The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. The Times and Its Social Shortcomings: Asia-Europe

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! When we speak today of the social ills and hardships of our time, there is hardly anyone who, based on their own particular circumstances, does not have something truly significant to say on the matter. However, my task today is not to draw up a list of everything that could be achieved by surveying the individual hardships of our time, but rather to point out some of the roots from which springs what is being raised—with great justification—from a wide variety of quarters and has plunged a large part of humanity into an extraordinarily pessimistic mood and a sense of hopelessness.

[ 2 ] Perhaps one of the most powerful statements about this hopelessness comes from a man from whom one might least expect it, and who, moreover, lived in an era when such a statement must have been extraordinarily striking. The eminent art historian Herman Grimm, who did not live to see the most brutal of all wars—having died at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century—made this remarkable statement in one of his final writings: If one surveys what one encounters today in the lives of nations—if one looks, I might say, with the eyes of the soul at the way the various nations of the civilized world relate to one another, how they are at odds with one another, and how the seeds of further conflict lie within them—then one might actually want to set a date for a general suicide, for it is impossible to foresee where all these things—which plunge people and nations into conflict, strife, and struggle—are headed, if not toward the absolute downfall of civilization. I say: This statement is particularly striking coming from Herman Grimm, precisely because he actually held a joyful worldview, because throughout his entire life he focused his gaze on everything that can uplift humanity—on what truly lives within humanity as creative and productive. And it is further striking that he did not make this statement under the gloomy impressions one might have experienced in the years leading up to the outbreak of the World War or during it, but rather that he made this statement still entirely in the spirit of the 19th century, at the end of that century. One might say: Everything that has happened since then seems entirely unsuitable, when someone makes such a statement, for detracting in any way from what he actually feels when making such a statement.

[ 3 ] Nevertheless, it can never be humanity’s task to remain stuck in mere hopelessness; rather, its task must be to look for what can lead to renewal, to rebuilding, to a new dawn. But then it is necessary to search specifically for the deeper roots of what has gradually brought us into such an extraordinarily difficult situation within European civilization. And even if one believes that the reasons can only be economic, one will likely have to look for the main cause of the economic decline in the spiritual life of modern civilization as well.

[ 4 ] I have already pointed out on several occasions in the lectures of the past few days how historical forces come into play in our present state of mind—and also in all that we are currently able to assimilate in terms of spiritual powers—foresight into which requires us to go far back into the historical development of humanity. And yesterday, in particular, I drew attention to how, from a historical perspective, there stands—as it were—at the threshold of contemporary Western spiritual life a figure who, one might say, still looks toward Asia with one eye, while with the other he has already turned his gaze toward the prospects of Europe. I am referring to Plato.

[ 5 ] When we allow Plato’s social views to sink in, they strike us in many respects as extraordinarily alien to our modern consciousness. We see how Plato views the ideal of a social organism as the creation of a certain community, even at the expense of the development of human individualities that have once found their way into earthly life. Plato considers it entirely possible that children who appear unfit for life should simply be abandoned, so that they do not find a place in human society and thus disrupt the social organism. Plato also considers it possible to regard as his ideal a social organism in which, in fact, only a certain caste of people holds a position of full rights. Apart from the fact that slavery seems to him to be a matter of course, he also wishes to grant only a temporary position within his social organism to those who facilitate trade and commerce. Thus, he does not fully integrate into this social organism all those who are not rooted in it by virtue of having been—in his view—rightfully born into the fabric of the social organism. And there is much more that could be said when the question arises: How does Plato’s ideal relate to individual human personality? From the perspective of modern consciousness, one would have to say: In truth, there is still little understanding of this human individuality. The focus is still entirely on the social community, which is, so to speak, regarded as primary. And the human being who is to live within it is regarded only as secondary. His life can be recognized as legitimate only to the extent that he can conform to the social ideal established outside his own being.

