Some points to add to your framework. Israel was not established by Jews alone. Zionists worked closely with the British. The Balfour Declaration displayed the cooperation between British elites and Zionists. The Ottoman Empire was recently taken down, and the British saw a way to get a foothold in the region. So modern Israel was created partly as a result of Britain's imperial ambitions.
Judaism is not an ethnos, it is a religion. The attempt to create a Jewish State is making it a religious state. The Zionist argument regarding ethnicity is wrong, first, because most Jews today have no genetic connection to the ancient Hebrews. A good source on this point is Arthur Koestler's The Thirteenth Tribe where he details the history of the Khazars who converted to Judaism while in their homeland between the Black and Caspian Seas. They were the origin of eastern European Jews. At the very least one needs to be keeping this caveat in mind when talking about ethnicity.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Hamas was a creation of Israelis. They didn't like the POW, so they murdered Arafat and created Hamas. This fact plays into what actually happened on Oct. 7. Another is that rich reserves of fossil fuels have been discovered just off the coast of Gaza. This provides a motive for Israel to take over Gaza and remove the Palestinians. Oct. 7 could have been a false flag operation.
Regarding nationalism, it's been getting a bad name, predominately from the left. Nationalism gets equated with fascism, but what it's really about is sovereignty. The EU is a testing ground for this. The EU wants to dominate member nations. Joining the EU, and especially the Eurozone, has been a major sacrifice of sovereignty for many nations. It is in the EU where sovereignty is said to be an undesirable thing, but that is because the leaders there want to establish control over member nations, imposing policies the people did not vote for. In a clearer context, I deal with the issue of national sovereignty in the last essay in my book, Threefold Steps Out.
The problem in Palestine is the leadership on both sides. Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. One reason Arab countries don't want to take Palestinian refugees is that they don't want any part of the Muslim Brotherhood. You can see the trouble they caused in Egypt in the aftermath of that psyop called the Arab Spring. But the leadership of Israel is also very bad. The Likud Party should be voted out. Of course, they are not the only expansionist political group in Israel in favor of extermination. The good news is Israelis have taken to the street in protest.
Hey John - these are really interesting points. I do have a couple questions though. Can you say more about why you think it matters that Jewish people are, or aren't, an ethnic group? I know you're versed in threefolding, so in terms of what I'm writing about with the separation of nation and state, the actual overarching ideal is the separation of culture and state. So from my perspective it wouldn't matter if we're talking about ethnicity or religion or any other aspect of culture. Do you think it does matter?
Regarding nationalism, yeah it gets a bad name from the left and gets equated with fascism, but it is also gets a bad name from Steiner. I've never seen him say a positive word about nationalism. In Fall of the Spirits of Darkness he says:
“A man who today speaks of the ideal of races and nations and of tribal affiliation speaks of decadent impulses of mankind… Because through nothing will mankind be brought more into decadence than if the ideals of race, nation and blood continue to hold sway.”
I think it might be too hard to get into the details here (I'm thinking especially of the pictures he brings in The Social Future, Architecture as Peacework, and other lecture cycles), but I'd be interested in what your take is on this. I'll try to read the essay you mentioned, but I'm also super busy traveling over the next month, so if you want to share a condensed version of your view, I'd be appreciative.
And I do recognize that there is an abstract internationalism that can live especially in the left, which is also devoid of real love. It's overly cold like the nationalism of the right is overly hot. I don't think either side is connected to the ideals that Steiner espoused. Anyways, I'd be interested in hearing about your thoughts on this.
The reason ethnicity is an important issue with regards to Israelis is that refutes the Zionist narrative. The Zionists wanted to establish the Jewish state, and to justify it they claimed historical precedence on ethnic grounds. I refer you to The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand. Two main points here. One is that many if not most Jews are descendants of the Khazars who were converts a thousand or more years ago. Sand's view is similar in this regard to Arthur Koestler mentioned previously. Secondly, the diaspora never happened. Again I refer to Sand. There is no Roman record of Jews ever being exiled from Judea. Rather than a diaspora, the fact seems to be that Jews proselytized every bit as much as the Christians. That's how Judaism spread. Converts, of course, don't share in a genetic connection to the ancient Hebrews.
Regarding nationalism, I refer you to my book, Threefold Steps Out. In the last essay I deal with the issue of nationalism and why national sovereignty is important. Outside of Steiner, those who would do away with sovereignty and nationalism are those wishing to exploit. The EU, for instance, wishes to exploit its member nations. Nations with imperial designs wish to exploit their colonies, and do so by prohibiting certain things, like manufacturing. Or from issuing their own currency. These prohibitions have a profound impact on an economy. In that essay I bring in references to things Steiner said, as indeed I do with each of the essays. Generally speaking, when Steiner speaks of Threefold, he speaks of an ideal way in which society should function. Steiner speaks of free trade as an ideal, for instance. But if a nation is trading with an imperialistic, exploitive nation, then a nation that has adopted threefold is justified in using methods that run counter to pure free trade.
John - as a number of people are coming back to this article, I thought I'd revisit your last comment. So, I looked over your essay and don't see where you distinguish between the nation and the state at all. In fact, when you describe the American nation it seems like all you mean is the government - the state. Your main point, if I understand it correctly, is that every government has the right to protect its borders. Definitely. But do you think the state and the nation should be merged in the sense that I described in this article?
That also gets to the first question I have. How is the Zionist rationale that you referred to - that they are an ethnic group - at all relevant to what I discuss in my article? I'm saying that it doesn't matter whether they are an ethnic group or religious group at all - no cultural group (ethnic, religious, etc.) should have it's own state. Again: Do you think it should? Do you think nation and state should be merged?
Hello Seth. Perhaps there is a semantic issue here. I can't conceive of a nation that does not have a government. But there are various ethnic and religious groups within the nation. Thinking in terms of threefold, these would be cultural groups. And if I understand your premise cultural groups don't have to form nations. Steiner talked about cultural groups having separate boundaries from nation-states. He suggested that a school district could span across national borders, for instance.
And would it be fair to say your question is, why should Israel have formed itself into a nation? Why couldn't Jews have simply migrated to Palestine and lived peaceably with Palestinians? My inclination is to look at that question from a historical perspective, going back to the 19th C. and seeing what the British were up to. Jeffrey Sachs talked recently about the British, and how they would have control of an area and make promises to perhaps three different nations/peoples regarding control of that land. And that Palestine was one such case. And that the violence that got started more than a hundred years ago was a British operation. The idea is that both sides of the conflict are victims of a sordid plot.
But maybe the historical origins of the state of Israel are not quite relevant to this discussion or to your intentions for writing the article. Certainly, there isn't space here to adequately tell that very complex history. And now with the things Trump has done bringing peace to the region the whole topic has shifted.
But as to your question, should the nation and state be merged, I would have to respond with a threefold answer. In threefold a nation has the cultural, the economic, and the political or rights realms. These three are present everywhere. Everyone participates in all three, but there are ways they should be kept separate. I'll leave it there for now.
Hey John - thanks for your reply. We're talking at cross-purposes because we're not using the same terminology, so yes, it is a semantic issue. But as we know from Steiner's work, it's important to become exact in our language (for instance the need to become clear about what a commodity is in order to realize that land, labor, and capital are not commodities).
When you say that you can't imagine a nation not having a government, it's because you're thinking of a nation as a country, which is a somewhat loose, inexact thing, but is generally speaking about the land as well as the people on the land. But it's definitely not a nation. In reality there are nations and states. Nations are groups with a common origin (nation come from the latin nasci - to be born. It's where we get the word native and nativity from.) So it's a group of people that often share a bloodline and/or a language. It is an ethnic group. When God says to Abraham that he "will make you into a great nation," he is talking about making a people, an ethnic group out of his offspring. When we talk about the 500 different Indian Nations in America, we're talking about all the different tribes with their distinct languages. There are 1000s of nations around the world. Most of them don't have their own government (there are 200 or so nation-states). Some nations share a government and become plurinations (Switzerland, Belgium, etc). That just means that there are three or four nations and each of them is considered sovereign and there is a space within the country where their language is the official language.
This is part of the whole story behind the nation-state and why Steiner railed against it (chapter 4 of Towards Social Renewal and elsewhere), because the idea is terrible. Merging the nation and the state is totally anti-democratic by definition. Literally. It means that one ethnic group is considered the most important. Their language, their holidays, etc., all get priority. All other ethnic groups are second-class citizens. They lack the same recognition, the same privileges, often they lack the same freedoms. That's not equality within the state. Equality within the state would be to leave all cultural groups - all religious and ethnic groups, and yes, all national groups - alone so that they can pursue their cultural ends. That's the whole meaning of the first amendment. Believe what you want to believe. Practice your own culture traditions, we won't favor one person's over another's.
If we don't get clear on this we won't really have the possibility of getting to the heart of so many of our global conflicts, many of which consist of cultural groups (often nations, but sometimes just the right or the left) trying to grab hold of the reins of political power.
Does that make sense? If you read the Wikipedia entry on nation-state, or on nation, or on state, you get a sense for these things. They're not bad descriptions, though not always 100% accurate. It seems like most scholars themselves aren't 100% clear on these things, though many of them basically get it, they just haven't recognized the implications of their understanding. (Also, it's hard to really make sense of these things without threefolding. If you don't recognize that there are cultural, political, and economic activities, as well as entities, then everything is kind of a muddle...)
If you want to understand it better, I've written about this on a number of occasions - both of my articles on Israel and also my articles on Ukraine, and also my article on American holidays, and probably others...)
With the semantic understanding that its countries that have governments, perhaps the question is, should each nation be its own country? Woodrow Wilson seemed to thing so. His fourteen points played right into the hands of the British who were the prime movers at the Treaty of Versailles. And their agenda was to "Balkanize", to divide and conquer. For the British its all about empire. Playing the ethnic card is a means of dividing and fomenting conflict. It's also a tool for breaking down national sovereignty. That is the world we live in.
In the final essay in my book I deal with the issue of, by your definitions, countries, and the need for sovereignty. We live in an age of empires. Steiner says the most efficient way to trade is through free trade, but that presupposes free dealings between countries. But we don't have such free dealings always because too many relationships between countries are between the strong and the weak. Between empires and their colonies. For the British free trade meant trading partners must do away with import quotas, tariffs and other means of restricting trade. This meant the British could exploit their advantage in manufacturing. They would undersell a country's fledgling industry in order to run it out of business. They wanted their colonies to provide the raw materials while the mother country profited from manufacture. Steiner understood this, and this is why he also said that sometimes tariffs are justified. (The big debate in the 19th C. was between free trade and protectionism.)
One of the difficult things about threefold is that sometimes it seems like Steiner is talking about the current situation, and other times he is talking in an ideal sense as if threefold were already established, meaning how things would run in a mature threefold society.
In order to keep from being exploited a country needs to maintain its sovereignty. Trade restrictions are needed to protect against those who would exploit, and such exploitation can lead to ruin. In Africa, led by Ibrahim Traoré, the yoke of western colonialism is being thrown off. It's a wonderful thing. How will western countries respond. Perhaps by trying to create civil unrest by creating ethnic tension between factions. But this the Africans need to resist by staying united. By staying united the colonialists can be defeated.
When Abraham and the ancient Hebrews were established it was a tribe bound by blood. But over time these tribal blood ties became anachronistic. People can keep their cultural heritages, but we must end all ethnic animosities. Doing away with a county's government won't solve the problem, but is more likely to break things apart into ethnic factions.
John, your knowledge of my history is not aligned with my knowledge of my history. For example, here is what I saw on the web looking for Koestler's theory:
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Historians and geneticists have largely rejected his theory as an explanation for the bulk of Jewish ancestry.
Historical records: The Khazar conversion is documented, but evidence suggests it was mostly an elite phenomenon, not mass adoption.
Genetics: Modern studies consistently show that Ashkenazi Jews cluster genetically with other Jewish groups and with Middle Eastern populations, not with Turkic peoples of Central Asia.
Influence: Despite weak evidence, the theory became popular in some political and antisemitic circles as a way to delegitimize Jewish connection to the Land of Israel.
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As for claiming that the Romans did not exile my ancesters from Judea - have you ever looked at the arch of Titus in rome? Have you ever visited the British museum in London? Did you read Josephus Flavius book about the wars of the jews? Did you ever visit my country and saw the vast number of archaeological findings? I do believe that all these show otherwise.
