
in the present and near future. The first member of the social
organism, the economic life, rests primarily on a natural
background. Just as each individual depends for his learning
and his education on the talents of his spiritual and physical
organs, on those gifts and talents given to him, likewise
economic life depends on certain natural foundations. This
natural basis gives economic life — and through this the
totality of the social organism — its character. However,
these natural foundations are there without having to be
discovered through some social organisation, some or other
socializing of its original form. This needs consideration.
Just as with the education of humanity the various gifts they
have need consideration, in natural bodily and spiritual
abilities, so every attempt at socializing community living by
giving it an economic form as well, need consideration out of
its natural foundations. All circulation of goods and also all
human labour and any spiritual cultural life lie at the
foundation of the first elementary origins chained by human
beings to a particular part of nature. Here one needs to really
think about the social organism's relationship with the natural
foundation, for instance as in individuals in regard to
learning and education, in relation to their gifts in thinking.
This can be made clear by taking extreme examples.
For
instance, you can imagine how in various parts on earth,
locally produced bananas present a source of nourishment, how
bananas qualify in the community to be displaced from their
point of origin and be made into a consumable product at a
specific destination. Compare the human labour involved in
making bananas into consumables for the community with the work
of making wheat into a consumable product in the vicinity of
Central Europe, it is clear the work needed for the bananas,
modestly calculated, is three hundred times less. The work
necessary to make the wheat consumable is, lightly calculated,
three hundred times bigger.
This is indeed an extreme example. Such differences regarding
the measure of work necessary in relation to its natural origin
exist in our production line also, under the production line
which is represented in some or other social organism in
Europe. Not as radical a difference as between bananas and
wheat, but the differences are there. Just as the economic
organism is founded on the relationship between human beings
and their consumption of nature, the measure of the work
talents in reality dependent on the natural origin, so the
being of a person is dependent on his natural physical or
spiritual gifts. One can make a comparison. In Germany, in the
region of middle profit abilities, the sowing of wheat has a
crop return of seven to eight times at the harvest. In Chile
this becomes twelve times, in north Mexico seventeen times and
in Peru twenty times, south Mexico twenty-five times up to
thirty-five times. For different regions of the earth the
return in wheat productivity is in relation to the earth, to
the yield of the earth. This actually affects the measure of
labour needed to bring the wheat in an appropriate manner into
the economic life.
Just as one can make such data for the measure of labour needed
to process the wheat into a consumable item in different
regions, so comparisons can be made for the labour needed in
the most varied production lines, raw materials with different
production lines made consumable within the economic sphere of
a social organism.
This whole interconnected being found in the preliminary
processes at the beginning of the relation of people to nature,
which continue in every human action by transforming products
of nature into consumables for the community, all these
processes which are involved as a whole from the natural
foundations up to consumables, all these processes, and only
these, are included in a healthy social organism as a pure
economic member of the social organization. This economic
member of the social organisation must be — I will in the
course of the lectures give more details with proof —
with just such an independence be positioned in the whole
social organism as the human head organisation stands in
relation to the entire human organism.
Independently standing beside the economic system another
system must exist and that is the relationship between one
person and another. Living within the purely economic system is
the relationship which needs to be established between people
and objective goods. A healthy social life needs to develop as
a second member of the social organism which regulates
everything in relationships between one person and another.
People have neglected achieving the correct difference between
the two members of the social organism through the hypnotic
belief that modern technology and ancient thinking habits in
modern times are the economic forces and processes necessary,
either for single regions or in the radical social sense, which
can be transformed into the totality of economic life, applied
to what I have here as the second member, as the actual state
region in a narrower sense, as the region of public law, as the
area of relationships between one person to the other.
This region of the state can only then develop in a healthy way
when the conflicting streams of development cut in, which are
considered by some as correct. Many people believe that healing
the social organism is only achievable through nationalization
as much as possible; with the greatest degree of association
with nationalism — but it involves far more the necessity
for complete autonomy, acknowledged and applied to all the
separate branches of life, which must step in between economic
life — with all its laws on the one side — and the
narrower life of the state on the other side — again with
its own laws.