[ 6 ] If we wish to trace the roots of what actually led Plato to such a concept of community, we must once again look to Asia, to Eastern culture. And then it may become clear to us, in an intellectual sense, how—fundamentally, and historically as well—the spiritual life of Europe developed like a small peninsula belonging to a large continent.

[ 7 ] But when we look at Asia from a social perspective, we find that in Asia the idea of community is everywhere the first and foremost concern, and that Plato simply adopted this idea of community from the Orient. To all that has already been said here about the characteristics of this concept of community from a wide variety of perspectives, one more point must be added if the entire world situation is to be examined from a social perspective.

[ 8 ] When we consider the fundamental character of Eastern spiritual life, we must say: In fact, it extended across a humanity that was of a completely different nature than the European humanity of later civilization. In many respects, we can even say that, with regard to certain aspects of the soul and spirit, a high culture prevailed in Asia—one to which even many Europeans now long to return. I have already referred to the saying that is so often cited: that light comes from the East. But this other human existence lacked, above all, precisely what is most characteristic of the European population since it began working on a civilization within Earth’s evolution. What we see over in Asia is a subdued sense of self, a sense of personality that still lies entirely in the depths of the soul. A sense of personality such as that possessed by Europeans is not yet encountered in Asia in the same way. If, on the other hand, a person who does not yet possess this sense of personality is, so to speak, imbued with Asian high culture—and this culture is suited to being incorporated into human commonality—then he participates in it in a certain dreamlike way, without a sense of personality.

[ 9 ] It must be said that, at a time when human individuality had not yet reached its full development, human communities were more receptive to—and better suited for—a high culture than the individual. Within social life, human abilities did not merely add up; in a certain sense, they multiplied in order to embrace this high culture. However, what was regarded as a particular ideal within Eastern civilization took shape as it spread more and more into Europe and found a simple expression in the European mind in the Apollonian maxim: “Know thyself!”

[ 10 ] In a certain sense, one can view all of ancient Asia as if its development were moving toward the point where, in Greece, the ultimate meaning of the selfless cultural development of the East was expressed in the maxim: “Know thyself”—a maxim that has since lived on as a spiritual and cultural motto for all of humanity, serving as a guiding force. But we also see in the Orient how, precisely for the sake of a higher human education, it is regarded as desirable, in a certain sense, to find one’s own “I.” From an intellectual standpoint, I have already hinted at this by characterizing the culture of yoga. From a social standpoint, this becomes evident when we point out what was common practice in the Orient with regard to the social leadership of the masses. We find everywhere that the one who was a teacher, a leader, was, in a spiritual sense, at the same time a priest, but also at the same time a healer. In the East, we find a close connection between everything that humanity strives for as knowledge and as a higher spiritual life, and the practice of healing. In the ancient Eastern culture, the physician cannot be separated from the teacher, the priest of humanity.

[ 11 ] This, however, is related in a certain way to the fact that Eastern culture was deeply dominated by the sense of universal human guilt as such, which introduces something pathological into the entire course of human development, so that the process of knowledge itself—and indeed the very pursuit of a higher spirituality—was viewed as something intended, in a sense, to heal the merely natural human being. Education toward a higher spiritual development was, at the same time, a form of healing, because the natural—that is, as yet uneducated—human being was viewed as a being who actually needed to be healed. The ancient Eastern mystery culture is connected to this.

[ 12 ] Eastern mystery culture sought, within institutions that—I would say—were at once churches, schools, and sources of social impulses, the development of the individual toward a higher spiritual life. It sought this in such a way that—as I have already indicated in previous lectures—religion, art, and science were all contained within one: By performing his ritual acts, a person was a religious being; what mattered less was what lived in the soul as beliefs or even dogmas, but rather that the socially ordered cult was participated in by the individual, so that the connection between the human being and the divine was sought primarily in the act of sacrifice, in the cultic ritual. But the ritual act—and that upon which it was based—also encompassed the artistic. And in the experience of this artistic and religious dimension lay the ancient form of knowledge.