Ouri. Good to hear from you. I was wondering how you were doing since our zoom meeting. After that meeting I was thinking about how you asked me questions even beyond the scope of the book, but that I did not take the opportunity to ask you about your perspective. Now you have offered one and I am glad to know it.
But more importantly you have survived these last couple of years. And you are the only one I know living in Israel. What's it been like for you? I would like to know what sorts of things you have been an eyewitness to. And what do you think of Trump's efforts to bring peace?
Meanwhile I will look into some of the things you mention. Titus and Flavius and so forth. Thanks for those references.
Hi John. Thank you for your kind words. I don’t recall us meeting before, but I know you met with Omri Elad from Israel. Could it be that you are referring to him?
I don’t have much to say about the situation in Israel regarding the war, as I was not an eyewitness to anything significant. The conflict is contained within the Gaza Strip, and I am over the age for military reserve service, so I was not directly involved in this round. Our personal experience was mostly limited to spending some time in shelters and observing the frequent demonstrations in Israel.
Regarding Trump’s efforts, I see them as somewhat like a broken clock that shows the right time once a day. That said, we are all grateful for his role in bringing back the last hostages. In Israel, opinions about Netanyahu and Trump vary widely: the right wing sees Netanyahu as a savior, giving credit to Trump for supporting him, while the left wing (myself included) sees Netanyahu as the destroyer of Israel, and is thankful that Trump stopped him, even if only temporarily.
One thing that stands out to me is the gap between what politicians publicly say and what they do behind the scenes. Because of this, I don’t have any opinion about Trump’s involvement. I tend to favor resolving conflicts from within rather than relying on a strong figure to enforce solutions, but if his approach works in the current situation, I support it as well. I don’t think much has changed in the region except for the return of the hostages, which for now is everything for us. Hamas still controls Gaza, so terror from their side will continue. The right wing still controls Israel, so violence from our side will also continue. And there does not seem to be any real long-term vision anywhere for how the people of Gaza and Israel could peacefully live next to each other.
Yes, I was thinking you were Omri. You know him, then. Do you know how he is? Please give him my regards.
Reading your assessment of the situation is very helpful. So good to get a balanced view from someone in Israel.
One thing I heard was that there are two factions of Hamas, and that the more militant of the two is controlled by the British. Or in league with and supported by the British. And that when Netanyahu fired missiles at Qatar it was to take out the leadership of the more militant faction. This may or may not have helped facilitate the deal that involved the release of the hostages even though the missile strike happened after the deal had already been announced. Have you heard anything like that?
Are you able to access US internet sources? You must at least to some degree since you're on this platform. But do they censor You Tube, for instance? And do they monitor your social media? In many places around the world people are getting arrested for their posts. Censorship is less of a problem here with Trump in office. We also have Elon Musk to thank. The corporate media still has a left wing bias only overcome by people switching to the internet to get their news.
I like the concept and in a world that held more sanity, it would work. I’m just not sure how we get to a place like that. There would be lots of kinks to work out. For instance, how do you fashion laws for a society that embraces differing cultural beliefs? If one culture favors a male dominate marriage in which the wife has no voice, and domestic abuse (in order to maintain cultural norms) is widely accepted, but surrounding cultures find the practice to be dangerous and worry that their own daughters may eventually fall in love with one from this male dominated culture, how do you protect citizens without favoring one culture over the other in governing decisions? If in one culture a crime is punishable by death or the loss of a limb, but another culture finds it abhorrent, how is a decision for recourse made?
These are great questions. Thanks for them, they help draw out an important distinction — laws that infringe on culture, and laws concerning violence (about which we all have different views because of our culture).
You ask: “How do we fashion laws for a society that embraces differing cultural beliefs?” First, just to be clear, we already do this. This isn’t so clear from my article because I emphasize culture in terms of distinct ethnic groups, but of course we all have a culture — we all have different beliefs and worldviews, they just don’t always fit into one single box. And then, of course, we all have to live together in society and make laws that everyone can abide by, regardless of all our different cultural beliefs.
That said, what I’ve focused on in this article and the ones preceding it, are specifically laws that infringe on culture. If you look into history we’ve already made a huge amount of progress overturning such laws and protecting culture, especially with the separation of church and state and free speech. More and more we recognize that people should be free to develop and express themselves how they see fit. But there’s still a long ways to go — we’re still violating people’s cultural development and expression, and it creates a huge amount of social strife.
Just in America, we still favor certain traditions (by making them official holidays) and certain languages (by making everyone speak them) and generally certain worldviews (by teaching them in public schools). We also take away people’s autonomy over their own bodies (abortion and vaccination laws). These things are major, MAJOR cultural issues that have the country hugely divided, and they also all have to do with people’s personal lives and choices — their culture. Yes, these choices still affect other people - it’s a pain if not everyone speaks English, and it might be hard to know when businesses would be open if we had different holidays, and if everyone learned different things in school then maybe we’d have less civic unity (there’s nothing like forced uniformity to unite people!), and if people are unvaccinated they could potentially endanger others, and when a woman gets an abortion she stops another person from entering the world, and if someone says hateful things they certainly hurt people’s feelings —but nonetheless, these are still primarily individual choices. You could argue that they’re not as private as religion, but people 200 years ago would disagree - religion for them was all about the morality of society and the salvation of souls, they felt they had to impose it on others. It was crucial for the well-being of society.
So there are fine arguments for why we should infringe on all these individual rights, but we should realize that people won’t be happy when we do, and they’re probably fight back.
But your main point is about something slightly different: the fact that, even though we have different cultural beliefs, we still have to make laws about what level of outer violence is acceptable. So right now we make laws that certain groups find incredibly offensive (allowing capital punishment, or solitary confinement which some view as torture) and then there are also laws about violence in the home (domestic abuse and corporal punishment). Different people will have different views of these things, and different religions and ethnic groups will have different views, but also different churches, mosques, and synagogues within the same religion will have different views. But these things have less to do with individual cultural freedom and more to do with outer violence and safety. And such things are right for everyone to have a voice in deciding. Not everyone should be able to decide what the social studies teacher teaches, but they should have a say in whether one person can attack another one and what the consequences are.
It’s true, if every ethnic group had its own state then we’d have very different laws around these things, and maybe domestic violence would be totally permitted in some countries. But how could you keep your daughter from falling in love with someone from that country and moving there anyways? I can’t think of a way of avoiding that scenario.
I like your optimism but I see some problems with your diagnosis and proposed remedy: How do you account for the 21% of the Israeli population being Arab Muslims? Did you know that Arab Muslims who are citizens in Israel even serve on the Israeli Supreme Court and have sentenced prominent Israelis to prison, and have more human rights than their counterparts in many other Arab nations?
Also, the schools in Palestine raise the children to hate Israelis of all ethnic backgrounds and to celebrate death and martyrdom; how do you reason with that? how do you make peace and/or at least contain the violence? You can watch recordings of kindergarten plays that glorify shooting Jews. https://youtu.be/1sDZlo_hllI?si=t_-gE4eUR-TA_nva Here is only one example, there are many more
I am not Jewish or Israeli or a zionist but I know that Israel is already a multiethnic and multi-religious state.
Your approach here, diagnosis of the situation and remedy seems a bit oversimplified.
This situation is very complex.
Of course, one cannot simply make assumptions about the nature and motivations of the nations and states involved in this, and other, conflicts without also considering the proxy nature of all of the wars mentioned above and the international corruption that fuels wars and terrorism and without taking into account of the major players who are behind Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah etc, in the case of the Middle East.
In the case of Ukraine which you mentioned in passing, we should also consider the interested parties involved behind the scenes in funding this war and sabotaging peace agreements. It is common knowledge now Putin and Zelensky had agreed to a Peace process, a diplomatic solution in April 2022, and it was undermined by the West. 18 months later, and 100,000 deaths later and we are no closer to a solution.
There is a lot more at stake in both of those examples than self-determination and nation-statehood, in my humble opinion.
Hey Sharon - thanks for writing in. I wasn't trying to say that the separation of nation and state would magically erase the hate in people's hearts and atone for the violence done on both sides. Not at all. I assume there will need to be significant Peace and Reconciliation processes and all sorts of other things.
My main point is simply that as long as Arab Muslims are second class citizens (or third or fourth class, depending on where they live), then there will always be the conditions for violence to erupt. But I'm not sure if you disagree with that basic point?
If you think they're not second class citizens, then I would refer you to my other article about the Nation State Law (thewholesocial.substack.com/p/nation-state-law). The simple fact is that you can't have a Jewish state and a democratic state. A Jewish state, by definition, means that it favors one people, one group and identity, over all others (and therefore has to suppress the growth of other groups so they never become the majority). Do you see this differently? Do you think the nation-state doesn't lead to those consequences? And if you agree that it does, do you think other groups won't be resentful and potentially violent?
I'm definitely not saying that all acts of violence can be attributed to this, but only that violence is inevitable until it is addressed.
And I don't think it matters if they have more human rights than their counterparts in other Arab nations. I don't think that will placate them, if they even know about it at all.
Thanks for your thoughts on this challenging topic! All the best.
I agree with your framework that the nation state is a problem. It's an idea from centuries ago that has worked well enough until now. That said, some of these inter ethnic disputes are more complex than power struggles. For example, Israel isn't just fighting Palestinians for power over some land, but rather they are also fighting Hamas which is an idea, one which believes in the world-wide domination of Islam.
The Gaza slaughter and ethnic cleansing is not going to stop until Israel is de-Nazified. That means that Zionists should be chased out of Israel, these Zionists should return to their Nations of origin, a new secular non religious non ethnically state should be installed with a constitution mirroring the US. The country should be renamed to Palestine, a 2state solution is not available option. And let's not overlook the support and influence of the Anglo_US empire, using Israel as spearhed in the (oilr-ich) middle-east.
Dear Ouri, since you got this far in the conversation, it's maybe also an opportunity for me to ask:
1. Steiner talked directly, and almost exclusively, about the macro level of society when talking about Threefolding. (I know few places where he addresses communities and non where he directly addresses organizations). Does something of this (the macro level) remain in your vision, or is it only effected in a bypass way?
2. In your vision as described in your last message, what would you say should be inspiring, or new, for me as an interested listener? What's new with regard to what you put forward as opposed to the way things are going on today?
Can you specify what exactly you see in the macro? It will be easier for me to relate to a specific perspective. I don’t see society as either macro or micro — I see it as one whole organism made up of 8 billion individuals. There are no dividing lines in the image I see. The concept I’m describing — in a healthy society, the individual acts out of their free talent to brotherly fulfill the needs of another, bound by egalitarian morality — applies everywhere and reflects both the individual and society as a whole, and everything in between. You can replace the word individual in that phrase with any part of society (state, nation, school, whatever), and it will still hold true.
I’m not pointing to anything new. As you often say yourself, threefolding is not an ideology. It’s not a recipe for a different structure. Threefolding describes the phenomenon of the social organism as it is. It’s more a question of consciousness — evolving to see and understand things as they are, which in turn increases the freedom of our social choices.
How would society be different if we became conscious of threefolding?
Instead of constantly arguing about who is right and who is wrong, we would learn to see truths from perspectives other than our own.
We would consciously direct our social actions toward fulfilling the needs of others, rather than our own.
We would legislate laws and create agreements that define the boundaries of morality, rather than enforcing our rights or beliefs.
Probably the most extreme example of an unhealed society is war. In an act of war, the offensive side (usually both sides) acts out of its desires and fears (its skills are not free) to enforce its own rights and satisfy its own needs, with disregard for morality. Awareness of my own fears and desires (understanding that these two are anti-social in nature), while embracing the needs of the other side and the boundaries of morality, awakens us to avoid wars and slowly relieves the pain that leads to them.
My claim is that most social interactions today, between any two individuals, have the characteristics of war, even when the interaction is calm and polite. People are in constant tension to maintain their rights when interacting with others. Learning to consciously fulfill the needs of others is the cure for this tension.
I’m not sure if this answers your questions, though. If you can, please elaborate further on them.
"Can you specify what exactly you see in the macro? It will be easier for me to relate to a specific perspective."
I see in the macro a key to address problems that stem from the macro level. The macro level means to me the political level that governs me, its another kind of climate if you like, just as with the climate I'm always under some kind of effect that comes from it, so too I am always under the effect of the governing forces. As civilians in the modern era, we all have access to the macro level, and so if I want to effect this "climate" I'll have to do so using the political aspect of my being, i.e my citizenship.