I
can well imagine how many people there are who say: ‘For
Heavens' sake, these things are becoming so complicated! Things
which are brought together out of necessities for new
developments are now to be separated from one another by
various systems!’ Whoever speaks in this way, unable to
consider origins developing in a natural way, would even refuse
to understand that the human organism can only be alive as a
result of the relative autonomy of the rhythmic life, the vital
breathing and hart in the breast, concentrated, centralized in
the breathing and in the heart system. The entire human
organism is dependent on such systems being closed in and yet
working together. The health of the social organism depends on
the economic life having its own laws, that the legal life, the
life of public law and public security, everything fitting the
narrower description of political, has its own laws and its own
proficiencies. Only then will both these spheres work in the
right way, in the social organism. May it come about with some,
who believe certain requirements have finally been
accomplished, while others may well raise a shoulder, that it
can eventually be said: no healing in the central management of
the social organism, as within a party, can happen without
cooperation between economic life and political life. If this
does happen we will see it is valid for the third member as
well. It is necessary nonetheless, that just as the circulatory
system has its own lungs, just as the nerve-sense system has
its own brain system, so in a single management system its own
management, an autonomous replacement system or party or other
representation is there for the economic and political or
public legal systems, and then again for the third domain, an
autonomous area for spiritual life.
These three spheres have a valid autonomy in a healthy organism
and relate to one another through their independent
representative, enabling this mutual relationship between the
three members of the social organism. This corresponds to them
in the same way as the independent relationship is produced by
the three members of the natural human organism. It turns out
that essentially those representations and administrations
produced out of the economic members of the organism, that
these essentially work towards the economic organism building
an associated foundation for itself, a cooperative, trade
unionism, but in a higher form. This cooperative trade unionism
will only work with the laws of production, work with the
circulation and consumption of goods. This is what creates the
foundation, builds the content for the economic member of the
social organism. It will depend on the vitality of association.
It will depend on those who have given the necessary inequality
produced from natural foundations, to balance it out. I have
pointed out how many variations exist in the amount of human
labour needed according to different relationship of the
natural source of a member's production. All this enters into
an unnatural social organization, when such cooperation is
achieved as it has been up to now, of nature, human labour and
capital. In a most chaotic way nature, human labour and capital
are infused into a unified state or remain outside lawlessly,
outside this unitary state. Even though the life of spiritual
culture which is dependent on people's physical and spiritual
talents for their expression, so also the chosen public and
political laws of life must be acknowledged for their need to
develop an independent life for themselves, such as the
economic system.
I
could, to make myself better understood as far as it is needed
today, include the following. Besides other foundations out of
which we live today, there is also a surfacing out of mankind's
deep, natural foundations for a renewal of the social organism,
in which can be heard the three words: brotherhood, equality,
freedom. Whoever is unprejudiced towards a healthy human
experience for all that is really human, will not feel anything
but the deepest sympathy and deepest understanding for the
meaning in the words, brotherhood, equality, and freedom.
Nevertheless, I know of extraordinary thinkers, deep astute
thinkers who repeatedly in the course of the 19th
Century took the trouble to show how impossible it is to make a
united social organism comprising brotherhood, equality and
freedom, a reality. An astute Hungarian searched for proof that
these three things, but when they are realized, when they
penetrate human social structure, they will contradict
themselves. Shrewdly he referred to the example of how
impossible it is to instil equality into social life because
every human being also wants the necessity for freedom to be
valid. He found these three ideals to be contradictory.
Interestingly, one can't but agree that there is a
contradiction and one can't but sympathise out of a general
human experience regarding these three ideals. Why these?
Because as soon as the true sense of these three ideals become
clear, it will be recognised as necessarily a threefold social
organism. The three members should not be an abstract,
theoretical parliament or some unit assembled and centralized,
they should be living reality and through their lively activity
side by side be brought together in a unit. When these three
members are independent they contradict one another in a
certain way, just like the metabolic system is at variance with
the head and rhythmic systems. However, in life, contradictions
are just what work together in a unit. Through an understanding
of life one is able to figure out the real gesture of the
social organism. A realization will arise that brotherliness
must be active in order for cooperation within economic life,
where rules are needed among one another regarding particulars,
are to be created in this first social member. In the second
member of public law where it deals with the relationship of
one person to another, only in as far as a human being is a
person, it works with the activation of the idea of equality.
In the spiritual sphere, where again it has to exist
independently in the social organism, it deals with the idea of
freedom. Now suddenly the three golden ideals gain their real
value when it is known that they may not reach success through
an inter-scrambled mixture but that they are orientated
according to laws within the threefold organism in which each
single one of the three members can achieve its applicable
ideal of freedom, equality and brotherhood.