[ 13 ] But the person who was to be led to this internally unified trinity of religion, art, and science had to do more than simply absorb something that was, in a sense, a straightforward progression in his development; he had to undergo a complete transformation as a human being—a kind of rebirth— The experiences that such a student of the higher spiritual life had to undergo are described in such a way that he indeed passed through something with his consciousness akin to a kind of death—that is, he experienced something that made him alien to life in the ordinary world, just as death makes a person alien to that life. Then, once he had, so to speak, left behind in his inner experience everything that belongs to earthly life, he was to experience the spiritual world—after passing through death—in a complete rebirth as a human being. This is the ancient religious, ritual form of catharsis—the purification and refinement of the human being. A new human being was to be born within the old. Whatever a person may experience in the world that stirs up passions and emotions within them, that gives rise to drives and desires, and that it elevates him to ideas belonging to this world—all of this was to be experienced within these mystery cults in such a way that it was simultaneously overcome, and that he emerged from them purified and refined by these experiences. Only then was this reborn human being trusted to exert any social influence on his fellow human beings. And rightly so, even the external scholarship of our time has already pointed out that the surviving remnants of this culture had an immense significance for social life, that the impulses which arose in those who underwent such a catharsis within the highly secret sites exerted the greatest conceivable influence on external social life. As I said, this is not merely a claim made by spiritual science; it is something to which mainstream scholarship has also come to conclude today. You need only read Wilamowitz. One finds that, in fact, Oriental culture sought a kind of healing for the human being through knowledge and in every endeavor toward spiritual education.

[ 14 ] What existed in the East made its way to Greece—and thus to Europe—in a different form, and it continued to exert an influence in Europe to the same extent that Greek culture as a whole continued to shape the intellectual and civilizational life of Europe in later times. I would like to point out something that is not usually noted: that in considering Greek tragedy—from which an infinite amount of artistic inspiration has flowed into the intellectual life of the West—Aristotle provided a characterization that is usually taken far too superficially. The well-known statement is repeatedly cited in which Aristotle says that tragedy is intended to arouse fear and pity, so that through the arousal of these and other passions, a purification, a catharsis, from these passions may take place. Aristotle is thus pointing to something artistic—to what is to be achieved through tragedy. If one approaches the interpretation of Aristotle’s statement not with a superficial philological analysis but with the insight gained from contemplating Eastern spiritual life—that is, if one is equipped with an understanding of the more distant roots—one may come to realize that what Aristotle means by pity and fear to experience something more comprehensive than what is understood by those terms today. One comes to realize that he actually meant that the human being—the spectator—is led by tragedy to enter, with his inner life, into what another human being experiences in terms of suffering, pain, and also joy; that, in a sense, the spectator steps out with his inner life from the narrower confines in which he naturally finds himself, and that through the observation of another’s suffering—because the person is living outside their physical existence, even if only comparatively—the spectator is simultaneously overcome by the fear that always arises when a person faces something that, in a sense, throws them off balance, something that plunges them into a kind of powerlessness, into breathlessness. One can therefore say: Aristotle actually means that, when watching a tragedy, a person enters a world of sensation that leads them out of themselves, that they are thereby filled with fear, and that a purification—a catharsis—takes place, so that they learn to endure what they, as a naturally given individual, cannot endure; that through this purification they are strengthened to share in the suffering the suffering and joy of others, and that they are no longer overcome by fear when they are called upon to step outside themselves in this way and enter into social life. In attributing such a purpose to tragedy, Aristotle makes it quite clear that he is actually pointing out how tragedy simultaneously serves as a kind of education for human beings, strengthening their self-esteem and inner peace of mind.