"in a healthy society, the individual acts out of their free talent to brotherly fulfill the needs of another, bound by egalitarian morality "
This sounds to me like a great ideal, but what would you say that somebody who asks "how to better our social problems?" could do with it? Except of course check himself and see if he is in accordance with it? which of course is great but then how is that different from inner work? Why do we need the term Threefolding?
In any instant, with whatever I do - I can check that I'm free, that I'm fulfilling somebody else's needs and that I do not deviate from egalitarian morality.
That to me is a good description of a spiritual state of being. And yes, if everybody would act this way or at least in this orientation the world, including the macro level, would change for the better. But I think Steiner indicated this in many different places but not when talking about Threefolding. With Threefolding I think he aimed at giving us another insight, this time into the social structure - an insight that is complementary to the one regarding inner work.
> what would you say that somebody who asks "how to better our social problems?" could do with it?
This phrase that I propose demonstrates threefolding through the actions of an individual, but more broadly, it points to the three spheres and their inner nature. It has three parts, each corresponding to a sphere and the principle that governs it. These principles are not something that we need to acquire. They are the inner nature of the three spheres. By becoming conscious of these laws of social nature, we can act in harmony with them. The more we do so, the more harmonized society becomes, and in this harmony, social problems dissolve.
> how is that different from inner work?
Only the first third of this sentence aligns with inner work: "the individual acts out of their free talent".
> Why do we need the term Threefolding?
Because the social entity has three folds. Each third of my sentence relates to one of them.
> In any instant, with whatever I do - I can check that I'm free, that I'm fulfilling somebody else's needs and that I do not deviate from egalitarian morality.
That is a good checklist, but not my point. My three points are:
1- The first point: The issue is not whether I am a free spirit, but whether I recognize the person before me as one. Every person brings into the social interaction a free gift from the spiritual world and our inner work (in a social interaction) is to recognize and accept these gifts. A politician that interferes with education is no exception. We need to learn to collaborate with him, not to correct him for being wrong.
2- The second point - "To brotherly fulfill the needs of another" is not mere technicality. Just like Steiner's point that a person's income should not be seen as payment for their labor, but rather as a means to support their participation in the social organism. The worker should work for the sake of working, not for the sake of payment. In general, in every exchange of values, I should give for the sake of giving (to fulfill the needs of another). This contrasts with the common mindset today, where people approach economic interactions primarily by asking, "What do I gain from this interaction?". This is not altruism but economic efficiency: in an economy where each side takes responsibility for the other’s needs, everyone’s needs—including mine—are better fulfilled.
3- The third step: "bound by egalitarian morality," is not about confirming my own moral behavior. I take it for granted that every human being considers themselves moral. By insisting that morality must be egalitarian, I am emphasizing that non-egalitarian agreements are not about morality, but about self-preservation. We tend to seek agreements that reinforce our own view of reality. For example, a social initiative might begin by ensuring that all members align with the founders' vision. It is as if they are saying: "Let’s agree that reality is as I see it; otherwise, we can't work together." Israel’s recent Nation-State Law offers another example—"Let’s agree that this state is for the Jews, and that the only official language is Hebrew." Or consider a village of anthroposophists that seeks to agree that only anthroposophists may live there. All these are forms of non-egalitarian bounds. They draw distinctions between people rather than treating them as equals. The call to bind social interactions by egalitarian morality is a call to avoid non-egalitarian agreements and bounds.
To sum up: in every social interaction, if we learn
1. to recognize the free gifts each individual brings,
2. to discern the true needs of each side (not just what they claim to want), and
3. to define egalitarian moral bounds rather than non-egalitarian self-preserving ones,
we will fulfill the ideal where: in a healthy society, the individual acts out of their free talent to brotherly fulfill the needs of another, bound by egalitarian morality.
> With Threefolding I think he aimed at giving us another insight, this time into the social structure
That is exactly what I claim he didn’t, though I agree it seems he did. There are several places where he emphasizes that threefolding is not about social structure. Most of his writing can indeed be read in these two completely different ways. As for the few places where he specifically talks about social structure (as in the referendum), I claim that these instances reflect short-sightedness on his part, which he partially corrected over the years.
I still call threefolding a structure, but an etheric structure—a structure of flows, as described above—not a physical structure dividing organizations. A deep understanding of this etheric structure reveals that what seem like two complementary views (structure and flow) are actually contradictory. The etheric structure of social flows—tightening the interrelation between nation and state—produces harmony. A physical structure—separating the nation from the state—produces disharmony and social disease.
To me this is still included in what I call inner work. In the sense that (and correct me if I'm wrong) you are still asking of people to be conscious of the natural principle of each sphere and act harmonically with it. This is how I use the term "inner work". Hence, to my understanding, you are still dependent on what people can or can't accomplish inwardly with what you suggest.
Why is this important? Because to me threefolding is exactly about adding something to people's inner work. For sure we are all dependent on people's inner work, and again Steiner talked about this endlessly, but with threefolding he added something... Threefolding isn't something that is dependent on my inner capacity, but on my political or civil will. It's a parallel impulse towards the same goal of bettering society. That's why I call it complementary to inner work.
It seems like we're in a time of trying to enforce equality for all... while losing sight of what it takes in character development, initiative, and effort to become a person/people capable of stewarding human rights. Humanity exists with vitality and death in constant striving with each other. Youth is not the same playing field as age, vitality is relative. Wisdom is earned thru striving.
Does it help to think of what it takes to earn one's nation-state? What metrics do we use in letting nations move towards their natural death?
I think of the respurces poured into life support for diseased bodies. Is it always good?
How do we resolve the fears we project into national structures?
All ethnicities should continue to exist without being eradicated, but through the lifeforce of what they represent and the degree to which they maintain their vitality. Vitality = universal human values. Its a emotional conversation but where would we be as a people if we tried to maintain every cultural norm over all time? Love the way Steiner points out that we as humans are in a process of development as our age is... we are still very prehistoric in our interactions but we must strive to uphold the value of human life and culture... but at what cost? ... there's violence implied in all sorts of dying but to what extent are we evaluating the level of violence compared to level of viability? We throw all resources at maintaining a modicum of life without vitality, often simply due to our unreconciled fears of death and dying. How do you esteem vitality without also giving death its due course?
At what point do we let a model die a death without hooking it up to the violence of "life support" at all costs?
Tx for forum to sort thru, think out, and identify the strains of thought
What do you actually mean when you suggest separating the nation from the state in Israel? Which of the two would be the sovereign of the land? Would it have a president or some other type of leader at its head? What would be the mother tongue of this leader?
Hey Ouri - great questions. The ideal of democracy is that that the state treats every citizen equally. If the state names an official church, than the followers of other faiths are considered second-class citizens - "less than." If the state names an official language, then the speakers of other languages are considered less than. If the state determines certain holidays, then the people who don't celebrate those days are considered less than. In all those instances, the state isn't treating all its citizens equally. If your faith, language and holidays are championed, you might not think it's a big deal. But if the tables were turned, and all of a sudden the majority changed - if all of a sudden it was a different faith, language, and holidays that were celebrated, the state was imbued with a different culture - you would probably see things differently. You would feel less than, and as if your identity was under threat by the majority, which it would be.
But it is not difficult to imagine a state that doesn't do these things, at least not for me. For instance, it's not hard to imagine a state that doesn't champion a specific religion - we have this America, there is a Separation between Church and State. It is not difficult to imagine a state that doesn't have any official holidays. It's a little trickier with language. Communication within the state should be such that everyone who is participating is able to participate equally. In the US (though I think this has changed under Trump), you would often get a piece of paper whenever you got some communication from the state that would say, in a bunch of different languages, that if you don't speak English please contact this number and we'll translate this notice for you. I'm sure there are other, more elegant ways of doing this too. However you do it, the principle is the same: it shouldn't matter what language you speak, you should be able to participate as an equal in relation to the state.
This is what one has to do if one wants an actual democratic state. In that case all nationalities, all ethnic groups are welcome. No one nation is sovereign over the land - instead the state itself is sovereign. The nationalities move about as they see fit. For example, there are large communities of Mexican-Americans where I am in California. They speak mostly Spanish. They are not sovereign over this land, they are just another cultural group that is living here right now. Next year they might migrate to another state, to Arizona or Oregon.
In a democratic state - a state with no cultural affiliation - you could still have a president or any other official. They could speak whatever language they speak. Why should an American citizen who speaks Spanish not be able to lead the United States? It's just a technical question. How do we translate things so everyone can participate equally?
If this doesn't happen, then there is a perpetual struggle for different ethnic groups to seize political power so that they can establish their own ethnicity as primary within the state. Then there is a subtle, or not-so-subtle, tension that is constantly present, there's the need to constantly suppress minorities, there is the constant fear of violence...
Or am I wrong? Maybe this is not the case and people are actually happy to be second-class citizens and there's nothing to fear! No one has yet argued that to me - in fact, no one has made any other systemic suggestions at all. All people say is that the ideal of democracy - the ideal of a state where everyone is equal, regardless of race, ethnicity, language, etc - is an impossibility. Wait, what am I saying!? No of course people don't say that either. Everyone wants to champion democracy... how could they not? But their idea of democracy is full of compromise, full of poison, it's not democracy at all. And real democracy - where the state has nothing to do with cultural identity at all - is called fool's gold, a hopeless utopia. And so we sit, with our muddled thinking, and wait for the inevitable violence to erupt.
"Islam is the third-largest religion in the United States (1.34%) after Christianity (67%) and Judaism (2.4%)" from Wikipedia -> Islam in the United States.
I just asked Google how many Muslims are in the US and saw this datum. What strikes me is not the answer about the Muslims, but the fact that 67% of the US are Christians and the second-largest faith is only 2.4%.
That is amazing.
I think you are missing the human nature factor from your answer. I asked you about Israel, where there is huge tension between 7 million Jews and 7 million Arabs. You answered about the US, which is a country where white Christian men established immense control of white supremacy, by completely cleansing the land of its inhabitants more than 200 years ago, and then keeping Black people as slaves officially for 100 more years and then unofficially for 100 years more. Even today, immigration rules are much tighter in the US compared to Europe, which explains why there are 1.3% Muslims in the US, compare to nearly 10% in Europe.
So what I am claiming, in a nutshell, is that your interpretation of threefolding does not support human nature.
Logically you are correct. It would be great to put aside fear of the different, pride in my identity, and the tendency toward violence, and live together overlooking the differences.
But the reason we don't do it is not that we did not listen to Steiner. It is because—that is human nature.
Interestingly, when I read Steiner, I hear a different kind of threefolding—one that instead of disregarding human nature, actually supports exactly that. By my interpretation, you cannot separate the spirit, the economy, and politics into three separate bodies, because they are not independent bodies, but rather the internal nature of a single social body.
By this interpretation, if you create a state that is free of a nation, it will still develop its own spiritual structure, which, following human nature, will also be self-determining and suspicious of strangers. If you create a nation that is free of a state, it will still develop its own political structure, which will also be self-identifying and suspicious of strangers, and then you will have two social entities fighting again for the same land.
You can see a live example in the small microcosm of the Jewish Israeli state, where the Haredi Jews have their own "state" within the state, in cities like Bnei Brak, and some neighborhoods in Jerusalem, where they have their own courts, their own social security organizations, their own economics—and there is constant tension between them and the rest of the country.
Nationless states are possible in some conditions, with specific culture and specific history (specific random roll of affairs). Even there, if you look at Canada or Switzerland, which are considered nationless, you see that there is a clear separation of regions according to their spoken language, and culture that follows language.
But you can't just impose this logical, theoretical concept on any social situation and claim that it will bring harmony. It won't. To bring harmony you need to settle the social tension, not disregard it.
Coming back to Israel, you cannot impose sovereignty of any culture on the land and expect to have harmony. If the man at the top of this sovereignty structure is a Jew, 7 million Arabs will not trust it (the sovereignty). If he is an Arab, 7 million Jews will not trust it.
The way I see threefolding, it puts the human being at the center—not a theoretical conceptual type of state. The first thing I understand from threefolding is that we must support the individual's free spirit to guide him. This also means supporting the self-sovereignty of the individual over himself. New social structures should then arise from economic connections between people. When I say economic, I don't refer only to interactions that include money, but to any type of interaction where one person fulfills the need of another person. For example, a mother hugging her child, while being a pure act of love (spirit), is also at the same time an economic act where the mother fulfills the child's need for safety and security.
