The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. Cultural Phenomena

[ 1 ] Today’s lecture is intended to be just one episode in the series of lectures I have given—a brief interlude, so to speak—for the reason that it is necessary for anthroposophists to be alert individuals, that is, to form their own judgments by observing the world with a certain degree of attention. And so, from time to time, it is necessary that even within the lectures that otherwise deal with anthroposophical material, one thing or another be inserted that opens our eyes to other processes, to the broader state of our civilization. Today, I would like to elaborate a bit further on what I briefly outlined in the latest issue of Goetheanum, where I discussed a book that has just been republished: The Decline and Rebuilding of Culture by Albert Schweitzer. It describes itself as the first part of a philosophy of culture and deals essentially with a kind of critique of contemporary culture. However, in order to provide some context for Albert Schweitzer’s characterization of the present, I would like to begin by presenting to you the state of the culture that Albert Schweitzer seeks to address through a single, yet perhaps characteristic, example. I could, of course, have chosen thousands. One need only dip into—one cannot say the full cultural life of the present, but rather the full cultural death of the present—and one will always find sufficient evidence. This is precisely the point, as I also noted in the educational lectures yesterday and today: that we must accustom ourselves to viewing such matters with an honest and alert eye. And so, as a sort of foundation, I have selected something from the series—which can always be regarded as a representation of contemporary intellectual culture—I have chosen a rector’s address delivered on October 15, 1910, in Berlin. I chose this speech because it comes from a physician—a figure who is not, as it were, one-sidedly immersed in some philosophical view of culture, but who, drawing on scientific thinking, sought to present a kind of snapshot of the times.

[ 2 ] Now, I do not wish to bore you with the first part of this inaugural address, which focuses primarily on the University of Berlin; rather, I would like to acquaint you with the general philosophical ideas that the physician Rubner—for that is who he is—expressed on that solemn occasion. This example is perhaps characteristic precisely because it dates back to the year 1910, when everyone in Europe—and far beyond—was filled with the optimistic belief that a tremendous intellectual upswing was underway, that we had indeed come so wonderfully far. What I wish to highlight is a kind of appeal to the student body—but one that truly allows us to glimpse what a prominent figure of the present is actually pondering in his heart. The appeal begins by addressing the student body as follows: “We must all learn. We bring nothing else into the world but our instrument for intellectual work—a blank slate, the brain, with varying predispositions and varying capacities for development; we receive everything from the outside world.”

[ 3 ] Well, yes, if one has been shaped by today’s materialistic culture, one might well hold this view. There’s no need to be narrow-minded. One must be clear about the power that materialistic culture exerts on people today, and then one can understand why someone might say that we enter the world as a blank slate—our brain—and that we receive everything from the outside world. But let’s listen further to how this address to the students continues. First, it is explained—apparently a bit more clearly—how we are a blank slate, how the child of the most eminent mathematician must learn the multiplication tables all over again, because, unfortunately, he or she has not inherited advanced mathematics from his or her father, how the child of the greatest linguist must, in turn, learn his or her native language, and so on. No mind would even want to grasp everything that its ancestors have collectively experienced and learned. But now these minds are advised on what they—since they are such completely blank slates—should do in the world in order to be written upon. It goes on to say: “What billions of brains have pondered and refined over the course of human history, what our intellectual heroes have helped create...”—isn’t that right? This is repeated for about two pages straight; it is drummed into people: They are born with brains that are like blank slates and must simply take care to absorb what the intellectual heroes have created.

[ 4 ] Yes, if these intellectual heroes were all blank slates, where on earth did all that they created come from—and what are the other blank slates now supposed to absorb? A strange line of thought, isn’t it! — So: “What our intellectual heroes have helped to create, this blank slate of a brain receives in short phrases through education, and from this its own character and individual life can now unfold.”

[ 5 ] On the next page, these blank pages—these brains—are now presented with a curious sentence: “What has been learned provides the raw material for productive thinking.” So now, all of a sudden, productive thinking appears on the blank pages—these brains. It would seem only natural that someone who speaks of brains as blank pages would not speak of productive thinking.