Today I can only propose the structure of the social organism
in the form of a sketch. In the following lectures, I will
substantiate and prove each one individually. Adding to what
has been said is a third member of a healthy social organism
with everything arising out of the human individuality, on the
foundation of freedom and based on the physical and spiritual
gifts of individuals. Here again an area is touched which
causes quiet shudders when things are truthfully defined. To
continue with this healthy organism, a third area is added
which encompasses everything which relates to the religious
life of humanity, everything related to schools and education
in the widest sense which includes spiritual life, the practice
of art and so on. While I only want to mention this today, in
the next lectures I will create an extensive foundation
regarding everything which belongs to this third sphere —
which is not related to public law which belongs in the second
sphere — but which is related to private law and criminal
law. I found with those to whom I've explained this threefold
social organism and who have understood some of it, that they
could not grasp the idea that public law, the law which relates
to the security and equality of people, should be separated
from the right towards law breaking, or towards the private
relationships between people; that this could be regarded as
separate, and private law and criminal law must be included in
the third, in the spiritual member of the social organism.
Modern life has unfortunately turned away from considering
these three members of the social organism. Just like the body
of economics with its concerns have penetrated into the
government, into actual political life, penetrated its concerns
into the representative body of political life, the result has
clouded the possibility for the second member of the organism
to be formed in which human equality can be realized, so too
the economic and public life have absorbed the possibility
which can only develop itself in a freer form. Out of a certain
instinct, out of an erroneous instinct however, modern social
democracy has tried to separate religious life from the life of
the public state: “Religion is a private affair”;
unfortunately, not out of particular care for religion, not out
of a special evaluation accessible through the religious life,
but out of disregard, out of complacency towards religious life
linked to the content I presented in my previous lecture, the
day before yesterday. This progression is right for the
separation of religious life from the other spheres, from the
formation of the economic life and from the formation of
political life. Just as necessary as the separation of the
lower and higher educational systems are, so too is the
spiritual life actually from the two other members. A really
healthy social organism can only develop when within these
entities they ensure equality of all people before the law,
when only out of these entities it is ensured that free human
individualities develop schools, religious and spiritual life,
when it is ensured that life is developed in freedom and no
claim is made according to economic or state rules placed on
school, educational and spiritual life.
That sounds radical today. Such radicalism must be expressed as
soon as it is detected. Spiritual life, inclusive of education,
inclusive of jurisdiction in public and criminal matters,
actually underlies the complete freedom flowing out of single
individuals which both the other members of the social organism
can have no influence upon in its configuration, upon its
forms.
Yesterday I only offered a sketch towards the direction
thinking can move in the search for solutions of the social
question, attempts at solutions based on necessities of life,
not based on abstract demands of a single party, of a single
class, but based on the powers actually developing in modern
people.
I
wish to say I can understand every objection raised but ask you
to wait with objections until my sketch has been carried to
completion in my coming lectures. Particularly today I can
understand objections being raised as I'm just trying to
characterise; the evidence of the World Trade Organization is
not yet clear. I must say I can understand every objection
coming out of various experiences which I want to represent
here with ideas which I believe I can recognise in frequently
misjudged spiritual science as the actual foundations of life
which I have related to these things.
Behind us lie a time containing the most terrible human
catastrophe. Within the life we had to lead within this
catastrophic time, we have not had the human heart in the right
place if our vision did not contain the power and ability to
say: ‘Where can we find help out of this terrible chaos into
which we have been driven?’ — I told you the day before
yesterday I would speak about the particular relationships of
these wars to their causes and their unfolding in relation to
the social question in both my following lectures. Today I
would like to say it is clear to me, as we are going to be
within these events for a long time to come, events now having
entered a crisis which some short-sighted thinkers believe are
soon at an end, that out of these things, out of chaos, out of
the terrible catastrophe in some or other area of the civilized
world it is possible to find the correct thoughts, the correct
picture of more truthful, more realistic impulses for the human
social organism. Towards various personalities who have been
active and advisory during the last years within these terrible
events, I have proposed what is also the vein of my various
presentations here: I have tried to make it clear to these
personalities who are involved, how different events would have
been if from an authoritative place in the world it was said:
‘We want to head towards a healthy social goal.’ — The
entire interrelationship of states would have been different
if, instead of mere laws and state programs being introduced, a
comprehensive program for people in the way indicated here, had
been introduced.
