Loved hearing you here. There was a point towards the end of the discussion, where I sensed that you were aiming at a selfless universal spiritual interest in the other... And that this may be different from tolerance of small communities towards each other. How do you cultivate that which is beyond egoism? In going back to small communities with people you identify with, or in learning not to identify oneself at all (or one could also say identify only with the universal spirit of humanity), which, to me, is a definite force in our age?
It does make sense to me that part of moving forward towards solutions may indeed involve living in small communities with more contact to nature. But that does not contradict the previous point regarding the antidote to egoism.
Yeah, this point has continued to stick with me ever since the podcast. I do think that scale clearly plays an important role. What you describe in terms of living closer to nature is one thing, and definitely also living within smaller communities - relationship, family, school, neighborhood - these things educate us morally and socially in certain important ways, and scale is a big part of that. Also, the Mondragon federation of worker-owned cooperatives found that they had to limit the size of companies to 500 people, otherwise it became too impersonal and the company started having problems, people weren't working together in the same way anymore.
But the idea of creating certain size communities to work both internally and externally with one another (which is kind of how I understand Game ~B) doesn't make much sense to me. Sure, it seems simpler, but why would everyone all of a sudden do it? I guess I could imagine it if there was a catastrophe, but otherwise I don't see why it would happen or why it would be much better. It also just seems kind of artificial, and like it's avoiding the harder issue of how to transform things at their current scale and level of complexity (which threefolding takes as a given).
And to the point of moving beyond egoism... yeah, that's the major issue that I see. Scale affects egoism (it's easier to be interested and selfless with those in close proximity) but anyone who has ever been in a relationship knows that it certainly doesn't get rid of the problem of egoism. So what are the practices that can transform it? And yes, what are the forms that can transform (or sublimate) it is also a great question. Steiner makes it clear that this is THE ongoing question of social life, and we need to ask it ever anew and come up with concrete forms to transform it (like circulating ownership of the means of production - moving capital goods into the hands of those who can use it productively for the good of the whole, once the original owners are no longer doing so). But yeah, we also have to eventually learn to become selfless, to take an interest in the person we're living with and also in the nation of people living on the other side of the world. I think this is definitely one of the things that each one of us needs to strive to cultivate in our time.
In the context of this topic, I think this next quote by Steiner may sharpen things up for us. It indicates the direction towards our future. I think we find here both what goes beyond egoism and what cultivates peace between, and among, communities. I know its far reaching, but its important to mention how Steiner repeatedly emphasized that this is the impulse of the cosmic evolution of mankind, and therefore no other way forward will be able to be sustainable.
"Hence this spiritual perception rises above all that which, as imagination, inspires the nations. It is sought equally by one people or another, in one language or another. It is one and the same in the experience of all human beings all over the earth, if it is only sought deeply enough. Hence that spiritual perception which, as I have indicated, can actually enter into and inform practical social life, can, at the same time, enter actively into international life and form a bond of union between one people and another. The poetry of a people, its peculiarities in other branches of art, will be produced by it in its own individual way. To spiritual perception something arises out of the individuality of a people which is similar to that which arises elsewhere. The roots from which things spring are in various places. The final source of all results is the same over the whole earth. Many people speak of the spirit today who do not know that the spirit must be interpreted. When the spirit is understood, it is found to be something which does not separate, but unites men, because it can be traced back to the inmost being of man, and because one human being brings forth the same as another, and because he fully understands that other." ("The Social Future" lecture 6)
So again, I don't think this contradicts the question of scale which is perhaps a ramification of the above quote, but it does give a certain focus as to where the gist of the social question lies.
Wow. That's a powerful passage - that is, if I'm understanding him rightly. I'm not 100% sure what the "this" is in ""this spiritual perception," but I'm taking him to be saying what he said in Philosophy of Freedom that spiritual perception unites all human beings regardless of individual cultural (and other generic) differences, that at the deepest levels of spirit we're all one. And then here, as he does at the end of The Social Future, he's just framing in terms of the international community. Am I understanding him rightly?
To me, you got him rightly. Self knowledge and development are the only key for establishing sustainable peace on earth. And true peace implies this sense of essential unity and universality.
As to what "this spiritual perception" means, here is another quote, from the 4th lecture in the same series. Notice how right from the start it goes to inner work.
"We must acknowledge with intellectual humility our impotence to penetrate the universe with understanding by means of the natural gifts with which we are born; and we must then admit that there may be ways of self-development and of unfolding the inner powers of our being to see in that which lies spread out before the senses the living spirit and the living soul. My writings to which I have referred ['Knowledge of the Higher Worlds' and other spiritual per se books] show that it is possible to put this in practice. This must be said, because intellectualism, the fruit of evolution of the last few centuries, is no longer able to solve the riddles of life. Into one region of life, that of inanimate nature, it is able to penetrate, but it is compelled to halt before human reality, more especially social reality."
