ON
THE ART OF LECTURING
by RUDOLF STEINER
Letting experiences flow into the composition
of the lecture. Only the proletarian has concepts about the three
areas of the social organism.
LECTURE III (Excerpts)
Along with the
tasks which one can set oneself in a certain realm as a
speaker it will be a question at first of entering in the
appropriate way into the material itself which is to be dealt
with. There is a twofold entering into the material, in so
far as the message about this material is concerned in
speaking. The first is to convert to one's own use the
material for a lecture so that it can be divided up —
so that one is as it were placed in the position of giving
the lecture a composition. Without composition a talk cannot
really be understood. This or that may appeal to the listener
about a lecture which is not composed: but in reality a
non-composed lecture will not be assimilated. As far as the
preparation is concerned, it must therefore be a matter of
realizing: every talk will inevitably be poor as regards its
reception by the listeners which has merely originated in
one's conceiving one statement after the other, one sentence
after the other, and going through them to a certain extent,
one after the other, in the preparation. If one is not in the
position, at least at some stage of the preparation, of
surveying the whole lecture as a totality, then one cannot
really count on being understood. Allowing the whole lecture
to spring, as it were, from a comprehensive thought, which
one subdivides, and letting the composition arise by starting
out from such a comprehensive thought comprising the total
lecture, — this is the first consideration.
The other is
the consulting of all experiences which one has available out
of immediate life for the subject of the lecture, —
that is, calling to mind as much as possible everything one
has experienced first-hand about the matter in question,
— and, after one has before one a kind of composition
of the lecture, endeavoring to let the experiences flow here
or there into this composition.
That will in
general be the rough draft in preparing. Thus one has during
the preparation the whole of the lecture before one as in a
tableau. So exactly does one have this tableau before one,
that, as will indeed naturally be the case, one can
incorporate the single experiences one remembers in the
desired way here or there, as though one had written on
paper: a, b, c, d. — There is now an experience one
knows belongs under d, another under f, another belongs under
a, — so that one is to a certain extent independent of
the sequence of the thoughts as they are afterwards to be
presented, as regards this collecting of the experiences.
Whether such a thing is done by putting it onto paper, or
whether it is done by a free process without having recourse
to the paper, will determine only that he who is dependent
upon the paper will speak worse, and he who is not dependent
upon the paper will speak somewhat better. But one can of
course by all means do both.
But now it is a
matter of fulfilling a third requirement, which is: after one
has the whole on the one hand — I never say the
‘skeleton’ — and on the other hand the
single experiences, one has need of elaborating the ideas
which ensue to the point that these things can stand before
the soul in the most complete inner satisfaction.
Let us take as
an example, that we want to hold a lecture on the threefold
order. Here we shall say to ourselves: After an introduction
— we shall speak further about this — and before
a conclusion — about which we shall also speak —
the composition of such a lecture is really given through the
subject itself. The unifying thought is given through the
subject itself. I say that for this example. If one lives
properly, mentally, then this is valid actually for every
single case, it is valid equally for everything. But let us
take this example near at hand of the threefolding of the
social organism, about which we want to speak. There, at the
outset, is given that which yields us three members in the
treatment of our theme. To deal with, we shall have the
nature of the spiritual life, the nature of the
juridical-state life, and the nature of the economic
life.
Then,
certainly, it will be a question of our calling forth in the
listeners, by means of a suitable introduction, — about
which, as mentioned, we shall speak further — a feeling
that it makes sense to speak about these things at all, about
a change in these things, in the present. But then it will be
a matter of not immediately starting out with explanations of
what is to be understood by a free spiritual life, by a
juridical-states life founded on equality, by an economic
life founded on associations, but rather of having to lead up
to these things. And here one will have to lead up through
connecting to that which is to hand in the greatest measure
as regards the three members of the social organism in the
present — what can therefore be observed the most
intensively by people of today. Indeed, only by this means
will one connect with what is known.
Let us suppose
we have an audience, and an audience will be most agreeable
and sympathetic which is a mixture of middle-class people,
working-class people — in turn with all possible
nuances —, and, if there are then of course also a few
of the nobility — even Swiss nobility, — it
doesn't hurt at all. Let us therefore assume we have such a
chequered, jumbled-up audience, made up of all social
classes. I stress this for the reason that as a lecturer one
should really always sense to whom one has to speak, before
one sets about speaking. One ought already to transpose
oneself actively into the situation in this way.
Now, what will
one have to say to oneself to begin with about that which one
can connect with in a present-day audience, as regards the
threefold social organism? One will say to oneself: it is
extraordinarily difficult in the first place to connect onto
concepts of an audience of the bourgeois, because in recent
times the bourgeoisie have formed extraordinarily few
concepts about social relationships, since they have
vegetated thoughtlessly to some extent as regards the social
life. It would always make an academic impression, if one
wanted to speak about these things today out of the circle of
ideas of a middle-class audience. On the other hand,
however, one can be clear about the fact that exceptionally
distinct concepts exist concerning all three domains of the
social organism within the working-class population, —
also distinct feelings, and a distinct social volition. And
it means that it is nothing short of the sign of our present
time, that precisely within the proletariat these qualified
concepts are there.
These concepts
are to be handled by us, though, with great caution, since we
shall very easily call forth the prejudice that we want to be
partisan in the proletarian direction. This prejudice we
should really combat through the whole manner of our bearing.
