Mar 4, 2022·edited Mar 4, 2022Liked by Seth Jordan
Well distinguished: separation of nation(culture) and state (government). This is a hard one. In conversations about freeing the educational system for state-mandated standardized testing, for example, people argue that the state must have some form of accountability - however imperfect - for the sake of "equality and equity". Taking a kind of "tragedy of the commons" stance, they assert that without the state, individuals would be too ignorant or greedy to work for the common good. Didn't the economist Elinor Ostrom show that when local people manage their own fisheries they take greater care and interest than if the fisheries are managed for them from a distance? That brings us to Steiner's other idea of "moral individual action" (is that the right term?) which supports Ostrom's values. "No social justice without mindfulness. No mindfulness without social justice" is how they put it at a Mind and Life conference about social justice in education. It's a big leap that you describe and we must make it in ourselves so we can stick together better.
One of our fundamental problems is the overpowering of big money / corporations over the state. Our US constitution which originally is one of the best, (Switzerland has more successfully adopted it) has over the years been perverted by big money, and corrupted government and its institutions, as well as the cultural sphere (the main media in the hands of a few corporations). Fundamental changes in our capitalist economy have to happen: 1. Restoring the commons which are land, water, air and minerals which are not a commodity. 2. Eliminate the stock market, businesses are not a commodity. 3. Labor is not a commodity, instead of wages the result of production should be shared by all workers and management. As long as we do not tackle these fundamental issues changes towards 3 foldness will be nearly impossible, money is just to powerfull. So also the war in Ukraine should be seen not just as a ethnical problem, but as a proxi war since a very longtime instigated by the anglo-american empire against russia.
"ensuring complete sovereignty of the individual in their own national and cultural self-determination". Yes! This is my conclusion as well.
Note that it is not the bodies that Steiner asks to separate, but rather... I don't have a correct word for it - power? force? Impulse?
Imagine bisecting the human body into three bodies, one including all the blood vessels and lungs, one including the brain and all the nerve system, and one including all the digestion organs. Will that make a healthier body? Or a dead body?
It is not the government that needs to be separated. A government is a body, an organ. It is the political activity that needs to be separated.
Political activity is not something done only in governments. It is everywhere, passing through every cell of the social body - every individual.
As such, the separation must start, not out there in the outside world (governments, churches, schools and such), but within us. Exactly as you called for sovereignty of the individual over his self-determination, it is us, the individuals, that should learn to separate between our cultural impulses, economic impulses and governmental impulse, or, as I prefer to call it, our moral impulses, which guide us how to interact with other individuals without hurting them.
Just yesterday I posted a talk that ends by alluding to the insights of Steiner and threefolding in relation to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. See below. But one thing I emphasize is the need also for the development of a shared identity within a nation, because while the state should not overtly favor one culture over another, it is inevitable that laws will align with certain value structures, and the perspectives of groups will not always align with the perspective of the state/laws. So I think we need both - separation, a la threefolding, and movement toward ever more inclusive and integrated identities as humans, as entailed in the evolution of consciousness.
Nice timing to find this, so much in alignment with my own work!
Well distinguished: separation of nation(culture) and state (government). This is a hard one. In conversations about freeing the educational system for state-mandated standardized testing, for example, people argue that the state must have some form of accountability - however imperfect - for the sake of "equality and equity". Taking a kind of "tragedy of the commons" stance, they assert that without the state, individuals would be too ignorant or greedy to work for the common good. Didn't the economist Elinor Ostrom show that when local people manage their own fisheries they take greater care and interest than if the fisheries are managed for them from a distance? That brings us to Steiner's other idea of "moral individual action" (is that the right term?) which supports Ostrom's values. "No social justice without mindfulness. No mindfulness without social justice" is how they put it at a Mind and Life conference about social justice in education. It's a big leap that you describe and we must make it in ourselves so we can stick together better.
One of our fundamental problems is the overpowering of big money / corporations over the state. Our US constitution which originally is one of the best, (Switzerland has more successfully adopted it) has over the years been perverted by big money, and corrupted government and its institutions, as well as the cultural sphere (the main media in the hands of a few corporations). Fundamental changes in our capitalist economy have to happen: 1. Restoring the commons which are land, water, air and minerals which are not a commodity. 2. Eliminate the stock market, businesses are not a commodity. 3. Labor is not a commodity, instead of wages the result of production should be shared by all workers and management. As long as we do not tackle these fundamental issues changes towards 3 foldness will be nearly impossible, money is just to powerfull. So also the war in Ukraine should be seen not just as a ethnical problem, but as a proxi war since a very longtime instigated by the anglo-american empire against russia.
"ensuring complete sovereignty of the individual in their own national and cultural self-determination". Yes! This is my conclusion as well.
Note that it is not the bodies that Steiner asks to separate, but rather... I don't have a correct word for it - power? force? Impulse?
Imagine bisecting the human body into three bodies, one including all the blood vessels and lungs, one including the brain and all the nerve system, and one including all the digestion organs. Will that make a healthier body? Or a dead body?
It is not the government that needs to be separated. A government is a body, an organ. It is the political activity that needs to be separated.
Political activity is not something done only in governments. It is everywhere, passing through every cell of the social body - every individual.
As such, the separation must start, not out there in the outside world (governments, churches, schools and such), but within us. Exactly as you called for sovereignty of the individual over his self-determination, it is us, the individuals, that should learn to separate between our cultural impulses, economic impulses and governmental impulse, or, as I prefer to call it, our moral impulses, which guide us how to interact with other individuals without hurting them.
Just yesterday I posted a talk that ends by alluding to the insights of Steiner and threefolding in relation to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. See below. But one thing I emphasize is the need also for the development of a shared identity within a nation, because while the state should not overtly favor one culture over another, it is inevitable that laws will align with certain value structures, and the perspectives of groups will not always align with the perspective of the state/laws. So I think we need both - separation, a la threefolding, and movement toward ever more inclusive and integrated identities as humans, as entailed in the evolution of consciousness.
Nice timing to find this, so much in alignment with my own work!
https://youtu.be/e8Ocd-7_nKI