[ 6 ] Now, here’s a sentence that really shows just how deeply materialistic the best minds have actually come to think. For Rubner is not one of the worst. He is a physician and has even read the philosopher Zeller, which is saying something. So he’s not narrow-minded at all, you see. But how does he think? He wants to portray the refreshing aspect of life, and so he says: “But there is always something refreshing about working in a new, previously untilled field of the brain.” So when a student has studied one subject for a while and now moves on to another, that means he is now tilling a new field of the brain. You see, these ways of thinking have gradually taken on a very characteristic materialistic tone. “For,” he continues, “some fields of the mind only become productive when they are repeatedly cultivated, but ultimately bear the same good fruit as others that are more easily accessed.”

[ 7 ] It is extremely difficult to follow this line of thought right now, because the brain is supposed to be a blank slate, and yet it is supposed to learn everything from the “written pages”—which, after all, must also have been blank at the time of their creation. Now this brain is supposed to be tilled. But for that to happen, there would at least have to be a farmer. The more one delves into such utterly unbelievable, impossible thinking, the more confused one becomes. But Max Rubner is very concerned for his students, and so he advises them to be sure to till the brain properly. They are therefore to till the brain. Now, he can’t help but say that thinking is what tills the brain. But now he wants to recommend thinking. That’s when his materialistic way of thinking comes back to haunt him, and an exceptionally lovely sentence emerges: “Thinking strengthens the brain; through practice, the brain’s performance increases just like any other organ, just as our muscle strength increases through work and sports. Studying is brain exercise.”

[ 8 ] Well, by 1910, the Berlin students knew what to make of thinking: “Thinking is a mental exercise.” Indeed, it does not even occur to the leading figures of our time that what is happening internally during various athletic movements is far more interesting than what is taking place externally. What is actually far more interesting in sports is to observe what is actually happening in people’s limbs during the various athletic movements—what internal processes are taking place there. Then one would even arrive at something very interesting. If one were to consider this interesting aspect of sports, one would realize that sports belong to those activities that pertain to the human being as a being of limbs, the human being of metabolism. Thinking, on the other hand, belongs to the human being of nerves and senses. Here the relationship is reversed. What is turned inward in human beings—the processes within the human being—manifests outwardly in thinking. And what manifests outwardly in sports manifests inwardly. Therefore, one should consider thinking to be the more interesting aspect. But the representative personality has simply forgotten how to think and is completely unable to follow any thought through to its conclusion.

[ 9 ] Our entire modern culture has, in fact, emerged from this kind of thinking—which is, in itself, entirely incomplete and will always remain so. It is only on such representative occasions, so to speak, that one catches a glimpse of this way of thinking that has given rise to our culture. One catches it there, so to speak. But unfortunately, those who manage to catch it are not all that common. For in a Berlin rector’s address—that is, a university speech on a solemn occasion titled “Our Goals for the Future”—if one is a true person of the present, one cannot help but take it seriously. After all, that is what science says; that is what the invincible authority of science says—which, of course, knows everything. And if it has been proven that thinking is a brain sport, well, then one simply has to accept it; then, after millennia upon millennia, humans have become so intelligent that they’ve finally realized: Thinking is a brain sport.

[ 10 ] I could now continue these reflections into a wide variety of fields, and we would see everywhere that—I cannot say the same spirit, but rather the same “un-spirit”—prevails, though it is, of course, admired. Well, some discerning people had already seen what had come to pass even before the outwardly visible decline set in. And one must mention, for example, Albert Schweitzer, the outstanding author of the book History of Research into the Life of Jesus, from Reimarus to Wrede, who, after all, was able to advance in research into the life of Jesus—all the way to apocalyptic thought—through prudent, thorough, penetrating, and incisive thinking; he was certainly capable of gaining a clear perspective on the signs of decline in contemporary culture. Now he assured us that his work Decline and Reconstruction of Culture was not written after the war, but was conceived in its initial form as early as 1900, and that it was then elaborated upon from 1914 to 1917. It has now been published. And one must say that here, for once, someone is observing the decline of culture with an open eye. And it is, after all, interesting to let sink into one’s soul what such an observer of cultural decline—I would say—works on this culture with sharp, critical knives. Indeed, the sentences used to describe contemporary culture stand out like cutting knives. Let’s allow a few such sentences to sink into our souls. The first sentence of the book reads: “We are living in an era marked by the decline of culture. The war did not create this situation. It is merely a manifestation of it. What existed intellectually has translated into facts that, in turn, are having a detrimental effect on the intellectual realm in every respect.” — “We strayed from culture because there was no reflection on culture among us.” — “Thus we crossed the threshold of the century with unshakeable illusions about ourselves.” — “Now it is obvious to everyone that the self-destruction of culture is underway.”