Once people interact out of economic drive, first—this is the path to developing brotherhood (as nicely described in Steiner's book The Inner Aspect of the Social Question). Second—at that stage, politics appears, and we should learn to guide our politics toward defining the borders of morality, and restrain our politics from the temptation to use it to impose our spirit.
Find the harmony between spirit, economy, and politics in a single social body, rather than breaking the social body into separate bodies.
This leads me to the opposite conclusion from yours. Minorities should have as much self-determination as they desire, including their own land to fulfill it. A sovereignty that overlooks culture (as in a nationless state) may work in some regions where minorities have been beaten enough until they changed their culture, or where minorities equally share the land between them—but otherwise, the human being must go through a step of self-determination and self-control before it can become free. That includes full self-sovereignty.
Hey Ouri - thanks for the conversation. I'm not sure I understand a number of your points, so I'd love some clarity.
First, I'm not clear on what the concrete difference is between "finding harmony" between the three sectors of society or "breaking" them up. For myself, I understand them as being independent of one another, much in the same way that the organs are independent within the body. Yes, they work into each other, but they don't take over each other's functions.
When I describe a state that is not merged with a nation, I'm not describing it as being nation-less. Most states have countless nations within them. The United States contains something like 500 different Indian nations within it. I'm only describing how no single nation should be able to take control of the state and impose its identity on others. So the picture is one state, with its border, and many nations with many other borders, big and small, overlapping, moving. This is not some utopian vision. This is what is present today. We have a state and countless nations in this form, we just allow one of them to control the government.
You seem to agree when you say "you cannot impose sovereignty of any culture on the land and expect to have harmony. If the man at the top of this sovereignty structure is a Jew, 7 million Arabs will not trust it (the sovereignty). If he is an Arab, 7 million Jews will not trust it." That's my point exactly.
But from there, I think you would still give political sovereignty to different groups, I guess by splitting up the land? That's how I understand your last statement: "Minorities should have as much self-determination as they desire, including their own land to fulfill it." If that is the case, I refer you to the images at the top of the article which show how spread out the various national groups are within Israel. You could also look at the map of Austria-Hungary in this other article (https://thewholesocial.substack.com/p/to-end-all-wars), just to get a sense for how mixed countries really are. I have a map of New York City and you can see dozens of distinct cultural groups all living side by side grouped in their little neighborhoods. The reason I point this out is because if you give every minority it's own land, where they can have their own state that represents their cultural identity, then there will always be minorities on that land, and they will always be second-class citizens, and the conditions will always be present for violence.
It seems to me that you are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I've written by stating: "Logically you are correct. It would be great to put aside fear of the different, pride in my identity, and the tendency toward violence, and live together overlooking the differences."
I've never said we should put fear, pride, and violence aside and live together overlooking differences. Nor should we "disregard human nature," as you also claim I'm doing. Instead we should start with human nature. So let's start where you start: we are fearful of difference, proud of our own identity, and tend towards violence - true. This is a part of our nature, a significant part. Now if you take 2 such groups (or 10 or 20) and put them in a closed system, a state, where their culture is allowed to take over the state and impose itself on every other group, what do you think will happen? Remember, everyone is fearful, proud, and inclined towards violence...
And even if some groups don't want to impose their culture on others - they just want to live in peace - if they allow some other group to take control then their group's identity is in danger of being erased, obliterated. They won't be able to speak their language, practice their religion, etc. This idea - the nation-state - incentivizes violence, even by those who wish to be non-violent. The American president Woodrow Wilson was the main proponent of this idea at the turn of the last century and his secretary of state, Robert Lansing, called it “a principle loaded with dynamite.”
I'm not saying that separating nation and state will "settle the social tension" and everyone will be happy. It won't. Everyone will still have all their differences, they just won't be able to use the apparatus of the state to impose their identity on others. This will take away much of the fear and therefore also the reason for violence, but the differences will remain.
The only way I can imagine the nation-state not promoting violence between cultures, by its very nature, is 1) somehow all minorities disappear from society, that the society somehow becomes truly homogeneous, or 2) that minorities won't mind being second-class citizens with less rights than the majority culture. Do you disagree that one of these two requirements are needed for the nation-state to work?
I think we both agree on what we don’t want. I don’t dispute that a nation-state that imposes its culture on its minorities is a bad thing. On that, we are in full agreement—there’s no need to convince me.
My only reservation concerns the solution you propose. That’s why I asked what exactly you have in mind when you suggest separating the nation from the state. What would such a state look like? Would it be the sovereign authority over the land? Would anyone stand at its head? What culture would that person come from?
You call the three realms “sectors.” I think this is where our disagreement begins. Could you briefly describe what you mean? For example, would you say that a school belongs to the spiritual sector, a bank to the economic sector, and so on?
A state that is not merged with a nation looks exactly the same as every state today, except is has certain specific laws embedded within its constitution - that it can not establish, promote, or prohibit and cultural institution or activity, be that in the realm of religion, education, art, science, medicine, journalism, or any other activity where an individual is exploring or expressing their ideas or beliefs, as long as those ideas and beliefs are not immediately inciting violence against another. In creating such a law, or set of laws, the state would in effect make it impossible to meddle with all things cultural/national/ethnic. But the state would look exactly the same as it does today. For instance, the US already does much of this in the first amendment, it just doesn't yet understand the full implications of that text.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
This is pretty clear. People have to be able to believe and say whatever they want. So the state guarantees the freedom of speech... but then it establishes schools where it tells teachers what to teach, which is a blatant contradiction in terms. It should have no role in establishing schools in the same way that it should have no role in establishing churches. Once we figure this out, America's raging culture wars will cool down considerably.
Concerning your other questions: The state is, and would continue to be, the sovereign authority over the land. It would still have officials as it does today (president, chancellor, whatever), and they could be from any culture. Their culture wouldn't matter because the laws of the land would ensure that they can't impose it upon others, in which case it becomes a moot point.
I use the terms sector, realm, and sphere interchangeably. A school is primarily a cultural institution, though like every institution (and individual) it must obey the state's laws around concerning public safety. It also has an economic side in that it has a product/service that it is offering, and how that service integrates itself into society and how the teachers needs are met, are all concerns of the economic realm. In a healthy cooperative economy where businesses work together in associations in order to meet everyone's needs, schools would also need their own associations to interface with all the others. Does that make sense?
Of course, it makes sense. I've been studying threefolding for 21 years now, and indeed this is the common interpretation among people who study threefolding.
I see it differently.
When you talk about the First Amendment as an example of the political sector not intervening in the cultural sector, I see it instead as an example of a social entity (the people of the United States) embracing, through its legislative representatives, a cultural trait of freedom of religion.
While you see school as a primarily cultural institution that also happens to deal with politics and the economy, I see school as a social entity that has three realms. The nature of the social organism isn’t about quantity—it is about quality. Even though I admit that a teacher expresses himself more than a bus driver, the concept of the free spirit is still 100% true for the bus driver as well. Quantity has nothing to do with bringing the realms into harmony.
I have an analogy for that from the world of physics. There is a law of gravity expressed by the equation F = GmM/r². When you check the numbers, you find that gravity on Earth is six times stronger than gravity on the Moon. Should we dissect the heavenly bodies and say that Earth qualifies as a gravitational body and the Moon does not? Not at all. The same law of gravity holds 100% true for the Moon as well. The magnitude of the values doesn’t affect the truth of the nature of gravity.
It is this institutional labeling that I call breaking the social body into separate bodies—placing a school in one sector and the government in another, and expecting different rules to apply to them based on that division. A teacher is no more spiritual in nature than a bus driver. They are both 100% spiritual entities, regardless of any evaluation of the amount of spiritual work they do.
I might say that a school has a different role than a government. The product they provide to society is different—no doubt about it. But threefolding is not about the product of the institution. It is about the working nature of the institution. Every identified group of people (a nation, a school, a government, a religion, a family, and so on) is a social entity with three folds. Some call it functional threefolding, but I don’t like this name very much either. The division into three is only in the observer—it is the way we analyze the organism. The social body itself is a whole, a unity that cannot be separated into three parts. Every social action, like every social entity, has the three folds completely intertwined into one.
People have a natural tendency to impose their culture—their way of thinking—on their neighbors, out of survival instincts, when they don’t feel safe enough with their own culture. If you try to impose rules telling people “don’t impose your culture or way of thinking on others,” it is like telling an angry man, “stop being angry.” Not only does it not bring harmony, it usually makes the angry man even angrier.
If you want to soothe his anger—if you want to soothe the natural tendency of governments to impose their culture on minorities—you must focus on finding the root cause that makes them uneasy and work to soothe that. A healthy society is one where the individual acts out of his own free will, skill, and spirit to fulfill another’s needs (out of brotherhood), within the boundaries of morality. This, to me, is the fundamental principle of threefolding, which is true for any human being, regardless of his role in society.
For example, this also applies to the legislator. You will not bring harmony by pre-determining what laws the legislator should pass. Rather, you must trust the legislator to come up with the right law according to the actual reality of the place and time in which he acts. Sometimes this means legislating freedom of religion, but sometimes it might mean the opposite.
I do agree that we should strive for less coercion from the government—not because the “political body” should not interfere with the “cultural body” (I don’t believe such divisions into bodies exist), but because human beings should not use their power to coerce other human beings. This is because all human beings are spiritual entities who should act from the freedom of their own spirit. That includes freedom of religion, but also economic freedom, and also political freedom.
I think you're being too idealistic. The Jews don't want what you're suggesting. It'll never happen. I believe, and this is not Steiner, although I have read much of the dear Doctor, Zionism as an ethnic ideology is anti-human and has to be outlawed like naziism before it. Which of course was re-born in zionism. They're the same. They need to be against the law. Then, Palestine is given back to the Palestinians. Fix that wrong first. And then, the European Jews - from Russia Poland Romania - also the US and UK and even the AFricans there, need to apply to live in Palestine. And the priceless Palestinians can decide. And let them put Netanyahu and all the other monsters on trial. And the so called jews from Europe - who mostly are a fake ( absolutely decadent ) tribe, not an ancient religion, if they don't like it, then tear up their Israeli passport becasue it no longer exists and they go back to their land of origin. Which is obviously Ukraine. And let Putin figure it out.
Ann - I'm sorry for what you've written. It's incredibly painful to read. I'm even sorry that you describe Steiner as the "dear Doctor," you might think otherwise if you read his writings about antisemitism (https://shorturl.at/hU4qB). The content of your comment is painful, yes, but especially the tone of it. It has so much anger in it. I'm not Jewish, but I love my Jewish brothers and sisters, as I love my Christian and Muslim brothers and sisters. Your feeling that we need to outlaw certain ideas is exactly the opposite of what I'm talking about. Ideas, beliefs, religions, viewpoints should never be touched by the state. You might not agree now, you might want the state to step in and decide whose ideas are right and whose are wrong, but if the state outlaws your ideas, I imagine you'd think differently.
Hey Ann - you're of course welcome to stay or go. I don't mean to be harsh, but I won't stand by if someone is attacking a group of people, which is what your comment appears to me to be doing. It's fine to critique any ideology such as Zionism (I'm critical of it myself, as I am of all efforts at self-determination) and of course the roots of one or culture or another can and should be discussed by those anyone who cares to, but the tone of your comment seems to neglect the basic decency of the people you're talking about. It seems to diminish them, to kick or spit on them. Perhaps I'm understanding your comment incorrectly. If I am, please correct me.
And I don't mean to conflate the other issue - the issue of outlawing speech - with this first issue. You're not the first to want to outlaw speech that you find offensive, almost everyone wants to do this, which is why my perspective isn't very popular. I would of course defend even the Nazis and holocaust deniers the right to share their view, as long as they're not immediately inciting violence. We need to hear what our fellow brothers and sisters think, and if their perspectives are sick (which Nazism clearly is) then we need to oppose those views with our own views. We cannot erase these people or their views. We have to show them that our views have real vitality, real health and truth to them, and then, hopefully, win them over.
Some points to add to your framework. Israel was not established by Jews alone. Zionists worked closely with the British. The Balfour Declaration displayed the cooperation between British elites and Zionists. The Ottoman Empire was recently taken down, and the British saw a way to get a foothold in the region. So modern Israel was created partly as a result of Britain's imperial ambitions.
