The Renewal of the Social Organism
GA 24
4. The Threefold Social Order and Educational Freedom
[ 1 ] The public nurturance of spiritual and cultural life in education has in recent years become more and more a matter for the state. That the schools are the state's business is presently a notion so deeply rooted in people's minds that anyone who tries to dislodge it is regarded as an unworldly “ideologue.” Yet this is a sphere of life that presents matter for the most serious consideration. People who complain in this way of “unworldliness” have no idea of how far what they uphold is removed from the world. Our school system is marked especially by features that reflect the tendencies toward decline in modern cultural life. The social structures of modern governments have not followed the requirements of actual life. For instance, they have taken on a form that does not satisfy the economic demands of modern humanity. They have also set this same backward stamp upon the school system, which, having liberated it from the religious confessions, they have now brought into complete dependence on themselves. At every level, schools mold human beings into the form the state requires for doing what the state deems necessary. Arrangements in the schools reflect the government's requirements. There is much talk, certainly, of striving to achieve an all-around development of the person, and so on; but the modern person unconsciously feels so completely a part of the whole order of the state that he does not even notice, when talking about the all-around development of the human being, that what is meant is molding the human being into a useful servant of the state.
[ 2 ] In this regard, no good may be expected from the way of thinking of those today who hold socialist views. They are bent on transforming the old state into a huge economic organization. State schools are supposed to project themselves on into this economic organization. This would magnify all the faults of present-day schools in the most dubious way imaginable. Up until now, much that originated before the state took control of the educational system still has remained in the schools. One cannot, of course, wish a return to the old form of spirituality that has come down from those earlier times; rather, one should endeavor to bring the new spirit of evolving humanity into the schools. This spirit shall not be in the schools if the state is transformed into an economic organization and the schools are redesigned to turn out people meant to be the most serviceable labor machines for this economic organization. People today talk much about the comprehensive school [“Einheitsschule”]. It is beside the point that this imagined comprehensive school is in theory a very fine thing, for if they make it an organic part of an economic organization it cannot really be such a fine thing.
[ 3 ] The real need of the present is that the schools be totally grounded in a free spiritual and cultural life. What should be taught and cultivated in these schools must be drawn solely from a knowledge of the growing human being and of individual capacities. A genuine anthropology must form the basis of education and instruction. The question should not be: What does a human being need to know and be able to do for the social order that now exists?, but rather: What capacities are latent in this human being, and what lies within that can be developed? Then it will be possible to bring ever new forces into the social order from the rising generations. The life of the social order will be what is made of it by a succession of fully developed human beings who take their places in the social order. The rising generation should not be molded into what the existing social order chooses to make of it.
[ 4 ] A healthy relation exists between school and society only when society is kept constantly supplied with the new and individual potentials of persons whose educations have allowed them to develop unhampered. This can be realized only if the schools and the whole educational system are placed on a footing of self-administration within the social organism. The government and the economy must receive people educated by the independent spiritual-cultural life; they must not, however, have the power to prescribe according to their own wants how these human beings are to be educated. What a person ought to know and be able to do at any particular stage of life must be decided by human nature itself. Both the state and economic life will have to conform to the demands of human nature. It is neither for the state nor the economic life to say: We need someone of this sort for a particular post; therefore test the people that we need and pay heed above all that they know and can do what we want. Rather, the spiritual-cultural organ of the social organism should, following the dictates of its own independent administration, bring those who are suitably gifted to a certain level of cultivation, and the state and economic life should organize themselves in accordance with the results of work in the spiritual-cultural sphere.