[ 11 ] Albert Schweitzer also sees this in his own way—I would say he expresses it somewhat bombastically—that this decline of culture began around the middle of the 19th century, that very middle of the 19th century which I have so often referred to here as an important juncture that must be considered if one wishes to understand the present in any meaningful way. Schweitzer says the following about this: “But around the middle of the 19th century, this engagement of ethical ideals of reason with reality began to wane. Over the course of the following decades, it came to a standstill more and more. The abdication of culture took place without a fight and in silence. Its ideas lagged behind the times, as if they were too exhausted to keep pace with them.” — And Schweitzer raises another point that is actually surprising, but which we can easily understand because it has often been discussed here in a much deeper sense than Schweitzer is able to articulate. It is clear to him: In earlier times, there was a total worldview. All phenomena of life, from the stone on the ground up to the highest human ideals, constituted a totality of life. Within this totality of life, the divine-spiritual Being was at work. If one wanted to know how the laws of nature operate in nature, one turned to the divine-spiritual Being. If one wanted to know how moral laws operate, or how religious impulses operate, one turned to the divine-spiritual Being. There existed a holistic worldview that had anchored morality in objectivity just as the laws of nature are anchored in objectivity. The last worldview to emerge—and one that still retained some awareness of such a comprehensive worldview—was the Enlightenment, which sought to derive everything from the intellect, yet still placed the moral world in a certain inner connection with the natural world.

[ 12 ] Consider how often I have stated this here: If anyone today sincerely believes in the laws of nature as they are presented, he can only believe in a beginning of the universe similar to that described by the Kant-Laplace theory, and in an end of the universe as it will one day come about through heat death. But then one must imagine that all moral ideals have been distilled from the swirling particles of the cosmic nebula, which gradually coalesced to become crystals, organisms, and finally human beings—and from within humanity, the idealistic ethical worldview then emerges. But these ethical ideals, since they are merely illusions born of the swirling atoms of humankind, will have vanished when the Earth has perished in the heat death. This means that a worldview has emerged that relates solely to the natural world, one that has not anchored moral ideals within itself. And only because people today are dishonest and refuse to admit it—refusing to look squarely at these facts—do they believe that moral ideals are still somehow anchored. But anyone who believes in modern science and is honest must not believe in the eternity of moral ideals. If they do, they do so out of cowardly dishonesty. It is with this seriousness that we must look at the present.

[ 13 ] And this is precisely how Albert Schweitzer sees it, in his own way, and he seeks to determine where the blame lies for how things have turned out. He says: “The decisive factor was the failure of philosophy.” Now, one may have one’s own particular thoughts on this matter. One might believe, after all, that philosophers are the hermits of the world, that other people have nothing to do with philosophers. But Albert Schweitzer quite rightly says later in his work: “Kant and Hegel ruled over millions who never read a single line of their work and did not even know that they were obeying them.” The paths that the world’s ideas take are simply not at all what one usually imagines. I know very well—for I have often experienced it—that right up until the end of the 19th century, Hegel’s most important works lay on library shelves and had never even been opened. They were not studied. But the few copies that were studied by a few have permeated the entire realm of education. And there is actually hardly a single one among you whose intellectual life does not include Kant and Hegel, because the paths are, I might say, mysterious. And even if people in the most remote mountain villages have come to read newspapers, it is true of them as well—of these people in the mountain villages—that they are influenced by Kant and Hegel, not just this illustrious and enlightened society sitting here in this hall.

[ 14 ] So one can certainly say, as Albert Schweitzer did: “The decisive factor was the failure of philosophy. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, philosophy had been the guiding force of public opinion. It had engaged with the questions facing people and the times, and kept reflection on these issues alive in the spirit of culture. At that time, philosophy involved a fundamental exploration of the human being, society, the people, humanity, and culture, which naturally gave rise to a vibrant popular philosophy that often dominated public opinion and fostered enthusiasm for culture.”