[ 15 ] I am well aware that, for many people today, placing art in this way within social life gives the impression that one is trying to diminish the value of art or to ascribe some secondary purpose to it. Yet these objections are often raised precisely out of a certain philistinism, because people believe that if art were to be integrated into the totality of human life—into everything the human soul is capable of experiencing—then this would amount to reducing art to a mere utilitarian function. For the Greeks, it was not such a subsumption under a life of mere utility, but rather a subsumption under the entirety of human life—the life that carries human beings beyond themselves, rather than merely bringing them down to a life of mere utility.

[ 16 ] If one looks beyond what is unique to our time—mere utility—one will be able to grasp the significance of the Greek view of art, namely that the Greeks saw in the artistic nature of tragedy something that brought people back to themselves, something that led people out of their dreams in the world, out of their half-consciousness of the world, and lead them, more and more, to a full awareness of themselves. And one might say: In social terms, tragedy was certainly meant to contribute to the great imperative: Man, know thyself!

[ 17 ] But if we turn from this expansion of the artistic into the social sphere to a consideration of the individual’s place in social life, and if, from this perspective, we look back once more toward the East, then we find in the mystery traditions that what was actually sought in the healing and rebirth of the human being into a higher human being signifies a strengthening of the sense of self. Out of the awareness that the general spiritual mood at that time did not live in a sense of the “I,” that such a sense of the “I” first had to be acquired, the mystery traditions strove for the rebirth of the human being into the “I.” Thus, for this ancient social civilization, the experience of the “I” was actually something that first had to be acquired. One of the social tasks was seen as bringing individual human beings to the birth of this sense of self, so that they could then become the leaders of their fellow human beings in social relations. Only by understanding this can one also grasp how, even in Plato’s ideal state, a strong sense of community prevails, and how, in his view, only those who fully develop his individuality is the one who does so through rebirth—which was to be attained through the wisdom available at that time—which shows that humanity at that time was not yet aware that individuality must be taken into account in the fullest sense.

[ 18 ] What grew out of such a social life in Asia was then transplanted to Europe, amalgamated with Christianity, entered the Middle Ages, and even persisted there for a very long time. But it persisted in a form that arose from the fact that the people—who, in vast masses, were flowing in from the north and from Central Europe into this culture, which was now southern but still inherited from Asia—already possessed, by nature, a strong sense of self. For these peoples, the great historical task turned out to be to bring what the people of the East still possessed—even with a subdued sense of self—into full self-awareness, into a full sense of self. The brilliant culture of the Greeks still regarded “Know thyself!” as a human ideal of knowledge and social life. The peoples who entered the Middle Ages from the north brought this sense of self with them as the very foundation of their humanity. It was naturally inherent in them. Even though they lived in communities, they nevertheless strove everywhere to incorporate into their sense of self whatever they absorbed in terms of knowledge and social relations. With this, however, the contrast between communal life and individual life truly began to assert itself within the course of history. This contrast emerged only in the course of history—and, I would say, through the influence of human institutions.

[ 19 ] As the sense of self entered human development in this way, it had to connect with something else with which it has a thoroughly organic connection. If we look back once more at what the Oriental-Greek culture also embodied in Plato’s sense, we will have to perceive very clearly, from our present-day perspective, how this entire culture and civilization is actually built upon slavery—upon the lack of freedom of vast masses of people. Much has been said from a wide variety of perspectives about the significance of slavery in earlier times, and if one wishes to give this due consideration, one will naturally find much of great significance in it; but what is of particular relevance to our lives today is precisely what I mentioned has actually received little attention. For communal life, and also for the social life that emerged from the Mysteries—for which the Greeks still regarded their art as a driving force for development—the full significance of human labor within the social order had not yet been discovered at all. Therefore, one had to, so to speak, set this human labor aside when speaking of the ideal image of humanity.