Judaism is not an ethnos, it is a religion. The attempt to create a Jewish State is making it a religious state. The Zionist argument regarding ethnicity is wrong, first, because most Jews today have no genetic connection to the ancient Hebrews. A good source on this point is Arthur Koestler's The Thirteenth Tribe where he details the history of the Khazars who converted to Judaism while in their homeland between the Black and Caspian Seas. They were the origin of eastern European Jews. At the very least one needs to be keeping this caveat in mind when talking about ethnicity.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Hamas was a creation of Israelis. They didn't like the POW, so they murdered Arafat and created Hamas. This fact plays into what actually happened on Oct. 7. Another is that rich reserves of fossil fuels have been discovered just off the coast of Gaza. This provides a motive for Israel to take over Gaza and remove the Palestinians. Oct. 7 could have been a false flag operation.
Regarding nationalism, it's been getting a bad name, predominately from the left. Nationalism gets equated with fascism, but what it's really about is sovereignty. The EU is a testing ground for this. The EU wants to dominate member nations. Joining the EU, and especially the Eurozone, has been a major sacrifice of sovereignty for many nations. It is in the EU where sovereignty is said to be an undesirable thing, but that is because the leaders there want to establish control over member nations, imposing policies the people did not vote for. In a clearer context, I deal with the issue of national sovereignty in the last essay in my book, Threefold Steps Out.
The problem in Palestine is the leadership on both sides. Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. One reason Arab countries don't want to take Palestinian refugees is that they don't want any part of the Muslim Brotherhood. You can see the trouble they caused in Egypt in the aftermath of that psyop called the Arab Spring. But the leadership of Israel is also very bad. The Likud Party should be voted out. Of course, they are not the only expansionist political group in Israel in favor of extermination. The good news is Israelis have taken to the street in protest.
Hey John - these are really interesting points. I do have a couple questions though. Can you say more about why you think it matters that Jewish people are, or aren't, an ethnic group? I know you're versed in threefolding, so in terms of what I'm writing about with the separation of nation and state, the actual overarching ideal is the separation of culture and state. So from my perspective it wouldn't matter if we're talking about ethnicity or religion or any other aspect of culture. Do you think it does matter?
Regarding nationalism, yeah it gets a bad name from the left and gets equated with fascism, but it is also gets a bad name from Steiner. I've never seen him say a positive word about nationalism. In Fall of the Spirits of Darkness he says:
“A man who today speaks of the ideal of races and nations and of tribal affiliation speaks of decadent impulses of mankind… Because through nothing will mankind be brought more into decadence than if the ideals of race, nation and blood continue to hold sway.”
I think it might be too hard to get into the details here (I'm thinking especially of the pictures he brings in The Social Future, Architecture as Peacework, and other lecture cycles), but I'd be interested in what your take is on this. I'll try to read the essay you mentioned, but I'm also super busy traveling over the next month, so if you want to share a condensed version of your view, I'd be appreciative.
And I do recognize that there is an abstract internationalism that can live especially in the left, which is also devoid of real love. It's overly cold like the nationalism of the right is overly hot. I don't think either side is connected to the ideals that Steiner espoused. Anyways, I'd be interested in hearing about your thoughts on this.
All the best - Seth
The reason ethnicity is an important issue with regards to Israelis is that refutes the Zionist narrative. The Zionists wanted to establish the Jewish state, and to justify it they claimed historical precedence on ethnic grounds. I refer you to The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand. Two main points here. One is that many if not most Jews are descendants of the Khazars who were converts a thousand or more years ago. Sand's view is similar in this regard to Arthur Koestler mentioned previously. Secondly, the diaspora never happened. Again I refer to Sand. There is no Roman record of Jews ever being exiled from Judea. Rather than a diaspora, the fact seems to be that Jews proselytized every bit as much as the Christians. That's how Judaism spread. Converts, of course, don't share in a genetic connection to the ancient Hebrews.
Regarding nationalism, I refer you to my book, Threefold Steps Out. In the last essay I deal with the issue of nationalism and why national sovereignty is important. Outside of Steiner, those who would do away with sovereignty and nationalism are those wishing to exploit. The EU, for instance, wishes to exploit its member nations. Nations with imperial designs wish to exploit their colonies, and do so by prohibiting certain things, like manufacturing. Or from issuing their own currency. These prohibitions have a profound impact on an economy. In that essay I bring in references to things Steiner said, as indeed I do with each of the essays. Generally speaking, when Steiner speaks of Threefold, he speaks of an ideal way in which society should function. Steiner speaks of free trade as an ideal, for instance. But if a nation is trading with an imperialistic, exploitive nation, then a nation that has adopted threefold is justified in using methods that run counter to pure free trade.
John - as a number of people are coming back to this article, I thought I'd revisit your last comment. So, I looked over your essay and don't see where you distinguish between the nation and the state at all. In fact, when you describe the American nation it seems like all you mean is the government - the state. Your main point, if I understand it correctly, is that every government has the right to protect its borders. Definitely. But do you think the state and the nation should be merged in the sense that I described in this article?
That also gets to the first question I have. How is the Zionist rationale that you referred to - that they are an ethnic group - at all relevant to what I discuss in my article? I'm saying that it doesn't matter whether they are an ethnic group or religious group at all - no cultural group (ethnic, religious, etc.) should have it's own state. Again: Do you think it should? Do you think nation and state should be merged?
Hello Seth. Perhaps there is a semantic issue here. I can't conceive of a nation that does not have a government. But there are various ethnic and religious groups within the nation. Thinking in terms of threefold, these would be cultural groups. And if I understand your premise cultural groups don't have to form nations. Steiner talked about cultural groups having separate boundaries from nation-states. He suggested that a school district could span across national borders, for instance.
And would it be fair to say your question is, why should Israel have formed itself into a nation? Why couldn't Jews have simply migrated to Palestine and lived peaceably with Palestinians? My inclination is to look at that question from a historical perspective, going back to the 19th C. and seeing what the British were up to. Jeffrey Sachs talked recently about the British, and how they would have control of an area and make promises to perhaps three different nations/peoples regarding control of that land. And that Palestine was one such case. And that the violence that got started more than a hundred years ago was a British operation. The idea is that both sides of the conflict are victims of a sordid plot.
But maybe the historical origins of the state of Israel are not quite relevant to this discussion or to your intentions for writing the article. Certainly, there isn't space here to adequately tell that very complex history. And now with the things Trump has done bringing peace to the region the whole topic has shifted.
But as to your question, should the nation and state be merged, I would have to respond with a threefold answer. In threefold a nation has the cultural, the economic, and the political or rights realms. These three are present everywhere. Everyone participates in all three, but there are ways they should be kept separate. I'll leave it there for now.
Hey John - thanks for your reply. We're talking at cross-purposes because we're not using the same terminology, so yes, it is a semantic issue. But as we know from Steiner's work, it's important to become exact in our language (for instance the need to become clear about what a commodity is in order to realize that land, labor, and capital are not commodities).
When you say that you can't imagine a nation not having a government, it's because you're thinking of a nation as a country, which is a somewhat loose, inexact thing, but is generally speaking about the land as well as the people on the land. But it's definitely not a nation. In reality there are nations and states. Nations are groups with a common origin (nation come from the latin nasci - to be born. It's where we get the word native and nativity from.) So it's a group of people that often share a bloodline and/or a language. It is an ethnic group. When God says to Abraham that he "will make you into a great nation," he is talking about making a people, an ethnic group out of his offspring. When we talk about the 500 different Indian Nations in America, we're talking about all the different tribes with their distinct languages. There are 1000s of nations around the world. Most of them don't have their own government (there are 200 or so nation-states). Some nations share a government and become plurinations (Switzerland, Belgium, etc). That just means that there are three or four nations and each of them is considered sovereign and there is a space within the country where their language is the official language.
This is part of the whole story behind the nation-state and why Steiner railed against it (chapter 4 of Towards Social Renewal and elsewhere), because the idea is terrible. Merging the nation and the state is totally anti-democratic by definition. Literally. It means that one ethnic group is considered the most important. Their language, their holidays, etc., all get priority. All other ethnic groups are second-class citizens. They lack the same recognition, the same privileges, often they lack the same freedoms. That's not equality within the state. Equality within the state would be to leave all cultural groups - all religious and ethnic groups, and yes, all national groups - alone so that they can pursue their cultural ends. That's the whole meaning of the first amendment. Believe what you want to believe. Practice your own culture traditions, we won't favor one person's over another's.
If we don't get clear on this we won't really have the possibility of getting to the heart of so many of our global conflicts, many of which consist of cultural groups (often nations, but sometimes just the right or the left) trying to grab hold of the reins of political power.
Does that make sense? If you read the Wikipedia entry on nation-state, or on nation, or on state, you get a sense for these things. They're not bad descriptions, though not always 100% accurate. It seems like most scholars themselves aren't 100% clear on these things, though many of them basically get it, they just haven't recognized the implications of their understanding. (Also, it's hard to really make sense of these things without threefolding. If you don't recognize that there are cultural, political, and economic activities, as well as entities, then everything is kind of a muddle...)
If you want to understand it better, I've written about this on a number of occasions - both of my articles on Israel and also my articles on Ukraine, and also my article on American holidays, and probably others...)
With the semantic understanding that its countries that have governments, perhaps the question is, should each nation be its own country? Woodrow Wilson seemed to thing so. His fourteen points played right into the hands of the British who were the prime movers at the Treaty of Versailles. And their agenda was to "Balkanize", to divide and conquer. For the British its all about empire. Playing the ethnic card is a means of dividing and fomenting conflict. It's also a tool for breaking down national sovereignty. That is the world we live in.
In the final essay in my book I deal with the issue of, by your definitions, countries, and the need for sovereignty. We live in an age of empires. Steiner says the most efficient way to trade is through free trade, but that presupposes free dealings between countries. But we don't have such free dealings always because too many relationships between countries are between the strong and the weak. Between empires and their colonies. For the British free trade meant trading partners must do away with import quotas, tariffs and other means of restricting trade. This meant the British could exploit their advantage in manufacturing. They would undersell a country's fledgling industry in order to run it out of business. They wanted their colonies to provide the raw materials while the mother country profited from manufacture. Steiner understood this, and this is why he also said that sometimes tariffs are justified. (The big debate in the 19th C. was between free trade and protectionism.)
One of the difficult things about threefold is that sometimes it seems like Steiner is talking about the current situation, and other times he is talking in an ideal sense as if threefold were already established, meaning how things would run in a mature threefold society.
In order to keep from being exploited a country needs to maintain its sovereignty. Trade restrictions are needed to protect against those who would exploit, and such exploitation can lead to ruin. In Africa, led by Ibrahim Traoré, the yoke of western colonialism is being thrown off. It's a wonderful thing. How will western countries respond. Perhaps by trying to create civil unrest by creating ethnic tension between factions. But this the Africans need to resist by staying united. By staying united the colonialists can be defeated.
When Abraham and the ancient Hebrews were established it was a tribe bound by blood. But over time these tribal blood ties became anachronistic. People can keep their cultural heritages, but we must end all ethnic animosities. Doing away with a county's government won't solve the problem, but is more likely to break things apart into ethnic factions.
John, where can I find your book? Would the RS Library have it?
John, your knowledge of my history is not aligned with my knowledge of my history. For example, here is what I saw on the web looking for Koestler's theory:
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Historians and geneticists have largely rejected his theory as an explanation for the bulk of Jewish ancestry.
Historical records: The Khazar conversion is documented, but evidence suggests it was mostly an elite phenomenon, not mass adoption.
Genetics: Modern studies consistently show that Ashkenazi Jews cluster genetically with other Jewish groups and with Middle Eastern populations, not with Turkic peoples of Central Asia.
Influence: Despite weak evidence, the theory became popular in some political and antisemitic circles as a way to delegitimize Jewish connection to the Land of Israel.
-----------------------------
As for claiming that the Romans did not exile my ancesters from Judea - have you ever looked at the arch of Titus in rome? Have you ever visited the British museum in London? Did you read Josephus Flavius book about the wars of the jews? Did you ever visit my country and saw the vast number of archaeological findings? I do believe that all these show otherwise.