[ 15 ] And now Albert Schweitzer comments on the further course of events as follows: “It did not occur to philosophy that the vitality of the cultural ideas entrusted to it was beginning to be called into question. At the end of one of the most outstanding works on the history of philosophy published at the end of the 19th century”—it is, in fact, the very same work that I once took aim at in a public lecture, this work on the history of philosophy—“philosophy is defined as the process in which,” and now he quotes the other, this historian of philosophy: “with ever clearer and more certain awareness, has brought about a reflection on cultural values, the universal validity of which is the very subject of philosophy itself.” Schweitzer now comments on this: “In doing so, the author forgot the essential point: namely, that in the past, philosophy not only reflected on cultural values but also allowed them to permeate public opinion as active ideas, whereas from the second half of the 19th century onward, they increasingly became a guarded, unproductive asset.”

[ 16 ] In fact, no one really noticed where human thought had actually ended up. One need only read most of these reflections on the turn of the century, which appeared at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. If one took a different approach—as I did in my book, which was later titled The Riddles of Philosophy—it was naturally regarded as ahistorical. And one of these noble philosophers, because the book was then titled Worldviews and Outlooks on Life in the 19th Century, accused me of not saying anything about Bismarck in it. Yes, a philosopher leveled this criticism at the book. Many other similar criticisms were directed at the book precisely because it sought to distill from the past that which has an impact on the future. But what did most of these observers do? They reflected. They reflected on what culture is, on what already exists. These thinkers no longer had the slightest idea that earlier centuries had created culture.

[ 17 ] But now Albert Schweitzer comes along—I would say—to resign himself to this future of philosophy. He says: It is not really philosophy’s fault that it no longer plays a truly productive role in thought. That was more a matter of philosophy’s fate. For the world in general has forgotten how to think, and philosophy has simply forgotten along with it.” — In a certain sense, even Schweitzer is very lenient, for one might also think: If the whole world has forgotten how to think, then at least the philosophers could have continued to cultivate it. But Schweitzer finds it quite natural that philosophers, along with everyone else, have simply forgotten how to think. He says: “The fact that thought failed to establish a worldview of an optimistic-ethical character and to ground the ideals that constitute culture within such a worldview was not philosophy’s fault, but a fact that arose in the development of thought.” — So that was the case for everyone. — “But philosophy became culpable for our world by failing to acknowledge this fact and remaining under the illusion that it was truly fostering cultural progress.”

[ 18 ] So, as Albert Schweitzer points out in his razor-sharp critique, philosophers—along with everyone else—have forgotten how to think; but that is not really their fault—it is simply a fact: they have, along with everyone else, forgotten how to think. But their real fault lies in the fact that they didn’t even realize it. They should at least have noticed it and should have spoken out about it. — That is the only thing Schweitzer holds against the philosophers. “By its ultimate purpose, philosophy is the guide and guardian of universal reason. It would have been its duty to admit to our world that the ethical ideals of reason no longer find a foothold in a total worldview as they once did, but are, for the time being, left to their own devices and must assert themselves in the world through their own inner strength alone.” And then he concludes this first chapter by saying: “Philosophy reflected so little on culture that it did not even notice how it itself—and the times along with it—were becoming increasingly devoid of culture. In the hour of danger, the guardian who was supposed to keep us alert was asleep. Thus it came to pass that we did not fight for our culture.”

[ 19 ] But now I ask you not to take these words of Albert Schweitzer and say to yourselves—or have a part of you say: “Well, that’s just a critique of German culture, and it certainly doesn’t apply to England, or to America, and least of all, of course, to France!” Albert Schweitzer has, in fact, written a large number of works. Among these are those written in English: The Mystery of the Kingdom of God; then another work: The Question of the Historical Jesus; then a third; and he has also written several others in French. So this man is truly an international figure and certainly does not speak merely of German culture, but rather of contemporary culture. Therefore, it would not be very nice if this perspective were met with the same reaction we once experienced in Berlin. We once had an anthroposophical gathering, and there was a member present who had a dog. Now I always had to explain that human beings have repeated earthly lives—reincarnations—while animals do not; in the case of animals, it is the species souls and group souls that remain at the same stage, not the individual animal itself. This person, however, loved her dog so much that she believed—even though she admitted that other animals, even other dogs, do not have repeated earthly lives—that her dog did have repeated earthly lives; she knew this for certain. There was a bit of discussion about this matter—discussions are sometimes stimulating, as you know—and one might have thought that this person could never be convinced and that the others were convinced. That became immediately apparent when we were sitting in a coffeehouse. This other member said it was actually terribly foolish of this person to believe that her dog had repeated earthly lives; she had realized that right away, she said, since it was quite clear from anthroposophy that this was an impossibility. “Yes, if that were my parrot!” That—that’s what this applies to!—I wouldn’t want this line of thought to be projected onto the various nationalities in such a way that they say: “Yes, for the people Albert Schweitzer is speaking of, it’s true that culture is in decline, that the philosophers themselves haven’t noticed it, but—our parrot has had repeated earthly lives!”