[ 20 ] When one characterizes the Oriental-Greek individual—how he carries his dignity within himself, how he works his way up through his dignity—one is characterizing something that actually rose above the masses of people who were now performing the labor. This mass lived as a mere appendage to the social organism, which developed within a form of humanity that had not incorporated labor into its very essence, because it regarded labor—and the human being who performed it—as something given by nature. Humanity, so to speak, began where the work had already been done. On a higher level, in a higher spiritual sense, human beings experienced what is expressed in the animal realm: In the animal realm, what constitutes nourishment and what otherwise belongs to the social order is a given of nature; the animal does not calculate; it performs its actions from within its very being, but some form of orientation for the work is not necessary for the animal. If there are apparent exceptions, one must view them precisely in such a way that they actually confirm the general rule. Thus we can say: As Eastern culture spread to Europe and became increasingly immersed in the demands of selfhood and individuality, it simultaneously became immersed in the necessity of incorporating human labor into the social order. Once human individuality has fully awakened, it is simply impossible to exclude labor from the social order.

[ 21 ] But this became the great social problem—one that had not yet really existed in Greek civilization—over which countless struggles were waged in Rome. For people instinctively sensed that it is only through the integration of work into the social order that human beings can fully realize their individuality. As a result, the entire social structure of humanity has taken on a different character. It presents a different face in civilized Europe compared to civilized Asia. Only when we look at the development of individuality in Europe will we begin to understand what has, in turn, been so rightly emphasized time and again when attempting to characterize the true source of the social hardships of our time.

[ 22 ] It is rightly pointed out that the specific culture of social order in our time actually began only with the emergence of modern technology and the division of labor. It is also pointed out, for example, that something like modern capitalism is nothing other than a result of the division of labor. What the body of knowledge of modern Western civilization reveals in this regard—regarding the nature of the division of labor and its consequences for the social hardships of our time—is extraordinarily significant. But the impartial observer, when such a claim is made—and rightly so—must nevertheless look, let us say, to ancient Egypt and ancient Babylonia, and point out that, for example, in ancient Babylonia, as well as in ancient Egypt, cities of immense size existed, and that what was accomplished there was achieved precisely through the division of labor. Just as I was able to point out yesterday that a kind of socialism already existed in China in the 11th century, but that what we see there as its external form is not what matters, so I must now point out once again that the division of labor—which in more recent times has rightly been regarded as the fundamental problem underlying social hardships—was also present in earlier epochs of human development, and that it was precisely under its influence that the Eastern social orders became possible, which then sent their repercussions across to Europe. In Europe, this division of labor, after being less prevalent at first, became more pronounced later on. I would like to say that the division of labor itself is a repetition of something that also existed in earlier times; but within Eastern cultures it existed under the sign of a sense of self that had not yet awakened, whereas the modern division of labor, brought about by technology, affects a humanity that now wishes to fully develop its sense of self, so that, once again, the same phenomenon means something entirely different in different eras.

[ 23 ] Therefore, for the Eastern social order, the primary, the first goal was to allow the individual to grow out of social bonds, out of communal life; if the individual wished to ascend to a higher spiritual life, he had to find his sense of self. The European of later times possessed this sense of self, and he now had to integrate this sense of self into the social order. He had to take exactly the opposite path from the one that had been taken in the East.

[ 24 ] Everywhere in Europe we find traces of how difficult it has become for human beings to integrate their “I” into the social order—to incorporate into the social order that which constitutes their “I”—whereas once upon a time the social order was such that human beings, I might say, sought to rescue their “I” from it. - Even today, this difficulty can still confront us in every detail as a fundamental social evil.