Ouri. Good to hear from you. I was wondering how you were doing since our zoom meeting. After that meeting I was thinking about how you asked me questions even beyond the scope of the book, but that I did not take the opportunity to ask you about your perspective. Now you have offered one and I am glad to know it.
But more importantly you have survived these last couple of years. And you are the only one I know living in Israel. What's it been like for you? I would like to know what sorts of things you have been an eyewitness to. And what do you think of Trump's efforts to bring peace?
Meanwhile I will look into some of the things you mention. Titus and Flavius and so forth. Thanks for those references.
Hi John. Thank you for your kind words. I don’t recall us meeting before, but I know you met with Omri Elad from Israel. Could it be that you are referring to him?
I don’t have much to say about the situation in Israel regarding the war, as I was not an eyewitness to anything significant. The conflict is contained within the Gaza Strip, and I am over the age for military reserve service, so I was not directly involved in this round. Our personal experience was mostly limited to spending some time in shelters and observing the frequent demonstrations in Israel.
Regarding Trump’s efforts, I see them as somewhat like a broken clock that shows the right time once a day. That said, we are all grateful for his role in bringing back the last hostages. In Israel, opinions about Netanyahu and Trump vary widely: the right wing sees Netanyahu as a savior, giving credit to Trump for supporting him, while the left wing (myself included) sees Netanyahu as the destroyer of Israel, and is thankful that Trump stopped him, even if only temporarily.
One thing that stands out to me is the gap between what politicians publicly say and what they do behind the scenes. Because of this, I don’t have any opinion about Trump’s involvement. I tend to favor resolving conflicts from within rather than relying on a strong figure to enforce solutions, but if his approach works in the current situation, I support it as well. I don’t think much has changed in the region except for the return of the hostages, which for now is everything for us. Hamas still controls Gaza, so terror from their side will continue. The right wing still controls Israel, so violence from our side will also continue. And there does not seem to be any real long-term vision anywhere for how the people of Gaza and Israel could peacefully live next to each other.
Yes, I was thinking you were Omri. You know him, then. Do you know how he is? Please give him my regards.
Reading your assessment of the situation is very helpful. So good to get a balanced view from someone in Israel.
One thing I heard was that there are two factions of Hamas, and that the more militant of the two is controlled by the British. Or in league with and supported by the British. And that when Netanyahu fired missiles at Qatar it was to take out the leadership of the more militant faction. This may or may not have helped facilitate the deal that involved the release of the hostages even though the missile strike happened after the deal had already been announced. Have you heard anything like that?
Are you able to access US internet sources? You must at least to some degree since you're on this platform. But do they censor You Tube, for instance? And do they monitor your social media? In many places around the world people are getting arrested for their posts. Censorship is less of a problem here with Trump in office. We also have Elon Musk to thank. The corporate media still has a left wing bias only overcome by people switching to the internet to get their news.
Thanks, Seth, and John too! I wish the rest of the world knew the history of this conflict. Before there are no Palestinians left . . .
I like the concept and in a world that held more sanity, it would work. I’m just not sure how we get to a place like that. There would be lots of kinks to work out. For instance, how do you fashion laws for a society that embraces differing cultural beliefs? If one culture favors a male dominate marriage in which the wife has no voice, and domestic abuse (in order to maintain cultural norms) is widely accepted, but surrounding cultures find the practice to be dangerous and worry that their own daughters may eventually fall in love with one from this male dominated culture, how do you protect citizens without favoring one culture over the other in governing decisions? If in one culture a crime is punishable by death or the loss of a limb, but another culture finds it abhorrent, how is a decision for recourse made?
These are great questions. Thanks for them, they help draw out an important distinction — laws that infringe on culture, and laws concerning violence (about which we all have different views because of our culture).
You ask: “How do we fashion laws for a society that embraces differing cultural beliefs?” First, just to be clear, we already do this. This isn’t so clear from my article because I emphasize culture in terms of distinct ethnic groups, but of course we all have a culture — we all have different beliefs and worldviews, they just don’t always fit into one single box. And then, of course, we all have to live together in society and make laws that everyone can abide by, regardless of all our different cultural beliefs.
That said, what I’ve focused on in this article and the ones preceding it, are specifically laws that infringe on culture. If you look into history we’ve already made a huge amount of progress overturning such laws and protecting culture, especially with the separation of church and state and free speech. More and more we recognize that people should be free to develop and express themselves how they see fit. But there’s still a long ways to go — we’re still violating people’s cultural development and expression, and it creates a huge amount of social strife.
Just in America, we still favor certain traditions (by making them official holidays) and certain languages (by making everyone speak them) and generally certain worldviews (by teaching them in public schools). We also take away people’s autonomy over their own bodies (abortion and vaccination laws). These things are major, MAJOR cultural issues that have the country hugely divided, and they also all have to do with people’s personal lives and choices — their culture. Yes, these choices still affect other people - it’s a pain if not everyone speaks English, and it might be hard to know when businesses would be open if we had different holidays, and if everyone learned different things in school then maybe we’d have less civic unity (there’s nothing like forced uniformity to unite people!), and if people are unvaccinated they could potentially endanger others, and when a woman gets an abortion she stops another person from entering the world, and if someone says hateful things they certainly hurt people’s feelings —but nonetheless, these are still primarily individual choices. You could argue that they’re not as private as religion, but people 200 years ago would disagree - religion for them was all about the morality of society and the salvation of souls, they felt they had to impose it on others. It was crucial for the well-being of society.
So there are fine arguments for why we should infringe on all these individual rights, but we should realize that people won’t be happy when we do, and they’re probably fight back.
But your main point is about something slightly different: the fact that, even though we have different cultural beliefs, we still have to make laws about what level of outer violence is acceptable. So right now we make laws that certain groups find incredibly offensive (allowing capital punishment, or solitary confinement which some view as torture) and then there are also laws about violence in the home (domestic abuse and corporal punishment). Different people will have different views of these things, and different religions and ethnic groups will have different views, but also different churches, mosques, and synagogues within the same religion will have different views. But these things have less to do with individual cultural freedom and more to do with outer violence and safety. And such things are right for everyone to have a voice in deciding. Not everyone should be able to decide what the social studies teacher teaches, but they should have a say in whether one person can attack another one and what the consequences are.
It’s true, if every ethnic group had its own state then we’d have very different laws around these things, and maybe domestic violence would be totally permitted in some countries. But how could you keep your daughter from falling in love with someone from that country and moving there anyways? I can’t think of a way of avoiding that scenario.
I like your optimism but I see some problems with your diagnosis and proposed remedy: How do you account for the 21% of the Israeli population being Arab Muslims? Did you know that Arab Muslims who are citizens in Israel even serve on the Israeli Supreme Court and have sentenced prominent Israelis to prison, and have more human rights than their counterparts in many other Arab nations?
Also, the schools in Palestine raise the children to hate Israelis of all ethnic backgrounds and to celebrate death and martyrdom; how do you reason with that? how do you make peace and/or at least contain the violence? You can watch recordings of kindergarten plays that glorify shooting Jews. https://youtu.be/1sDZlo_hllI?si=t_-gE4eUR-TA_nva Here is only one example, there are many more
I am not Jewish or Israeli or a zionist but I know that Israel is already a multiethnic and multi-religious state.
Your approach here, diagnosis of the situation and remedy seems a bit oversimplified.
This situation is very complex.
Of course, one cannot simply make assumptions about the nature and motivations of the nations and states involved in this, and other, conflicts without also considering the proxy nature of all of the wars mentioned above and the international corruption that fuels wars and terrorism and without taking into account of the major players who are behind Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah etc, in the case of the Middle East.
In the case of Ukraine which you mentioned in passing, we should also consider the interested parties involved behind the scenes in funding this war and sabotaging peace agreements. It is common knowledge now Putin and Zelensky had agreed to a Peace process, a diplomatic solution in April 2022, and it was undermined by the West. 18 months later, and 100,000 deaths later and we are no closer to a solution.
There is a lot more at stake in both of those examples than self-determination and nation-statehood, in my humble opinion.
FYI
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel
Hey Sharon - thanks for writing in. I wasn't trying to say that the separation of nation and state would magically erase the hate in people's hearts and atone for the violence done on both sides. Not at all. I assume there will need to be significant Peace and Reconciliation processes and all sorts of other things.
My main point is simply that as long as Arab Muslims are second class citizens (or third or fourth class, depending on where they live), then there will always be the conditions for violence to erupt. But I'm not sure if you disagree with that basic point?
If you think they're not second class citizens, then I would refer you to my other article about the Nation State Law (thewholesocial.substack.com/p/nation-state-law). The simple fact is that you can't have a Jewish state and a democratic state. A Jewish state, by definition, means that it favors one people, one group and identity, over all others (and therefore has to suppress the growth of other groups so they never become the majority). Do you see this differently? Do you think the nation-state doesn't lead to those consequences? And if you agree that it does, do you think other groups won't be resentful and potentially violent?
I'm definitely not saying that all acts of violence can be attributed to this, but only that violence is inevitable until it is addressed.
And I don't think it matters if they have more human rights than their counterparts in other Arab nations. I don't think that will placate them, if they even know about it at all.
Thanks for your thoughts on this challenging topic! All the best.
Actually, the Ukrainian death toll is now at half a million.
I agree with your framework that the nation state is a problem. It's an idea from centuries ago that has worked well enough until now. That said, some of these inter ethnic disputes are more complex than power struggles. For example, Israel isn't just fighting Palestinians for power over some land, but rather they are also fighting Hamas which is an idea, one which believes in the world-wide domination of Islam.
The Gaza slaughter and ethnic cleansing is not going to stop until Israel is de-Nazified. That means that Zionists should be chased out of Israel, these Zionists should return to their Nations of origin, a new secular non religious non ethnically state should be installed with a constitution mirroring the US. The country should be renamed to Palestine, a 2state solution is not available option. And let's not overlook the support and influence of the Anglo_US empire, using Israel as spearhed in the (oilr-ich) middle-east.
Dear Ouri, since you got this far in the conversation, it's maybe also an opportunity for me to ask:
1. Steiner talked directly, and almost exclusively, about the macro level of society when talking about Threefolding. (I know few places where he addresses communities and non where he directly addresses organizations). Does something of this (the macro level) remain in your vision, or is it only effected in a bypass way?
2. In your vision as described in your last message, what would you say should be inspiring, or new, for me as an interested listener? What's new with regard to what you put forward as opposed to the way things are going on today?
Hi Omri, thank you for your questions.
Can you specify what exactly you see in the macro? It will be easier for me to relate to a specific perspective. I don’t see society as either macro or micro — I see it as one whole organism made up of 8 billion individuals. There are no dividing lines in the image I see. The concept I’m describing — in a healthy society, the individual acts out of their free talent to brotherly fulfill the needs of another, bound by egalitarian morality — applies everywhere and reflects both the individual and society as a whole, and everything in between. You can replace the word individual in that phrase with any part of society (state, nation, school, whatever), and it will still hold true.
I’m not pointing to anything new. As you often say yourself, threefolding is not an ideology. It’s not a recipe for a different structure. Threefolding describes the phenomenon of the social organism as it is. It’s more a question of consciousness — evolving to see and understand things as they are, which in turn increases the freedom of our social choices.
How would society be different if we became conscious of threefolding?
Instead of constantly arguing about who is right and who is wrong, we would learn to see truths from perspectives other than our own.
We would consciously direct our social actions toward fulfilling the needs of others, rather than our own.
We would legislate laws and create agreements that define the boundaries of morality, rather than enforcing our rights or beliefs.
Probably the most extreme example of an unhealed society is war. In an act of war, the offensive side (usually both sides) acts out of its desires and fears (its skills are not free) to enforce its own rights and satisfy its own needs, with disregard for morality. Awareness of my own fears and desires (understanding that these two are anti-social in nature), while embracing the needs of the other side and the boundaries of morality, awakens us to avoid wars and slowly relieves the pain that leads to them.
My claim is that most social interactions today, between any two individuals, have the characteristics of war, even when the interaction is calm and polite. People are in constant tension to maintain their rights when interacting with others. Learning to consciously fulfill the needs of others is the cure for this tension.
I’m not sure if this answers your questions, though. If you can, please elaborate further on them.
"Can you specify what exactly you see in the macro? It will be easier for me to relate to a specific perspective."