[ 20 ] In the second chapter, Albert Schweitzer discusses “Circumstances That Hinder Culture in Our Economic and Intellectual Life,” and here, too, his thinking is exceptionally incisive. Of course, there are occasionally trivialities—I would say, things that are quite obvious. But then Albert Schweitzer sees through a deficiency in modern man—this cultureless modern man—by observing that, because he has lost his culture, modern man has, first, become unfree, and second, has lost his composure. Well, I have read you some passages by Max Rubner—they certainly do not attest to a strong concentration of thought. It is precisely the representative modern person who is unfocused.

[ 21 ] Albert Schweitzer then adds another charming epithet to this modern human being. For, in addition to being unfree and unfocused, he is also “incomplete.” Now just imagine: these modern people all believe that they are walking through the world as complete human beings. But Albert Schweitzer is of the opinion that, due to modern education, everyone today is funneled into a completely one-sided professional life, developing only one aspect of their abilities while allowing the others to atrophy, and thus, in reality, becoming an incomplete human being. And in connection with this lack of freedom, incompleteness, and lack of focus in modern people, Albert Schweitzer argues that a certain inhumanity is taking hold among them: “In fact, ideas of utter inhumanity have been circulating among us for two generations, expressed in the ugly clarity of words and with the authority of logical principles. A societal mentality has emerged that turns individuals away from humanity. The courtesy born of natural feeling is fading.”—I recall the general assembly we held here, where courtesy was discussed!—“In its place comes the behavior of absolute indifference, clothed in varying degrees of formality. The aloofness and indifference toward strangers, emphasized in every way, is no longer perceived as inner coarseness at all, but is regarded as sophisticated behavior. Our society has also ceased to recognize human worth and human dignity in all people as such. Parts of humanity have become mere human material and human objects to us. If, for decades, it has been possible to speak among us with increasing frivolity of war and conquest, as if it were a matter of maneuvering on a chessboard, this was only possible because a collective mindset had been created that no longer imagined the fate of individuals, but viewed them only as numbers and objects. When war came, the inhumanity within us was given free rein. And what subtle and crude acts of brutality against people of color have appeared in our colonial literature and in our parliaments over the past decades as “rational truths,” only to become part of public opinion! Twenty years ago, in a parliament on the European mainland, it was even accepted that, with regard to deported Black people who had been left to die of starvation and disease, it was stated from the rostrum that they had “perished as if they were animals.”

[ 22 ] Albert Schweitzer also discusses the role of over-organization in the decline of our culture. He believes that public conditions also hinder cultural development because over-organization is prevalent everywhere. After all, organizing decrees, regulations, and laws are being created everywhere today. Everything is part of some organization. People experience this without giving it a second thought. They act without thinking, too. They are always organized into something, so Albert Schweitzer believes that this “over-organization” has certainly had a culture-inhibiting effect.

[ 23 ] “The terrible truth—that as history and economic development progress, culture does not become easier but harder—was not voiced.” — “The bankruptcy of the cultural state, which is becoming more apparent with each passing decade, is ruining modern man. The demoralization of the individual by society as a whole is in full swing.

[ 24 ] An unfree person, a scattered person, an incomplete person, one lost in inhumanity, one who surrenders his intellectual independence and moral judgment to organized society, one who experiences, in every respect, the constraints of cultural sensibility: thus modern man trudged along his dark path in dark times. Philosophy had no understanding of the danger in which he found himself. Thus, it made no attempt to help him. It did not even urge him to reflect on what was happening to him.”

[ 25 ] In the third chapter, Albert Schweitzer goes on to argue that a true culture must have an ethical foundation. Earlier worldviews gave rise to ethical values; since the mid-19th century, people have continued to live by these old ethical values without anchoring them in any comprehensive worldview, and they did not even notice this: “People continued to live in the situation created by the ethical cultural movement without realizing that it had now become untenable, and without looking ahead to what was brewing among and within nations. Thus, our era—thoughtless as it was—came to believe that culture consisted primarily of scientific, technical, and artistic achievements and could manage without ethics or with only a minimum of ethics. This externalized conception of culture gained authority in public opinion because it was consistently advocated by individuals who, by virtue of their social standing and scholarly education, appeared to possess competence in matters of intellectual life.” — “Our sense of reality, then, consists in deriving from one fact—through passions and short-sighted considerations of utility—the next most obvious fact, and so on and so forth. Since we lack a purposeful intention directed toward a whole to be realized, our activity falls under the concept of a natural phenomenon.”