[ 25 ] A few years ago, when I frequently gave lectures to workers, it became clear that this difficulty—regarding the integration of the “I” into the social order as a whole—was alive in people’s souls. Human beings cannot find the path from a strongly developed sense of the “I” into the social order. And when one tried again and again to show, for example, a proletarian population exactly what this path must be like—and how it must differ from the paths often pointed out today by socialist or communist agitators—one could observe that quite peculiar views emerged in the ensuing discussions. They might seem trivial, but the trivial ceases to be trivial when it serves as a driving force in the lives of countless people. So I once tried to talk about social issues in a workers’ community. A man stepped forward and immediately introduced himself as a cobbler. Of course, it can be particularly gratifying to hear what such a person thinks; but in this case, what he was incapable of thinking was far more significant than what he actually thought. For first he elaborated—in stark contrast to my own views—on how he envisioned the social order; then he pointed out once again that he was a simple cobbler, and thus, as he emphasized, could not be a civil servant in the social order he had conceived. But underlying his remarks was the very idea that he could be a minister! This illustrates the lack of orientation when the question arises: How should the “I,” strengthened within spiritual life, position itself within a social order?

[ 26 ] And at another workers’ meeting—I’m giving examples here, but they could be multiplied endlessly—someone said: “Yes, we don’t aspire to become foremen, nor do we aspire to hold a leadership position in the factory; we want to remain what we are: ordinary workers; but as such, we want our full rights.” — As one-sidedly justified as such a statement may be—fundamentally, there is no interest in social organization as such, but only in what the particularly strongly developed ego is as such.

[ 27 ] I am well aware that many people today, out of their own consciousness, will not admit that it is precisely this discrepancy between the experience of the self and the social order that is the root of many of our social—indeed, almost all of our social—hardships and shortcomings. But anyone who looks at life with open eyes will have to admit: We have indeed managed only to develop a sense of “I,” but we are unable to connect it with a true understanding of the human being itself. We call ourselves “I”; but we do not know how to apply this “I” to a fully comprehended and fully volitional human being.

[ 28 ] One can experience this, in turn, when one is confronted with views shaped by the present that stand in opposition to what one considers necessary for the healing of human beings, based on the foundations of spiritual science. A prominent figure in contemporary educational circles once told me something very remarkable during a visit to the Waldorf School. I personally showed this person around, drew their attention to our teaching method and to its social significance, and specifically pointed out how, in such a healthy teaching method, spiritual and psychological education must be integrated with physical education; how anyone who wishes to educate and teach must, above all, understand how this or that affects the rising or declining forces of the human organism, the human physical body; how certain memory exercises or neglect of memory manifest themselves in physical symptoms later in life; how physical ailments can be gradually alleviated simply by addressing the emotional life; and how the teacher must, to a certain extent, understand the connection between the physical, emotional, and intellectual nature of human beings in both healthy and diseased states. And then I was told that, in that case, the teacher would have to be a doctor!

[ 29 ] Yes, to a certain extent, we should indeed strive to make this a reality. For when we look into our social order and see the difficulty of incorporating the “I” into it, we are reminded once again of what I have already outlined today for two cultural regions: for the Orient, where the physician was at once a teacher and a leader of the people, and for Greece, where I pointed out that art had, in a certain sense, an educational influence. The art of the physician was connected to every intellectual endeavor precisely because, in those days, people—albeit with an instinctive insight—viewed the human being as a whole in physical, psychological, and spiritual terms, and because, in seeking healing for the soul, they wished to allow forces to act that would then provide insights into the healing of the human being as a whole.

[ 30 ] People used to say to themselves: I must actually heal people by leading them to true spirituality. To do this, I must apply healing forces within the context of a more normal life. If I understand these forces thoroughly and can trace them to their ultimate consequences, then such insight reveals to me what I must apply when a person is ill. By observing the healthy person, I come to know the forces I must apply when I have a sick person before me. The sick person simply exhibits a more pronounced deviation in their constitution toward one direction or another than is already the case in normal life. If I know how to restore a healthy person to health, then I also know how to treat the sick person; if I know which potion or essence provides me with this or that insight into connections with nature, and if I understand how natural products work from a cognitive perspective, then I also know how these will affect a sick person when I apply them more strongly.