To put it simply then, inner work is a precondition to healthily address the social riddle. No form is acceptable then... only inner work, which is no form at all. Why is threefolding legitimate then? Is it not a form?
That's the beauty of it, its not a form :) It, in itself, is an aspect of inner work. Its the furthest one can go towards the external social life, in order to support and cultivate inner work, without causing more harm than good. Its the same living alertness and awareness of the personal inner work, only at the social level. The same activation of spiritual intelligence.
Sorry I'm just getting round to reading this. That's a great picture around the limits of intellectualism, and the need to grasp social life out of the spirit. But how do you see threefolding as the "furthest one can go towards the external social life, in order to support and cultivate inner work"? I have certain thoughts about this, but I'd be interested in what you're thinking.
Here's my initial thought: I see much of threefolding as simply creating the conditions whereby people can solve the social issues they face, whether economic, political, or cultural. Steiner doesn't say how to solve anything, but instead, "if you bring people together in this way, they can find the ways to solve their own problems." We have to trust in people and give them the opportunity to develop, to see each other, to contribute. In this way, I see it as creating the conditions for inspiration to enter society, to wake up in people while they're on their own path of development, and to wake up between them in their relationships and in their work. Which also just means, threefolding creates the conditions whereby spirit has the most opportunity to enter human life.
That's not the only thing that threefolding is though. I think it's also just a means of observing society as a living phenomenon. It's a way of seeing how one thing differs from another and what their healthy and unhealthy dynamics are (for instance, how means of production are different than commodities and how each should be treated so that they can perform their healthy function). There is no prescription for how, then, we should treat means of production in any given situation, but there are concrete observations we can make about it that can inform how we work in any given situation.
Yes, "threefolding creates the conditions whereby spirit has the most opportunity to enter human life".
I think the two aspects you mention indeed go together. The sensitivity to distinguish between different social elements is actually indicating the spiritual influence.
So, I see threefolding as inner work at the social level. And that's why its so valuable to me. I like the way Steiner uses the term 'permeating' with regard to the spirit, because it implies that the spirit is always there, you don't really need to reach out to connect or something like that. Instead, what's needed is the creation of certain conditions for its permeation, or in other words a learning of how not to hinder this permeation.
And this is the same dynamics in the social level as it is in the personal one. Only, in the personal level, you hear quite a lot of streams, nowadays, through which people can nourish their souls, in a variety of ways, with wisdom and insights, while the inner work at the social level is nowadays barely discussed...
Looking forward to giving it a listen Seth!
Loved hearing you here. There was a point towards the end of the discussion, where I sensed that you were aiming at a selfless universal spiritual interest in the other... And that this may be different from tolerance of small communities towards each other. How do you cultivate that which is beyond egoism? In going back to small communities with people you identify with, or in learning not to identify oneself at all (or one could also say identify only with the universal spirit of humanity), which, to me, is a definite force in our age?
It does make sense to me that part of moving forward towards solutions may indeed involve living in small communities with more contact to nature. But that does not contradict the previous point regarding the antidote to egoism.
Yeah, this point has continued to stick with me ever since the podcast. I do think that scale clearly plays an important role. What you describe in terms of living closer to nature is one thing, and definitely also living within smaller communities - relationship, family, school, neighborhood - these things educate us morally and socially in certain important ways, and scale is a big part of that. Also, the Mondragon federation of worker-owned cooperatives found that they had to limit the size of companies to 500 people, otherwise it became too impersonal and the company started having problems, people weren't working together in the same way anymore.
But the idea of creating certain size communities to work both internally and externally with one another (which is kind of how I understand Game ~B) doesn't make much sense to me. Sure, it seems simpler, but why would everyone all of a sudden do it? I guess I could imagine it if there was a catastrophe, but otherwise I don't see why it would happen or why it would be much better. It also just seems kind of artificial, and like it's avoiding the harder issue of how to transform things at their current scale and level of complexity (which threefolding takes as a given).
And to the point of moving beyond egoism... yeah, that's the major issue that I see. Scale affects egoism (it's easier to be interested and selfless with those in close proximity) but anyone who has ever been in a relationship knows that it certainly doesn't get rid of the problem of egoism. So what are the practices that can transform it? And yes, what are the forms that can transform (or sublimate) it is also a great question. Steiner makes it clear that this is THE ongoing question of social life, and we need to ask it ever anew and come up with concrete forms to transform it (like circulating ownership of the means of production - moving capital goods into the hands of those who can use it productively for the good of the whole, once the original owners are no longer doing so). But yeah, we also have to eventually learn to become selfless, to take an interest in the person we're living with and also in the nation of people living on the other side of the world. I think this is definitely one of the things that each one of us needs to strive to cultivate in our time.
In the context of this topic, I think this next quote by Steiner may sharpen things up for us. It indicates the direction towards our future. I think we find here both what goes beyond egoism and what cultivates peace between, and among, communities. I know its far reaching, but its important to mention how Steiner repeatedly emphasized that this is the impulse of the cosmic evolution of mankind, and therefore no other way forward will be able to be sustainable.