[ 26 ] Albert Schweitzer also recognizes with complete clarity that people turned to nationalism because they no longer had anything to contribute to culture.

[ 27 ] “It was characteristic of the pathological nature of nationalism’s realpolitik that it sought in every way to cloak itself in the glitter of the ideal. The struggle for power became a struggle for justice and culture. The self-serving interest groups, which pitted one people against another, presented themselves as friendships and kindred spirits. As such, they were retroactively dated back into the past, even though history had more to say about hereditary enmity than about inner kinship.

[ 28 ] Ultimately, it was not enough for nationalism to set aside any intention of bringing about a cultural humanity in its policies. It went on to destroy the very concept of culture itself by proclaiming national culture.»

[ 29 ] You see, Albert Schweitzer already sees quite clearly—it must be said—in the most diverse areas of life. And he finds the words to express this negative aspect of our time. $o, I would say, it is also quite clear to him what our time has become due to the great influence of science. But since it is also clear to him that our age is incapable of thinking—I have shown you this using the example of Max Rubner—Albert Schweitzer also knows that science, more than ever, has become thoughtless and therefore cannot, in our time, have any claim to lead humanity in culture.

[ 30 ] “Today, thinking no longer has anything to do with science, because science has become independent of and indifferent to it. The most advanced knowledge is now compatible with the most thoughtless worldview. It claims to deal only with individual observations, since objective science is preserved only in these. The synthesis of findings and the application of their implications to worldview is not its concern. ‘In the past,’ says Albert Schweitzer, ‘every scientist was at the same time a thinker who played a significant role in the general intellectual life of his generation. Our age has reached the point where it can distinguish between science and thought. That is why we still have freedom of science, but almost no thinking science left.”

[ 31 ] As you can see, Schweitzer perceives the negative aspects with extraordinary clarity, and he also knows how to articulate what really matters: that what matters is bringing the spirit back into culture. He knows that culture has become spiritless. But this morning, in my lecture on education, I explained how, of what people once knew about the soul, only the words remain. People continue to speak of the soul in words, but nothing real is connected to those words anymore. And so it is with the spirit. That is why there is no awareness of the spirit today. All that remains is the word. And then, when someone has so astutely characterized the negative aspects of modern culture, the most they can do is, based on certain traditional feelings people have when speaking of the spirit today—since, after all, no one knows anything about the spirit—the most they can do is say: “The spirit is necessary.”

[ 32 ] But when one is asked to explain how the spirit is to find its way into culture, it makes one feel—forgive me: When I was still a very young boy, I lived near a village, and there was a prominent figure among the village’s leading citizens whose chickens had been stolen. So a lawsuit ensued. A court hearing was held. The judge was determined to determine the appropriate severity of the punishment, and to do so, it was necessary to get a clear picture of what the chickens were like. So he asked this prominent figure, who was one of the village’s leading citizens, to describe what kind of chickens they were. — So tell us a little more—what kind of chickens were they? Describe them to us a bit! Yes, Your Honor, they were beautiful chickens. — We can’t really make head or tail of this if you can’t give us any more specific details! You did have these chickens, after all—describe them to us a little. — Yes, Your Honor, they were just beautiful chickens! — And so this person continued. Nothing more could be coaxed out of him except: “They were beautiful chickens.”

[ 33 ] And look, in the following chapter Albert Schweitzer is also called upon to state positively how he envisions a comprehensive worldview should be restored. “But what kind,” he says, “must a thoughtful worldview be so that cultural ideas and attitudes can be grounded in it? Optimistic and ethical.” They were just beautiful chickens! It must be optimistic and ethical. Yes, but how exactly should it be? Just imagine, for a moment, if an architect were to build a house for someone, and he wanted to figure out what the house should be like, and the person in question simply replied: “The house should be sturdy, weatherproof, beautiful, and it should be comfortable to live in”—well, go ahead and draw up the plans and see if you can figure out exactly what he wants! But that’s exactly what happens when someone tells you that a worldview should be optimistic and ethical. If you want to build a house, you have to draw up the plans; it has to be a concrete, detailed plan. But the otherwise so astute Albert Schweitzer has nothing to say except: “They were just beautiful chickens.” Or: “The house should be beautiful—that is, it should be optimistic and ethical.”