One
can say that these things have been understood in a certain
theoretical way. The content of my lectures has appeared to
some in a really sympathetic way. The bridge which needs to be
established between understanding such content and the will to
actually do something to make it a reality in actual life, each
in its own place, this bridge is quite another matter. This
would mostly have an uncomfortable effect. For this reason, they
compose themselves and say: ‘It all sounds a bit like a dream
to me, quite impractical.’ — They remain calm only
because they don't have the will forces to really involve
themselves with the course of events. Not a revolutionary
course of events is meant here, not something which
should happen from one day to the next, but a direction in
which all single measures of public and private life should be
brought for healing, to form a healthy social organism. The
content of my lecture the day before yesterday, I have brought
in another form to some people on whom one wanted to depend
during these difficult times, addressed in the following way:
Today, I would say for example, we are in the most terrible
time of the war. Expressing the social necessity in this, the
most terrible time of The War, it would be to say: People who
are committed to this or that state into giving humanity a
worthy self-realization which will become a reality for
humanity, will enable this terrible course of events to take on
quite a different, healing direction than merely the sword, the
cannons and such like, or offer nothing through existing
regional politics. I say they have the choice to either
acknowledge what is offered here out of the developmental
conditions and developmental forces within humanity, or to
stand alone.
Today we stand, because during the last decade humanity has
somehow missed acknowledging the essence of these things, today
we stand in front of the most terrible catastrophe which has
broken out like a plague, an illness attacking an organism
which has failed to live according to its natural laws. This
war catastrophe should now clearly reveal what is necessary for
the healing of the social organism of humanity. This indication
could have been perceived before the war but then it was not so
clear, not even recognised. To some I have said: You have been
given these indications regarding human evolution in the social
sphere which will be brought into a reality in the next twenty
to thirty years in the civilized world. I'm not talking about a
program or ideal but it is the result of observation of those
who want to make a reality of the seed towards an inclination
already in humanity today, towards the next ten, twenty or
thirty years. You have only to choose, I say, either to work
through to its realization with reason, or to face revolutions
of social cataclysms, terrible social upheavals. No third
choice is possible. The war will probably be the time —
so I say to some — where reason is acceptable. After that
it could be too late. It is not a program which can be
implemented or left undone, but involves recognising something
which needs implementation through people, because in it lie
their necessary historical growth forces for the future.
Another particular obstacle towards understanding is some or
other belief that these things only relate to an inner
structure of some state or some human territory. No, such
social thoughts are at the same time the basis for the real
necessary transformation of outer politics of states under one
another. Just like the human organism turns each of its
particular organs to the outside world, so also can a state
only accomplish it when — if I might use this whole
expression — such a social organism can shift its three
members into outer activity. Relationships between one
individual state and another appear quite different when a
centralized government and administrations no longer remain in
connection with one another but when one socially educated
representative with a spiritual life relate to another
representative with a spiritual life in another social state;
whether it be an economic or a political representative,
corresponding to the representative in the other state. When
there is an intermixing, a confused mess due to the three
members working outwardly in such a way to create an ensuing
conflict at its boundary through the chaos of this intermixing
of the three members, then, when across the boundary an
independent state with threefold representatives working
independently, the process of one member in the international
relationship will not only be disrupted by the other, but by
contrast, will balance out and be corrected.
This is what I wanted to sketch for you today to support the
idea that it doesn't merely involve an assertion of inner
social structure of one state but involves the international
and social life of humanity. I have already tried to make all
these things clear while we are in the middle of these horrific
catastrophic events. At the moment, terrible misfortune has
broken out over many people in central and eastern Europe,
terrible misfortune for every individual, for every perceptive
person the rest of the world indicates threatening misfortune.
This must take place in relation to the real understanding of
humanity for their tasks in the present and future: whoever
wants to bring about a healing of life out of the actual
evolutionary elements in humanity must take this up, not as an
impractical ideal but as an actual practical application in
life.
The
obvious form modern life has taken on through technology and
capitalism has to stand in opposition to the most inner human
initiative forms of the spiritual, independent spiritual
culture and independent state culture, which bring about in
actual fact an equality between one person to another and which
also, as we will soon see, could regulate labour and wage
relations in a desirable way for the Proletariat.
The
question about the form or human labour, about the liberation
of labour from goods will only become detachable when
threefoldness enters the social organism. The desire of the
modern socialist is certainly legitimate as a desire; what they
consider a remedy would work the least effectively as a remedy
when it transforms outer reality in the way they want it to
be.
This I need to stress yet again: I am not trying to come from
some one-sided class or party position but from the side of the
observation of human developmental forces in order to speak
about what some call social integration and others call the
healing of social life and others the reawakening of a healthy
political sense, and so on.
What we are dealing with here is not some random program but
the deepest true impulses coming to the fore in the next
decades in humanity's evolution, it is actually the very
foundation of the entire meaning and intention which I want to
make into a reality with these lectures; it doesn't relate to
the opinion of a person from this standpoint, but it relates to
the expression of the deepest wishes in mankind for the next
decades. This I would like to found and implement and prove in
my lectures during the week ahead.
|