I see in the macro a key to address problems that stem from the macro level. The macro level means to me the political level that governs me, its another kind of climate if you like, just as with the climate I'm always under some kind of effect that comes from it, so too I am always under the effect of the governing forces. As civilians in the modern era, we all have access to the macro level, and so if I want to effect this "climate" I'll have to do so using the political aspect of my being, i.e my citizenship.
"in a healthy society, the individual acts out of their free talent to brotherly fulfill the needs of another, bound by egalitarian morality "
This sounds to me like a great ideal, but what would you say that somebody who asks "how to better our social problems?" could do with it? Except of course check himself and see if he is in accordance with it? which of course is great but then how is that different from inner work? Why do we need the term Threefolding?
In any instant, with whatever I do - I can check that I'm free, that I'm fulfilling somebody else's needs and that I do not deviate from egalitarian morality.
That to me is a good description of a spiritual state of being. And yes, if everybody would act this way or at least in this orientation the world, including the macro level, would change for the better. But I think Steiner indicated this in many different places but not when talking about Threefolding. With Threefolding I think he aimed at giving us another insight, this time into the social structure - an insight that is complementary to the one regarding inner work.
> what would you say that somebody who asks "how to better our social problems?" could do with it?
This phrase that I propose demonstrates threefolding through the actions of an individual, but more broadly, it points to the three spheres and their inner nature. It has three parts, each corresponding to a sphere and the principle that governs it. These principles are not something that we need to acquire. They are the inner nature of the three spheres. By becoming conscious of these laws of social nature, we can act in harmony with them. The more we do so, the more harmonized society becomes, and in this harmony, social problems dissolve.
> how is that different from inner work?
Only the first third of this sentence aligns with inner work: "the individual acts out of their free talent".
> Why do we need the term Threefolding?
Because the social entity has three folds. Each third of my sentence relates to one of them.
> In any instant, with whatever I do - I can check that I'm free, that I'm fulfilling somebody else's needs and that I do not deviate from egalitarian morality.
That is a good checklist, but not my point. My three points are:
1- The first point: The issue is not whether I am a free spirit, but whether I recognize the person before me as one. Every person brings into the social interaction a free gift from the spiritual world and our inner work (in a social interaction) is to recognize and accept these gifts. A politician that interferes with education is no exception. We need to learn to collaborate with him, not to correct him for being wrong.
2- The second point - "To brotherly fulfill the needs of another" is not mere technicality. Just like Steiner's point that a person's income should not be seen as payment for their labor, but rather as a means to support their participation in the social organism. The worker should work for the sake of working, not for the sake of payment. In general, in every exchange of values, I should give for the sake of giving (to fulfill the needs of another). This contrasts with the common mindset today, where people approach economic interactions primarily by asking, "What do I gain from this interaction?". This is not altruism but economic efficiency: in an economy where each side takes responsibility for the other’s needs, everyone’s needs—including mine—are better fulfilled.
3- The third step: "bound by egalitarian morality," is not about confirming my own moral behavior. I take it for granted that every human being considers themselves moral. By insisting that morality must be egalitarian, I am emphasizing that non-egalitarian agreements are not about morality, but about self-preservation. We tend to seek agreements that reinforce our own view of reality. For example, a social initiative might begin by ensuring that all members align with the founders' vision. It is as if they are saying: "Let’s agree that reality is as I see it; otherwise, we can't work together." Israel’s recent Nation-State Law offers another example—"Let’s agree that this state is for the Jews, and that the only official language is Hebrew." Or consider a village of anthroposophists that seeks to agree that only anthroposophists may live there. All these are forms of non-egalitarian bounds. They draw distinctions between people rather than treating them as equals. The call to bind social interactions by egalitarian morality is a call to avoid non-egalitarian agreements and bounds.
To sum up: in every social interaction, if we learn
1. to recognize the free gifts each individual brings,
2. to discern the true needs of each side (not just what they claim to want), and
3. to define egalitarian moral bounds rather than non-egalitarian self-preserving ones,
we will fulfill the ideal where: in a healthy society, the individual acts out of their free talent to brotherly fulfill the needs of another, bound by egalitarian morality.
> With Threefolding I think he aimed at giving us another insight, this time into the social structure
That is exactly what I claim he didn’t, though I agree it seems he did. There are several places where he emphasizes that threefolding is not about social structure. Most of his writing can indeed be read in these two completely different ways. As for the few places where he specifically talks about social structure (as in the referendum), I claim that these instances reflect short-sightedness on his part, which he partially corrected over the years.
I still call threefolding a structure, but an etheric structure—a structure of flows, as described above—not a physical structure dividing organizations. A deep understanding of this etheric structure reveals that what seem like two complementary views (structure and flow) are actually contradictory. The etheric structure of social flows—tightening the interrelation between nation and state—produces harmony. A physical structure—separating the nation from the state—produces disharmony and social disease.
To me this is still included in what I call inner work. In the sense that (and correct me if I'm wrong) you are still asking of people to be conscious of the natural principle of each sphere and act harmonically with it. This is how I use the term "inner work". Hence, to my understanding, you are still dependent on what people can or can't accomplish inwardly with what you suggest.
Why is this important? Because to me threefolding is exactly about adding something to people's inner work. For sure we are all dependent on people's inner work, and again Steiner talked about this endlessly, but with threefolding he added something... Threefolding isn't something that is dependent on my inner capacity, but on my political or civil will. It's a parallel impulse towards the same goal of bettering society. That's why I call it complementary to inner work.
It seems like we're in a time of trying to enforce equality for all... while losing sight of what it takes in character development, initiative, and effort to become a person/people capable of stewarding human rights. Humanity exists with vitality and death in constant striving with each other. Youth is not the same playing field as age, vitality is relative. Wisdom is earned thru striving.
Does it help to think of what it takes to earn one's nation-state? What metrics do we use in letting nations move towards their natural death?
I think of the respurces poured into life support for diseased bodies. Is it always good?
How do we resolve the fears we project into national structures?
All ethnicities should continue to exist without being eradicated, but through the lifeforce of what they represent and the degree to which they maintain their vitality. Vitality = universal human values. Its a emotional conversation but where would we be as a people if we tried to maintain every cultural norm over all time? Love the way Steiner points out that we as humans are in a process of development as our age is... we are still very prehistoric in our interactions but we must strive to uphold the value of human life and culture... but at what cost? ... there's violence implied in all sorts of dying but to what extent are we evaluating the level of violence compared to level of viability? We throw all resources at maintaining a modicum of life without vitality, often simply due to our unreconciled fears of death and dying. How do you esteem vitality without also giving death its due course?
At what point do we let a model die a death without hooking it up to the violence of "life support" at all costs?
Tx for forum to sort thru, think out, and identify the strains of thought
What do you actually mean when you suggest separating the nation from the state in Israel? Which of the two would be the sovereign of the land? Would it have a president or some other type of leader at its head? What would be the mother tongue of this leader?
Hey Ouri - great questions. The ideal of democracy is that that the state treats every citizen equally. If the state names an official church, than the followers of other faiths are considered second-class citizens - "less than." If the state names an official language, then the speakers of other languages are considered less than. If the state determines certain holidays, then the people who don't celebrate those days are considered less than. In all those instances, the state isn't treating all its citizens equally. If your faith, language and holidays are championed, you might not think it's a big deal. But if the tables were turned, and all of a sudden the majority changed - if all of a sudden it was a different faith, language, and holidays that were celebrated, the state was imbued with a different culture - you would probably see things differently. You would feel less than, and as if your identity was under threat by the majority, which it would be.
But it is not difficult to imagine a state that doesn't do these things, at least not for me. For instance, it's not hard to imagine a state that doesn't champion a specific religion - we have this America, there is a Separation between Church and State. It is not difficult to imagine a state that doesn't have any official holidays. It's a little trickier with language. Communication within the state should be such that everyone who is participating is able to participate equally. In the US (though I think this has changed under Trump), you would often get a piece of paper whenever you got some communication from the state that would say, in a bunch of different languages, that if you don't speak English please contact this number and we'll translate this notice for you. I'm sure there are other, more elegant ways of doing this too. However you do it, the principle is the same: it shouldn't matter what language you speak, you should be able to participate as an equal in relation to the state.
This is what one has to do if one wants an actual democratic state. In that case all nationalities, all ethnic groups are welcome. No one nation is sovereign over the land - instead the state itself is sovereign. The nationalities move about as they see fit. For example, there are large communities of Mexican-Americans where I am in California. They speak mostly Spanish. They are not sovereign over this land, they are just another cultural group that is living here right now. Next year they might migrate to another state, to Arizona or Oregon.
In a democratic state - a state with no cultural affiliation - you could still have a president or any other official. They could speak whatever language they speak. Why should an American citizen who speaks Spanish not be able to lead the United States? It's just a technical question. How do we translate things so everyone can participate equally?
If this doesn't happen, then there is a perpetual struggle for different ethnic groups to seize political power so that they can establish their own ethnicity as primary within the state. Then there is a subtle, or not-so-subtle, tension that is constantly present, there's the need to constantly suppress minorities, there is the constant fear of violence...
Or am I wrong? Maybe this is not the case and people are actually happy to be second-class citizens and there's nothing to fear! No one has yet argued that to me - in fact, no one has made any other systemic suggestions at all. All people say is that the ideal of democracy - the ideal of a state where everyone is equal, regardless of race, ethnicity, language, etc - is an impossibility. Wait, what am I saying!? No of course people don't say that either. Everyone wants to champion democracy... how could they not? But their idea of democracy is full of compromise, full of poison, it's not democracy at all. And real democracy - where the state has nothing to do with cultural identity at all - is called fool's gold, a hopeless utopia. And so we sit, with our muddled thinking, and wait for the inevitable violence to erupt.
"Islam is the third-largest religion in the United States (1.34%) after Christianity (67%) and Judaism (2.4%)" from Wikipedia -> Islam in the United States.
I just asked Google how many Muslims are in the US and saw this datum. What strikes me is not the answer about the Muslims, but the fact that 67% of the US are Christians and the second-largest faith is only 2.4%.
That is amazing.
I think you are missing the human nature factor from your answer. I asked you about Israel, where there is huge tension between 7 million Jews and 7 million Arabs. You answered about the US, which is a country where white Christian men established immense control of white supremacy, by completely cleansing the land of its inhabitants more than 200 years ago, and then keeping Black people as slaves officially for 100 more years and then unofficially for 100 years more. Even today, immigration rules are much tighter in the US compared to Europe, which explains why there are 1.3% Muslims in the US, compare to nearly 10% in Europe.
So what I am claiming, in a nutshell, is that your interpretation of threefolding does not support human nature.
Logically you are correct. It would be great to put aside fear of the different, pride in my identity, and the tendency toward violence, and live together overlooking the differences.
But the reason we don't do it is not that we did not listen to Steiner. It is because—that is human nature.
Interestingly, when I read Steiner, I hear a different kind of threefolding—one that instead of disregarding human nature, actually supports exactly that. By my interpretation, you cannot separate the spirit, the economy, and politics into three separate bodies, because they are not independent bodies, but rather the internal nature of a single social body.
By this interpretation, if you create a state that is free of a nation, it will still develop its own spiritual structure, which, following human nature, will also be self-determining and suspicious of strangers. If you create a nation that is free of a state, it will still develop its own political structure, which will also be self-identifying and suspicious of strangers, and then you will have two social entities fighting again for the same land.
You can see a live example in the small microcosm of the Jewish Israeli state, where the Haredi Jews have their own "state" within the state, in cities like Bnei Brak, and some neighborhoods in Jerusalem, where they have their own courts, their own social security organizations, their own economics—and there is constant tension between them and the rest of the country.
Nationless states are possible in some conditions, with specific culture and specific history (specific random roll of affairs). Even there, if you look at Canada or Switzerland, which are considered nationless, you see that there is a clear separation of regions according to their spoken language, and culture that follows language.
But you can't just impose this logical, theoretical concept on any social situation and claim that it will bring harmony. It won't. To bring harmony you need to settle the social tension, not disregard it.
Coming back to Israel, you cannot impose sovereignty of any culture on the land and expect to have harmony. If the man at the top of this sovereignty structure is a Jew, 7 million Arabs will not trust it (the sovereignty). If he is an Arab, 7 million Jews will not trust it.