[ 34 ] He even goes a little further, but it doesn't really amount to much more than those pretty chickens. He says, for example, that because thinking has fallen so far out of fashion—because people no longer know how to think, and philosophers themselves don’t realize that it’s no longer there but still believe they can think—many people have turned to mysticism, seeking to operate free of thought, to arrive at a worldview without thinking. Now he says: Yes, but why shouldn’t one also enter into mysticism through thinking? So the worldview that is to emerge must enter into mysticism through thinking. Yes, but how does that work, then? The house should be sturdy, weatherproof, beautiful, and such that one can live comfortably inside it. The worldview should be such that it penetrates mysticism through thinking. That is exactly the same thing. Nowhere is even the slightest hint of any real content given. It doesn’t exist at all.

[ 35 ] Well, how does anthroposophy differ from such a critique of culture? It may well agree with the negative aspects, but it is not content merely to describe the house as follows: It should be sturdy, weatherproof, and beautiful, and such that one can live comfortably inside—rather, it draws up the plans for the house; it truly designs the vision of a culture. Now, Albert Schweitzer does object to this to some extent, saying: “The great revision of the convictions and ideals in which and for which we live cannot take place by talking people of our time into having different, better thoughts than the ones they already have. It can only get underway if the many begin to reflect on the meaning of life...” So that won’t work—persuading the people of our time to adopt better ideas than the ones they already have—that won’t work! Yes, what, then, should one do in the spirit of Albert Schweitzer? He urges people to look within themselves, to draw out from within what they already possess, so that there is no need to somehow persuade them to adopt ideas other than the ones they already hold.

[ 36 ] Yes, but by seeking within themselves what they already possess, they arrived at precisely what is stated at the beginning: “We are living in an era of cultural decline.” — “We strayed from culture because there was no reflection on culture among us,” and so on. Yes, all of that came about—which is what Schweitzer so sharply and with such intense thought points out—because people neglected any real, concrete planning of culture. And now he says: It’s not enough for people to simply take something in; they must look within themselves. — You see, one could say that not only is there a Max Rubner, who can’t come to terms with his own thinking anywhere, but even such a terribly sharp thinker as Albert Schweitzer is incapable of making the transition from a negative critique of culture to a recognition of what must enter this culture as a new spiritual life that will enrich it. Anthroposophy has, after all, been around just as long as Albert Schweitzer—admittedly since 1900—has been writing this book. But he failed to notice that, in a positive sense, anthroposophy seeks precisely what he merely criticizes in a negative sense: to bring spirit into culture. In this regard, he even becomes quite amusing. For toward the end of the last part of his work, he says something to the effect of:

[ 37 ] “In and of itself, reflecting on the meaning of life is significant. Should such reflection arise among us again”—this is a conditional sentence, but a flawed one, for it should actually read: If such reflection were to arise among us again! —, “then the ideals of vanity and passion, which now proliferate like evil weeds in the convictions of the masses, would wither away beyond redemption. How much would already be gained for today’s circumstances if we all simply looked up thoughtfully at the infinite worlds of the starry sky for three minutes every evening...” — so he concludes that it would be good for people if they looked up at the starry sky for three minutes every evening! If you tell them this, they will certainly not do it; but read in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? to find out how these things should be done. It’s hard to understand why the step from the negative to the positive simply cannot be taken here—it’s hard to understand! “... and when attending a funeral, we would immerse ourselves in the mystery of death and life, instead of walking behind the coffin engaged in thoughtless conversation.”

[ 38 ] You see, when one is so negative, one concludes such a reflection on the cultural crisis by saying: “Thought up to now has sought to understand the meaning of life from the meaning of the world. It may be that we must resign ourselves to leaving the meaning of the world aside and giving our lives meaning through the will to live as it exists within us. Even if the paths along which we must strive toward this goal still lie in darkness, the direction in which we must go is clear.”

[ 39 ] Just as clear as it was that his chickens were beautiful chickens, and just as clear as it is when someone says of the plans for his house: “The house should be sturdy, weatherproof, and beautiful.” Most people today take it for granted when they characterize something in this way, and do not even realize how unclear it actually is.