"Hence this spiritual perception rises above all that which, as imagination, inspires the nations. It is sought equally by one people or another, in one language or another. It is one and the same in the experience of all human beings all over the earth, if it is only sought deeply enough. Hence that spiritual perception which, as I have indicated, can actually enter into and inform practical social life, can, at the same time, enter actively into international life and form a bond of union between one people and another. The poetry of a people, its peculiarities in other branches of art, will be produced by it in its own individual way. To spiritual perception something arises out of the individuality of a people which is similar to that which arises elsewhere. The roots from which things spring are in various places. The final source of all results is the same over the whole earth. Many people speak of the spirit today who do not know that the spirit must be interpreted. When the spirit is understood, it is found to be something which does not separate, but unites men, because it can be traced back to the inmost being of man, and because one human being brings forth the same as another, and because he fully understands that other." ("The Social Future" lecture 6)
So again, I don't think this contradicts the question of scale which is perhaps a ramification of the above quote, but it does give a certain focus as to where the gist of the social question lies.
Wow. That's a powerful passage - that is, if I'm understanding him rightly. I'm not 100% sure what the "this" is in ""this spiritual perception," but I'm taking him to be saying what he said in Philosophy of Freedom that spiritual perception unites all human beings regardless of individual cultural (and other generic) differences, that at the deepest levels of spirit we're all one. And then here, as he does at the end of The Social Future, he's just framing in terms of the international community. Am I understanding him rightly?
To me, you got him rightly. Self knowledge and development are the only key for establishing sustainable peace on earth. And true peace implies this sense of essential unity and universality.
As to what "this spiritual perception" means, here is another quote, from the 4th lecture in the same series. Notice how right from the start it goes to inner work.
"We must acknowledge with intellectual humility our impotence to penetrate the universe with understanding by means of the natural gifts with which we are born; and we must then admit that there may be ways of self-development and of unfolding the inner powers of our being to see in that which lies spread out before the senses the living spirit and the living soul. My writings to which I have referred ['Knowledge of the Higher Worlds' and other spiritual per se books] show that it is possible to put this in practice. This must be said, because intellectualism, the fruit of evolution of the last few centuries, is no longer able to solve the riddles of life. Into one region of life, that of inanimate nature, it is able to penetrate, but it is compelled to halt before human reality, more especially social reality."
To put it simply then, inner work is a precondition to healthily address the social riddle. No form is acceptable then... only inner work, which is no form at all. Why is threefolding legitimate then? Is it not a form?
That's the beauty of it, its not a form :) It, in itself, is an aspect of inner work. Its the furthest one can go towards the external social life, in order to support and cultivate inner work, without causing more harm than good. Its the same living alertness and awareness of the personal inner work, only at the social level. The same activation of spiritual intelligence.
Sorry I'm just getting round to reading this. That's a great picture around the limits of intellectualism, and the need to grasp social life out of the spirit. But how do you see threefolding as the "furthest one can go towards the external social life, in order to support and cultivate inner work"? I have certain thoughts about this, but I'd be interested in what you're thinking.
Here's my initial thought: I see much of threefolding as simply creating the conditions whereby people can solve the social issues they face, whether economic, political, or cultural. Steiner doesn't say how to solve anything, but instead, "if you bring people together in this way, they can find the ways to solve their own problems." We have to trust in people and give them the opportunity to develop, to see each other, to contribute. In this way, I see it as creating the conditions for inspiration to enter society, to wake up in people while they're on their own path of development, and to wake up between them in their relationships and in their work. Which also just means, threefolding creates the conditions whereby spirit has the most opportunity to enter human life.
That's not the only thing that threefolding is though. I think it's also just a means of observing society as a living phenomenon. It's a way of seeing how one thing differs from another and what their healthy and unhealthy dynamics are (for instance, how means of production are different than commodities and how each should be treated so that they can perform their healthy function). There is no prescription for how, then, we should treat means of production in any given situation, but there are concrete observations we can make about it that can inform how we work in any given situation.
Yes, "threefolding creates the conditions whereby spirit has the most opportunity to enter human life".
I think the two aspects you mention indeed go together. The sensitivity to distinguish between different social elements is actually indicating the spiritual influence.
So, I see threefolding as inner work at the social level. And that's why its so valuable to me. I like the way Steiner uses the term 'permeating' with regard to the spirit, because it implies that the spirit is always there, you don't really need to reach out to connect or something like that. Instead, what's needed is the creation of certain conditions for its permeation, or in other words a learning of how not to hinder this permeation.
And this is the same dynamics in the social level as it is in the personal one. Only, in the personal level, you hear quite a lot of streams, nowadays, through which people can nourish their souls, in a variety of ways, with wisdom and insights, while the inner work at the social level is nowadays barely discussed...