Rudolf Steiner

Discussion

A note on Steiner and the potential relation with fascism, by Matt Segall:

" I must mention here the polemical essays on Steiner published by historian Peter Staudenmaier. In numerous articles on the Institute for Social Ecology website and elsewhere (e.g., https://social-ecology.org/wp/2009/01/rudolf-steiner’s-threefold-commonwealth-and-alternative-economic-thought/), Staudenmaier has accused Steiner and anthroposophy of sheltering anti-democratic, pro-capitalist right wing political views, promulgating racism and nationalism, and even of holding proto-Nazi sympathies. While Steiner must be criticized for any misguided or racist statements, it seems to me that Staudenmaier’s accusations often reflect his own metaphysical and ideological presuppositions rather than a good faith consideration of Steiner’s own ideas and efforts in response to the social breakdown of the First World War. In Between Occultism and Nazism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race in the Fascist Era (2014), Staudenmaier describes the apparent internal contradictions and political pluripotentiality of Steiner’s views (which a more sympathetic reading would see as attempts to hold a dialectical tension between otherwise opposed social forces) while condemning many of his anthroposophist followers for accommodating themselves to Nazi rule in the 1930s (Steiner died in 1925). Despite the condemnable associations of some of his followers, it is important to note that, while critical of the propagandistic use of “democracy” as a label for political systems whose strings were pulled by oligarchs behind the scenes, Steiner was unambiguous in his support of actual democracy in the domain of law-making and political rights (unlike in the domains of arts and sciences, athletics, and entrepreneurship, etc., where the leveling effects of majority rule would be inappropriate given the self-evident fact that individual talents in these areas are unequally distributed: the protection of equal rights and fair distribution of resources does not require denying differences in ability). Further, Steiner’s rejection of ethno-nationalism could not have been more clearly stated. Hitler himself lashed out at Steiner’s threefolding proposals in a 1921 newspaper article as “one of the completely Jewish methods of destroying the peoples’ normal state of mind...” (Völkische Beobachter). “If these people come to power,” Steiner said in response to Hitler’s March on the Feldherrnhalle in November 1923, “I can no longer set foot on German soil” (Samweber,Aus meinem Leben, 44). That said, like most 19th and 20th century European philosophers and anthropologists, Steiner upheld a Eurocentric view of human history. His comments scattered through various lecture transcripts concerning historical racial hierarchies must be condemned even while they should also be read in the context of his resolutely anti-racist and anti-sexist view of the human present and future. To offer just one example, in a lecture series in 1917 on the evils that must be overcome in the future course of human evolution, Steiner states: “Nothing is more designed to take humanity into its decline than the propagation of ideals of race, nation, and blood. ... The true ideal must arise from what we find in the world of the spirit, not in the blood” (Steiner, The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness, 186). Also crucial in this context are Steiner’s arguments in Ch. 14: “Individuality and Genus” in The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity."

(https://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/1069/1723)