The way I see threefolding, it puts the human being at the center—not a theoretical conceptual type of state. The first thing I understand from threefolding is that we must support the individual's free spirit to guide him. This also means supporting the self-sovereignty of the individual over himself. New social structures should then arise from economic connections between people. When I say economic, I don't refer only to interactions that include money, but to any type of interaction where one person fulfills the need of another person. For example, a mother hugging her child, while being a pure act of love (spirit), is also at the same time an economic act where the mother fulfills the child's need for safety and security.
Once people interact out of economic drive, first—this is the path to developing brotherhood (as nicely described in Steiner's book The Inner Aspect of the Social Question). Second—at that stage, politics appears, and we should learn to guide our politics toward defining the borders of morality, and restrain our politics from the temptation to use it to impose our spirit.
Find the harmony between spirit, economy, and politics in a single social body, rather than breaking the social body into separate bodies.
This leads me to the opposite conclusion from yours. Minorities should have as much self-determination as they desire, including their own land to fulfill it. A sovereignty that overlooks culture (as in a nationless state) may work in some regions where minorities have been beaten enough until they changed their culture, or where minorities equally share the land between them—but otherwise, the human being must go through a step of self-determination and self-control before it can become free. That includes full self-sovereignty.
Hey Ouri - thanks for the conversation. I'm not sure I understand a number of your points, so I'd love some clarity.
First, I'm not clear on what the concrete difference is between "finding harmony" between the three sectors of society or "breaking" them up. For myself, I understand them as being independent of one another, much in the same way that the organs are independent within the body. Yes, they work into each other, but they don't take over each other's functions.
When I describe a state that is not merged with a nation, I'm not describing it as being nation-less. Most states have countless nations within them. The United States contains something like 500 different Indian nations within it. I'm only describing how no single nation should be able to take control of the state and impose its identity on others. So the picture is one state, with its border, and many nations with many other borders, big and small, overlapping, moving. This is not some utopian vision. This is what is present today. We have a state and countless nations in this form, we just allow one of them to control the government.
You seem to agree when you say "you cannot impose sovereignty of any culture on the land and expect to have harmony. If the man at the top of this sovereignty structure is a Jew, 7 million Arabs will not trust it (the sovereignty). If he is an Arab, 7 million Jews will not trust it." That's my point exactly.
But from there, I think you would still give political sovereignty to different groups, I guess by splitting up the land? That's how I understand your last statement: "Minorities should have as much self-determination as they desire, including their own land to fulfill it." If that is the case, I refer you to the images at the top of the article which show how spread out the various national groups are within Israel. You could also look at the map of Austria-Hungary in this other article (https://thewholesocial.substack.com/p/to-end-all-wars), just to get a sense for how mixed countries really are. I have a map of New York City and you can see dozens of distinct cultural groups all living side by side grouped in their little neighborhoods. The reason I point this out is because if you give every minority it's own land, where they can have their own state that represents their cultural identity, then there will always be minorities on that land, and they will always be second-class citizens, and the conditions will always be present for violence.
It seems to me that you are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I've written by stating: "Logically you are correct. It would be great to put aside fear of the different, pride in my identity, and the tendency toward violence, and live together overlooking the differences."
I've never said we should put fear, pride, and violence aside and live together overlooking differences. Nor should we "disregard human nature," as you also claim I'm doing. Instead we should start with human nature. So let's start where you start: we are fearful of difference, proud of our own identity, and tend towards violence - true. This is a part of our nature, a significant part. Now if you take 2 such groups (or 10 or 20) and put them in a closed system, a state, where their culture is allowed to take over the state and impose itself on every other group, what do you think will happen? Remember, everyone is fearful, proud, and inclined towards violence...
And even if some groups don't want to impose their culture on others - they just want to live in peace - if they allow some other group to take control then their group's identity is in danger of being erased, obliterated. They won't be able to speak their language, practice their religion, etc. This idea - the nation-state - incentivizes violence, even by those who wish to be non-violent. The American president Woodrow Wilson was the main proponent of this idea at the turn of the last century and his secretary of state, Robert Lansing, called it “a principle loaded with dynamite.”
I'm not saying that separating nation and state will "settle the social tension" and everyone will be happy. It won't. Everyone will still have all their differences, they just won't be able to use the apparatus of the state to impose their identity on others. This will take away much of the fear and therefore also the reason for violence, but the differences will remain.
The only way I can imagine the nation-state not promoting violence between cultures, by its very nature, is 1) somehow all minorities disappear from society, that the society somehow becomes truly homogeneous, or 2) that minorities won't mind being second-class citizens with less rights than the majority culture. Do you disagree that one of these two requirements are needed for the nation-state to work?
I think we both agree on what we don’t want. I don’t dispute that a nation-state that imposes its culture on its minorities is a bad thing. On that, we are in full agreement—there’s no need to convince me.
My only reservation concerns the solution you propose. That’s why I asked what exactly you have in mind when you suggest separating the nation from the state. What would such a state look like? Would it be the sovereign authority over the land? Would anyone stand at its head? What culture would that person come from?
You call the three realms “sectors.” I think this is where our disagreement begins. Could you briefly describe what you mean? For example, would you say that a school belongs to the spiritual sector, a bank to the economic sector, and so on?
A state that is not merged with a nation looks exactly the same as every state today, except is has certain specific laws embedded within its constitution - that it can not establish, promote, or prohibit and cultural institution or activity, be that in the realm of religion, education, art, science, medicine, journalism, or any other activity where an individual is exploring or expressing their ideas or beliefs, as long as those ideas and beliefs are not immediately inciting violence against another. In creating such a law, or set of laws, the state would in effect make it impossible to meddle with all things cultural/national/ethnic. But the state would look exactly the same as it does today. For instance, the US already does much of this in the first amendment, it just doesn't yet understand the full implications of that text.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
This is pretty clear. People have to be able to believe and say whatever they want. So the state guarantees the freedom of speech... but then it establishes schools where it tells teachers what to teach, which is a blatant contradiction in terms. It should have no role in establishing schools in the same way that it should have no role in establishing churches. Once we figure this out, America's raging culture wars will cool down considerably.
Concerning your other questions: The state is, and would continue to be, the sovereign authority over the land. It would still have officials as it does today (president, chancellor, whatever), and they could be from any culture. Their culture wouldn't matter because the laws of the land would ensure that they can't impose it upon others, in which case it becomes a moot point.
I use the terms sector, realm, and sphere interchangeably. A school is primarily a cultural institution, though like every institution (and individual) it must obey the state's laws around concerning public safety. It also has an economic side in that it has a product/service that it is offering, and how that service integrates itself into society and how the teachers needs are met, are all concerns of the economic realm. In a healthy cooperative economy where businesses work together in associations in order to meet everyone's needs, schools would also need their own associations to interface with all the others. Does that make sense?
Of course, it makes sense. I've been studying threefolding for 21 years now, and indeed this is the common interpretation among people who study threefolding.
I see it differently.
When you talk about the First Amendment as an example of the political sector not intervening in the cultural sector, I see it instead as an example of a social entity (the people of the United States) embracing, through its legislative representatives, a cultural trait of freedom of religion.
While you see school as a primarily cultural institution that also happens to deal with politics and the economy, I see school as a social entity that has three realms. The nature of the social organism isn’t about quantity—it is about quality. Even though I admit that a teacher expresses himself more than a bus driver, the concept of the free spirit is still 100% true for the bus driver as well. Quantity has nothing to do with bringing the realms into harmony.
I have an analogy for that from the world of physics. There is a law of gravity expressed by the equation F = GmM/r². When you check the numbers, you find that gravity on Earth is six times stronger than gravity on the Moon. Should we dissect the heavenly bodies and say that Earth qualifies as a gravitational body and the Moon does not? Not at all. The same law of gravity holds 100% true for the Moon as well. The magnitude of the values doesn’t affect the truth of the nature of gravity.
It is this institutional labeling that I call breaking the social body into separate bodies—placing a school in one sector and the government in another, and expecting different rules to apply to them based on that division. A teacher is no more spiritual in nature than a bus driver. They are both 100% spiritual entities, regardless of any evaluation of the amount of spiritual work they do.
I might say that a school has a different role than a government. The product they provide to society is different—no doubt about it. But threefolding is not about the product of the institution. It is about the working nature of the institution. Every identified group of people (a nation, a school, a government, a religion, a family, and so on) is a social entity with three folds. Some call it functional threefolding, but I don’t like this name very much either. The division into three is only in the observer—it is the way we analyze the organism. The social body itself is a whole, a unity that cannot be separated into three parts. Every social action, like every social entity, has the three folds completely intertwined into one.
People have a natural tendency to impose their culture—their way of thinking—on their neighbors, out of survival instincts, when they don’t feel safe enough with their own culture. If you try to impose rules telling people “don’t impose your culture or way of thinking on others,” it is like telling an angry man, “stop being angry.” Not only does it not bring harmony, it usually makes the angry man even angrier.
If you want to soothe his anger—if you want to soothe the natural tendency of governments to impose their culture on minorities—you must focus on finding the root cause that makes them uneasy and work to soothe that. A healthy society is one where the individual acts out of his own free will, skill, and spirit to fulfill another’s needs (out of brotherhood), within the boundaries of morality. This, to me, is the fundamental principle of threefolding, which is true for any human being, regardless of his role in society.
For example, this also applies to the legislator. You will not bring harmony by pre-determining what laws the legislator should pass. Rather, you must trust the legislator to come up with the right law according to the actual reality of the place and time in which he acts. Sometimes this means legislating freedom of religion, but sometimes it might mean the opposite.
I do agree that we should strive for less coercion from the government—not because the “political body” should not interfere with the “cultural body” (I don’t believe such divisions into bodies exist), but because human beings should not use their power to coerce other human beings. This is because all human beings are spiritual entities who should act from the freedom of their own spirit. That includes freedom of religion, but also economic freedom, and also political freedom.
I think you're being too idealistic. The Jews don't want what you're suggesting. It'll never happen. I believe, and this is not Steiner, although I have read much of the dear Doctor, Zionism as an ethnic ideology is anti-human and has to be outlawed like naziism before it. Which of course was re-born in zionism. They're the same. They need to be against the law. Then, Palestine is given back to the Palestinians. Fix that wrong first. And then, the European Jews - from Russia Poland Romania - also the US and UK and even the AFricans there, need to apply to live in Palestine. And the priceless Palestinians can decide. And let them put Netanyahu and all the other monsters on trial. And the so called jews from Europe - who mostly are a fake ( absolutely decadent ) tribe, not an ancient religion, if they don't like it, then tear up their Israeli passport becasue it no longer exists and they go back to their land of origin. Which is obviously Ukraine. And let Putin figure it out.
Ann - I'm sorry for what you've written. It's incredibly painful to read. I'm even sorry that you describe Steiner as the "dear Doctor," you might think otherwise if you read his writings about antisemitism (https://shorturl.at/hU4qB). The content of your comment is painful, yes, but especially the tone of it. It has so much anger in it. I'm not Jewish, but I love my Jewish brothers and sisters, as I love my Christian and Muslim brothers and sisters. Your feeling that we need to outlaw certain ideas is exactly the opposite of what I'm talking about. Ideas, beliefs, religions, viewpoints should never be touched by the state. You might not agree now, you might want the state to step in and decide whose ideas are right and whose are wrong, but if the state outlaws your ideas, I imagine you'd think differently.
by the way Seth. Are you Jewish ?
I'll just delete my unpaid subscription - I can see you and I are not on the same page. No more comments from me.
Hey Ann - you're of course welcome to stay or go. I don't mean to be harsh, but I won't stand by if someone is attacking a group of people, which is what your comment appears to me to be doing. It's fine to critique any ideology such as Zionism (I'm critical of it myself, as I am of all efforts at self-determination) and of course the roots of one or culture or another can and should be discussed by those anyone who cares to, but the tone of your comment seems to neglect the basic decency of the people you're talking about. It seems to diminish them, to kick or spit on them. Perhaps I'm understanding your comment incorrectly. If I am, please correct me.
And I don't mean to conflate the other issue - the issue of outlawing speech - with this first issue. You're not the first to want to outlaw speech that you find offensive, almost everyone wants to do this, which is why my perspective isn't very popular. I would of course defend even the Nazis and holocaust deniers the right to share their view, as long as they're not immediately inciting violence. We need to hear what our fellow brothers and sisters think, and if their perspectives are sick (which Nazism clearly is) then we need to oppose those views with our own views. We cannot erase these people or their views. We have to show them that our views have real vitality, real health and truth to them, and then, hopefully, win them over.