We shall indeed see that we immediately arouse for ourselves
serious misunderstandings if we proceed from proletarian
concepts. These misunderstandings have revealed themselves in
point of fact constantly in the time when an effect could
still be brought about in middle-Europe, from about April
1919 on, for the threefolding of the social organism. A
middle-class population hears only that which it, has sensed
for decades from the fomenting behavior of the working-
class, out of certain concepts. How one views the matter
oneself is then hardly comprehended at all.
One must be
clear that being active in the world at all in the sense, I
should like to say, of the world-order has to be grasped. The
world-order is such — you have only to look at the fish
in the sea —, that very, very many fish eggs are laid,
and only a few become fish. That has to be so. But with this
tendency of nature you have also to approach the tasks which
are to be solved by you as speakers; even if only very few,
and these little stimulated, are to be found to begin with at
the first lecture, then actually a maximum is attained as
regards what can be attained. It is a matter of things that
one stands so within in life, as for instance the
threefolding of the social organism, that what can be
accomplished by means of lecturing may never be abandoned,
but must be taken up and perfected in some way, be it through
further lectures, be it in some other way. It can be said: no
lecture is really in vain which is given in this sense and to
which is joined all that is required.
But one has to
be absolutely clear about the fact that one will actually
also be completely misunderstood by the proletarian
population, if one speaks directly out of that which they
think today in the sense of their theories, as these have
persisted for decades. One cannot ask oneself the question
for instance: How does one do it so as not to be
misunderstood? — One must only do it right! But for
this reason it cannot be a matter of putting forward the
question: Then how does one do it so as not to be
misunderstood? — One tells people what they have
already thought anyhow! One preaches to them, in some way,
Marxism, or some such thing. Then one will, of course, be
understood.
But there is
nothing of interest in being understood in this way.
Otherwise one will indeed very soon have the following
experience — concerning this experience one must be
quite clear — : if one speaks today to a proletarian
gathering so that they can at least understand the
terminology — and that must be striven for — ,
then one will notice particularly in the discussion, that
those who discuss have understood nothing. The others one
usually doesn't get to know, since they do not participate in
the discussions. Those who have understood nothing usually
participate after such lectures in the discussions. And with
them one will notice something along the following lines.
— I have given countless lectures myself on the
threefolding of the social organism to, as they are called in
Germany, “surplus-value social democrats,”
independent “social democrats,” communists and so
on. — Now, one will notice: if someone places himself
in the discussions and believes himself able to speak then it
is usually the case that he answers one as though one had
really not spoken at all, but as though someone or other had
spoken more or less as one would have spoken as a
social-democratic agitator thirty years ago in popular
meetings. One feels oneself suddenly quite transformed. One
says to oneself roughly the following: Well, can it then be
that the misfortune has befallen you, that you were possessed
in this moment by old Rebel?
[Note 1]
That is really how you are confronted! The persons concerned
hear even physically nothing else than what they have been
used to hearing for decades. Even physically — not
merely with the soul — even physically they hear
nothing other than what they are long used to. And then they
say: Well, the lecturer really told us nothing new! —
Since they have, because one was obliged to use the
terminology, translated the whole connection of the
terminology right-away in the ear — not first in the
soul — into that which they have been used to for a
long time. And then they talk on and on in the sense of what
they have been used to for a long time.
* * *
Speaking cannot
be learned by means of external instructions. Speaking must
be learned to a certain extent by means of understanding how
to bring to the lecture the thinking which lies behind it,
and the experience which lies before it, in a proper
relationship.
Now, I have,
today tried to show you how the material first has to be
dealt with. I have connected with what is known, in order to
show you how the material may not be created out of some
theory or other, how it must be drawn out of life, how it
must be prepared so as to be dealt with in speaking. What I
have said today everyone should now actually do in his own
fashion as preparation for lecturing. Through such
preparation the lecture gains forcefulness. Through thought
preparation — preparing the organization of the
lecture, as I have said at the beginning of today's remarks:
from a thought which is then formed into a composition
— , by this means the lecture becomes lucid, so that the
listener can also receive it as a unity. What the lecturer
brings along as thinking he should not weave into his own
thoughts. — Since, if he gives his own thoughts, they
are, as I have already said, such that they interest not a
single person. Only through use of one's own thinking in
organizing the lecture does it become lucid, and through
lucidity, comprehensible.
By means of the
experiences which the lecturer should gather from everywhere
(the worst experiences are still always better than none at
all!) the lecture becomes forceful. If, for example, you tell
someone what happened to you, for all it matters, as you were
going through a village where someone nearly gave you a box
on the ear, then it is still always better if you judge life
out of such an experience, than if you merely theorize.
— Fetch things out of experience, through which the
lecture acquires blood, since through thinking it only has
nerves. It acquires blood through experience, and through
this blood, which comes out of experience, the lecture
becomes forceful. Through the composition you speak to the
understanding of the listener; through your experience you
speak to the heart of the listener. It is this which should
be looked upon as a golden rule. Now, we can proceed step by
step. Today I wanted more to show first of all in rough
outline how the material can be transformed by degrees into
what it afterwards has to be in the lecture. Tomorrow, then,
we resume again at three o'clock.
Notes:
Note 1. August
Bebel, 1840–1913. Founder in 1869 with Wilhelm Liebknecht
of the Social-Democratic Party.
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