[ 31 ] Once again, we have what was sought in the ancient Orient—in a spirit of deep communion—as the art of healing, as education, and as a path to spirituality in general; something that played a major role, to a greater or lesser extent, as a spiritual distillation within Greek artistic life. There, the aim is to heal the soul through art, and if one approaches the matter with such insights, one can still sense—in the use of the word “catharsis” for tragedy—how it pointed to something akin to the ancient mystery rites, since the same word was used there for the complete purification of the human being into a new life. But we are also reminded of how, even among the ancient Greek physicians, knowledge and medicine were indeed sisters, belonging together, and how—raised to a more spiritual level—education, but also general popular culture, was seen as having a kinship with medicine, something that, in a sense, stood out from medicine itself.

[ 32 ] We must look to such manifestations of a bygone era if we are to gain the proper inner strength of spirit so that, even in our own time, when we look at social orders, in such a way that we take the whole human being into account, so that when we encounter our fellow human beings, we do not merely develop a strong sense of self, but combine this with an appreciation of the whole human being—body, soul, and spirit. If we are able to do this through spiritual scientific development, then it is precisely through the spiritual disposition that emerges from this that we will be able to find the means and ways to integrate the whole person—and indeed, all people—into the social order; that is, to master the work of the social order in the sense that historical development has already demonstrated to be a necessity. But this is precisely what we still struggle with today: integrating work into the social order in the right way.

[ 33 ] However, work is often seen as something that then becomes part of the product of labor—something that, so to speak, crystallizes within it and actually gives it its value. Anyone who looks more closely, however, will notice that what matters is not merely that a person works at all—that is, that he contributes the physical energy of his body to the social order—but rather that the essential factor in the formation of price and value is how labor fits into social life as a whole. It is entirely conceivable that a person performs work that is, in essence, uneconomical within the social order. A person may be diligent and may even believe they are entitled to compensation for their work; but if their work is situated within a flawed social organism, then that work often does more harm than good. And from this perspective, one should examine much of what exists within the social organism as work that is essentially worthless yet nonetheless strenuous. Let us just consider how an enormous amount of material enters our literature that must be printed—work that requires immense effort in the production of paper, printing, and so on—only to be pulped again, save for a small remnant: work has been done there that, I would say, is utterly wasted into thin air. And when one considers how, during the murderous war of recent years, an immense amount of labor has been wasted into thin air, one gradually comes to the realization that labor as such cannot claim any immediate value, but that labor derives its value from the way it is integrated into social life.

[ 34 ] But this is what ails our time most of all: it lacks the fundamental social understanding needed to integrate work into the social organism in such a way that, in a sense, everything a person accomplishes is in reality accomplished for his fellow human beings. But we must first achieve this by learning to truly place our “I” within the human community. Only by gaining a true understanding from person to person—so that what another person needs simultaneously becomes our own experience, and we extend our “I” into the “I”s of other people—will we find the path to those new social communities that are not a given by nature, but must be discovered from within the human “I.”

[ 35 ] All of our social demands, however, arise entirely from the “I.” People sense what is lacking for them within the social order. But what we must find is, in turn, an understanding of what human coexistence—in body, soul, and spirit—truly means. Only then can a social order actually be born from the “I,” at its very core.

[ 36 ] The great struggle that takes place within the division of labor—in a way that is entirely different from how such struggles have ever unfolded under the influence of human egoism—is the root cause of all our social ills. Today we establish communities of production; we join them not in a way that is guided by what such a community signifies within the social organism, but rather in a way that is guided first and foremost by our ego, as is understandable. There is no intention here to lecture, in a schoolmasterly or any other manner, about human egoism. The aim is to grasp what is, in a certain sense, justified. For if we did not have this sense of self, we would not have advanced toward human freedom and dignity. It is only because we have attained this sense of self that great spiritual progress has been possible. But this sense of self must find the paths to empathy.

[ 37 ] There is much talk today about the need to overcome individualism once again. That cannot be the issue; rather, it is a matter of discovering society within human beings themselves. The Oriental had to find the human being within society. We must find society within the human being. We can do this only if we expand our inner life in every direction.