[ 40 ] “Together we must reflect on the meaning of life, struggle together to arrive at a worldview that affirms the world and life, in which our drive to act—which we experience as necessary and valuable—finds justification, orientation, clarification, deepening, refinement, and strengthening ...” — A house should be beautiful, sturdy, weatherproof, and suitable for comfortable living. When speaking of a house, one says this; when speaking of a worldview, one says: The worldview should be such that it can provide justification, orientation, clarification, deepening, moral refinement, and fortification! — “... and thereby become capable of establishing and realizing definitive cultural ideals inspired by the spirit of true humanity.”

[ 41 ] There we have it. The sharpest, most fully acknowledged thinking about the negative—the absolute inability to see anything positive anywhere. Those people whom we must praise the most today—and Albert Schweitzer is among those whom we must praise the most today—find themselves in such a situation. Anthroposophists, in particular, should develop a keen awareness of this, so that they are well-informed when someone comes along who, in the sense of this astute Albert Schweitzer, is a “philosopher”—for example, a Neo-Kantian, as people call themselves— and who are completely unaware not only that they have slept through the process of thinking, but also that they have not even noticed how they have slept through it. Of course, one cannot expect such people to understand anthroposophy. But we should nevertheless keep a watchful eye on the way in which such people—who are rightly described by Schweitzer as the “sleepy philosophers” of the 19th and 20th centuries—now speak of anthroposophy. We should look at the present with a watchful eye in all directions.

[ 42 ] A newspaper article first discusses how little impact Bergson has on Kant. But then it goes on to say: Steiner’s wild speculations and his grand intellectual tirades stand up even less to an epistemological examination grounded in Kant. Steiner, too, believes he is going beyond Kant and the Neo-Kantians to attain higher insights. In fact, he lags far behind them and, as can easily be demonstrated from his writings, has completely misunderstood them on crucial points.

[ 43 ] Of course, this is simply trumpeted in newspapers around the world without any justification whatsoever. And then these people—who are capable of thinking this way, or rather, who are far from being able to think the way Rubner does—say: All you have to do is ask contemporary science, and then you’ll know quite well what these so-called insights—these “brain bubbles,” as he calls them—actually mean.

[ 44 ] One must certainly be attentive to these matters, and one must not let them slip by unnoticed. For this—as Albert Schweitzer calls it—thoughtless science is indeed able to assert itself; it is already asserting itself in the world, and for the time being, it holds power. Many people today say that one should not look to power, but to justice; but unfortunately, they then call the power they possess “justice.” Well, I’ll spare you the rest of the gibberish he goes on about today, because that’s where he veers off into spiritualist phenomena, which likewise must be investigated by science today, and so on.

[ 45 ] But when these poor students do come into contact with anthroposophy and absorb these “brain bubbles,” Max Rubner offers them this advice: “But there is always something refreshing about working in a new, previously untilled field of the brain.” Some fields have been tilled time and again! Well, if “brain bubbles” rise up in these poor students’ minds as they engage with anthroposophy, and they then set about plowing through these mental fields, then those bubbles will most certainly vanish before the plowshare. So in this respect, the story holds true once again. To recognize what seeks to enter as something positive into our culture—which, as even the finest minds admit, is disintegrating, indeed has already disintegrated—to recognize the positive—this is something that even the finest minds of the present, insofar as they are immersed in the current cultural scene, are actually quite incapable of doing. So it remains the case that, when they are asked to describe what the house should be like, they do not pick up a pencil or use a model to design the house—as anthroposophy does—but instead they say: The house should be beautiful and sturdy and weatherproof, and such that one can live comfortably inside it. That’s how people talk about a house. When it comes to a worldview, people say it should be optimistic, it should be ethical, one should be able to find one’s bearings within it—and whatever else people may have called these things, they ultimately mean nothing other than what I have told you.

[ 46 ] You see that it is necessary—and you will recognize this from the nature of the matter itself—to sometimes go a little beyond what is happening in civilization. That is why I have offered today’s episodic reflection. Next Friday, let’s continue talking about these things—not just saying that a house should be beautiful, sturdy, and weatherproof so that one can live comfortably in it, or that a worldview should be optimistic and ethical so that one can find one’s bearings within it, and so on—but let’s really point to true anthroposophy, to the spiritual life that our culture needs.