Seth, this is well-said and provocative, as always. At the risk of misrepresenting your point of view, though, I'll lay out a couple of reservations I have about the implication that systemic change is more needed than incremental changes.
First, there are some who argue that direct giving (donations that go right to individuals or small communities rather than to aid organizations) is the most effective and efficient way to donate. Evidence Action is the main group I'm familiar with in this area. Of course, I don't know what the research says about the long-term effects of this kind of giving, or whether the effects ripple outward to become something more systemic.
Also, Steiner has a kind of ladder of morality in his Philosophy of Freedom, in which actions motivated by the public good are seen as higher than those coming from egoism--but both can still be seen as unfree. The highest level is action out of "love for the deed" coming from intuition and not from a pre-conceived mental picture. We have all seen examples of "progressive" action that came across as anything but humane or loving. Which is just to say, acting out of our vision of an ideal social structure doesn't guarantee that our actions are done at the highest level of free morality, or that they honor the spiritual freedom of others.
I tend to feel we have our hands full navigating between our occasional free actions and our habitual unfree ones. I don't trust myself to design, or even endorse, a plan for systemic social change. Much as I love Steiner's vision of the threefold society, I can't see how it can come about except through lots and lots of small, localized acts or initiatives, lots of people stepping off the moving walkway to interact with others in a different way. This would be good practice in cultivating a new morality based on love, and maybe the model for systemic change from the bottom up.
Let me know if I've totally missed your point, or if you have any reaction to my reactions!
Hey Frederick - thanks so much for your thoughts, they're helpful in addressing a certain one-sidedness in my article. I definitely don't mean to, in any way, dismiss grassroots activism. My only point is that, by itself, it won't lead to systemic change. But the systemic change that's needed is what you're describing - it’s a world of localized initiative. And actually much, much more so than what we have today.
The social lawfulness that Steiner described is just a picture of what’s welling up in human hearts in our time, it’s not something that has to be imposed on people. And what’s welling up in human hearts is a society that the people themselves create, that is entirely bottom up. Let me explain.
Today we want to be free to develop ourselves as we see fit, we want to follow our own ideas and not have another’s ideas imposed upon us. And we want to have a real say in our political life, we want to govern ourselves. And we want everyone to be taken of, we want everyone’s needs to be met (even the people who believe “greed is good” are arguing that it’s good for everyone, that’s it’s actually the best system for meeting everyone’s needs, for ensuring that “all boats rise”). Steiner took these three impulses and showed how they will come to their rightful expression in a radically participatory, threefold society. It’s a society where anyone with a desire to educate can start a school… as long as they can find pupils. Or anyone who wants to start a newspaper can do so… as long as they can find readers. The rich and powerful shouldn’t be the gatekeepers for these things. But in order to make this a reality, then the parents who want to send their kids to your school or the people who want to read your newspaper have to have the money to do so. As long as the money is concentrated in very few hands, then those will be the people who decide what initiatives gets supported and what doesn’t.
Does that make sense?
If my article seems in anyway dismissive of grassroots activism, I think that’s only because I’m emphasizing the fact that we need to consciously understand the big picture. We have to learn to see how our part fits into the whole. It’s like the old saying “act locally, think globally” but now we have to make that really concrete — we have to actually become conscious of how society works and not just have a vague feeling that our clothes were made in a sweatshop, or our plastic packaging will never biodegrade. That sort of awareness is certainly useful, but it won’t lead to an actual understanding of how we should distribute wealth or what kind of governance processes would cultivate true equality. For that we need a truly a holistic conception of society.
Let me know if any of that doesn’t make sense. And thanks again for your thoughts.
Seth, this is well-said and provocative, as always. At the risk of misrepresenting your point of view, though, I'll lay out a couple of reservations I have about the implication that systemic change is more needed than incremental changes.
First, there are some who argue that direct giving (donations that go right to individuals or small communities rather than to aid organizations) is the most effective and efficient way to donate. Evidence Action is the main group I'm familiar with in this area. Of course, I don't know what the research says about the long-term effects of this kind of giving, or whether the effects ripple outward to become something more systemic.
Also, Steiner has a kind of ladder of morality in his Philosophy of Freedom, in which actions motivated by the public good are seen as higher than those coming from egoism--but both can still be seen as unfree. The highest level is action out of "love for the deed" coming from intuition and not from a pre-conceived mental picture. We have all seen examples of "progressive" action that came across as anything but humane or loving. Which is just to say, acting out of our vision of an ideal social structure doesn't guarantee that our actions are done at the highest level of free morality, or that they honor the spiritual freedom of others.
I tend to feel we have our hands full navigating between our occasional free actions and our habitual unfree ones. I don't trust myself to design, or even endorse, a plan for systemic social change. Much as I love Steiner's vision of the threefold society, I can't see how it can come about except through lots and lots of small, localized acts or initiatives, lots of people stepping off the moving walkway to interact with others in a different way. This would be good practice in cultivating a new morality based on love, and maybe the model for systemic change from the bottom up.
Let me know if I've totally missed your point, or if you have any reaction to my reactions!
Hey Frederick - thanks so much for your thoughts, they're helpful in addressing a certain one-sidedness in my article. I definitely don't mean to, in any way, dismiss grassroots activism. My only point is that, by itself, it won't lead to systemic change. But the systemic change that's needed is what you're describing - it’s a world of localized initiative. And actually much, much more so than what we have today.
The social lawfulness that Steiner described is just a picture of what’s welling up in human hearts in our time, it’s not something that has to be imposed on people. And what’s welling up in human hearts is a society that the people themselves create, that is entirely bottom up. Let me explain.
Today we want to be free to develop ourselves as we see fit, we want to follow our own ideas and not have another’s ideas imposed upon us. And we want to have a real say in our political life, we want to govern ourselves. And we want everyone to be taken of, we want everyone’s needs to be met (even the people who believe “greed is good” are arguing that it’s good for everyone, that’s it’s actually the best system for meeting everyone’s needs, for ensuring that “all boats rise”). Steiner took these three impulses and showed how they will come to their rightful expression in a radically participatory, threefold society. It’s a society where anyone with a desire to educate can start a school… as long as they can find pupils. Or anyone who wants to start a newspaper can do so… as long as they can find readers. The rich and powerful shouldn’t be the gatekeepers for these things. But in order to make this a reality, then the parents who want to send their kids to your school or the people who want to read your newspaper have to have the money to do so. As long as the money is concentrated in very few hands, then those will be the people who decide what initiatives gets supported and what doesn’t.
Does that make sense?
If my article seems in anyway dismissive of grassroots activism, I think that’s only because I’m emphasizing the fact that we need to consciously understand the big picture. We have to learn to see how our part fits into the whole. It’s like the old saying “act locally, think globally” but now we have to make that really concrete — we have to actually become conscious of how society works and not just have a vague feeling that our clothes were made in a sweatshop, or our plastic packaging will never biodegrade. That sort of awareness is certainly useful, but it won’t lead to an actual understanding of how we should distribute wealth or what kind of governance processes would cultivate true equality. For that we need a truly a holistic conception of society.
Let me know if any of that doesn’t make sense. And thanks again for your thoughts.
Thanks a lot, Seth for your writing, and for the bonus comment here :)