[ 38 ] I therefore attempted, at the end of one of my Mystery Dramas, to depict a scene that shows how a person struggles to reach the inner experience of perceiving within themselves the distinctions that exist among humanity. Out there are the distinctions among people. In the social order, we must be differentiated; each of us must have our own profession. Internally, however, if we find the right bridge between one person and another, we can relive everything that is differentiated on the outside—the social world—and experience every single profession within ourselves. If this social order unfolds within us, if we find the possibility of experiencing social reality within ourselves, then we will be able to take that reverse path: from the “I” toward the social order. This also means that everything—today we can point to labor; in the coming days we will also look at capital—that is bound to the individual human being can become integrated into human society. In the cooperative movement, in the formation of syndicates, in the formation of trusts, in the labor union movement—everywhere we feel the necessity of finding a path from the “I” toward community. But that is precisely the great struggle of the present: that what lives in our surroundings might truly take root within us.

[ 39 ] There was—as has already been pointed out—a time not so long ago; we need only go back to around the 13th century—when people were connected to the products of their labor, a time when every key and every lock they made brought them joy because they poured something of their own essence into them. What was still a legacy of an ancient social order was imprinted upon the product. People still lived in harmony with the social order, even before the full awakening of the “I.” Since then, this “I” has reached its full height and strength within technology. Today, even when working in the spiritual realm, people often feel extraordinarily alienated from the products of their labor. What we accomplish in the outer world ought to be deeply rooted within us and able to connect with our sense of self. But this will only be the case if we develop our soul life in every respect as has been described here in recent days. For if we develop this soul life in this way, our interest in everything around us will be reawakened.

[ 40 ] One can find many people in this purely intellectual age who find their own profession uninteresting. Perhaps it has become so. There must, however, come a time when every detail of life becomes interesting. Whereas it was once interesting because of what it was as an object, it will be able to become interesting in the future because, in everything we accomplish, we will be able to know how it fits into the social order of humanity. Whereas we used to look at the product, we will now look at the person in need of the product of labor. Whereas the product was once loved, human love and human brotherhood will be able to arise precisely in the developed soul, so that a person will be able to know why they are in their position.

[ 41 ] But this must take root in the soul before we can reach an understanding regarding the various social ills of our time. From this perspective, one must also consider how Europe is still waging its struggle for the individuality of humanity against what still radiates from Asia through its spiritual culture—and against what originated from foundations entirely different from those that exist today, foundations that were rooted in human souls but had not yet awakened to full individuality.

[ 42 ] Thus, the present does not merely exist in abstract terms between individuality and community, as is often the case, but as something that permeates and permeates the human soul, placing every single person today in the position of a fighter for his or her own self. We are, in fact, only just beginning our journey toward discovering the relationship between the human self and the social community. And this is the source of the shortcomings of our time, which I therefore need not enumerate in specific lists.

[ 43 ] If one recognizes this psychological foundation, this intellectual underpinnings, then one will see many of the things that confront us today in the social order—as demands, as hardships, as misery—in their proper light. We must have the courage to fight our way through to this proper light. Only then will it become clear whether the pessimism—as expressed in a particularly radical form even by Herman Grimm himself—is justified; whether it is justified to say: only forces of decline remain within our European civilization; one can only be pessimistic; one must even set a date for a general suicide.

[ 44 ] Yes, the question is whether everything in Asian character that Europe had to overcome has already been overcome, so that Europe, having found itself, can then—from the center of world development—also foster understanding with the East. From this perspective, we must consider whether we should focus on something like what Herman Grimm suggests, or whether we might also consider that humanity, through the development of what lies dormant in its soul, has the potential to determine the day on which understanding will prevail—that what lies ahead for us is not the death of this European civilization, but a new birth.

[ 45 ] Whether and to what extent this is possible will be at least briefly addressed in the following lectures.