[ 5 ] Since political and economic life are not something apart from human nature, but rather the outcome of human nature itself, there need never be any fear that a really free cultural life, placed on its own footing, will produce people who are unworldly. On the contrary, unworldliness results precisely when the existing governmental and economic institutions are allowed to shape educational matters according to their own dictates. For in the state and in economic life attitudes must necessarily be adopted in accordance with the existing order. The development of the growing human being requires entirely different kinds of thought and feeling as its guide. One can only do one's work as an educator when one stands in a free, individual relationship to the pupil one teaches. One must know that, for the guidelines of one's work, one is dependent only on knowledge of human nature, the principles of social life and such things; but not upon regulations or laws prescribed from outside. If one serously desires to transform the present order of society into one in which social attitudes prevail, then one must not be afraid to place the spiritual-cultural life (including the school and educational system) under its own independent control because from such a free, independent system within the social organism men and women will go forth with joy and zeal to take an active part in all its life. After all, only people who lack this joy and zeal can come out of schools ruled by the state and the economic system; these people feel as deadly blight the after-effects of a domination to which they should not have been subjected before they had become fully conscious citizens and co-workers in the state and the economic system. The growing human being should mature with the aid of educators and teachers independent of the state and the economic system, educators who can allow individual faculties to develop freely because their own have been given free rein.
[ 6 ] In my book, Toward Social Renewal, I have taken pains to show that the world view adopted by the leaders among party socialists is in all essentials simply a continuance (carried to a certain extreme) of the bourgeois world view of the last three or four centuries. The socialists cherish the illusion that their ideas represent a complete break with this world view. They do not represent a break, but rather only a peculiar coloring of the bourgeois world view with working-class feelings and sentiments. This is shown very markedly by the attitude these socialist leaders adopt toward cultural life and its place in the social organism. Owing to the predominance of economics in bourgeois society during the last few centuries, the spiritual and cultural life has fallen into great dependence on economic life. The consciousness of a self-sustaining spiritual-cultural life, in which the human soul partakes, has been lost. Industrialism and our view of nature have collaborated to bring about this loss. Linked to this loss is the particular way the schools were incorporated into the social organism in recent times. To make the human being serviceable for external life in state and industry—that became the main thing. That man is above all a being with a soul who therefore should be filled with the consciousness of his connection with a spiritual order of things, and that it is through his consciousness that he imparts sense to the state and economic system in which he lives—all this was considered less and less. Minds were directed ever less toward the spiritual order of the world, and ever more toward the conditions of economic production. In the middle class this became a manner of feeling, an instinctive psychological tendency. Working class leaders made it into a philosophy of life—or rather, into a dogma.
[ 7 ] This dogma would have disastrous consequences if it were to remain the foundation of the school system into the future. For in reality, since even at its best an economically-determined social organism cannot make suitable provision for any genuine cultural life (and, in particular, not for a productive educational system), this educational system would have to owe its existence first of all to a continuation of the old world of thought. The parties that claim to represent a new order would be obliged to leave the cultural life of the schools in the hands of the representatives of the old world views. However, since under such conditions there could be no question of any internal link between the newly rising generation and the old, artificially prolonged culture, cultural life would necessarily become more and more stagnant. The souls of this generaton would wither away after being sown on the rocky ground of a world view that can give them no inner source of strength. Men would grow up soulless beings within a social order arising out of industrialism.
[ 8 ] In order that this may not take place, the movement for the threefold social order strives for the complete disassociation of the educational system from government and industry. The place and function of educators within society should depend solely upon the authority of those engaged in this activity. The administration of the educational institutions, the organization of courses of instruction and their goals should be entirely in the hands of persons who themselves are simultaneously either teaching or otherwise productively engaged in cultural life. In each case, such persons would divide their time between actual teaching (or some other form of cultural productivity) and the administrative control of the educational system. It will be evident to anyone who can bring himself to an unbiased examination of cultural life that the peculiar vitality and energy of soul required for organizing and directing educational institutions will be called forth only in someone actively engaged in teaching or in some sort of cultural creativity.
[ 9 ] Today few will concede this fully—only those who are unbiased enough to see that a new source of cultural life must spring forth if our devastated social order is to be renewed. In the essay “Marxism and the Threefold Social Order,” I pointed out both the correctness and also the one-sidedness of Engels' notion: “The management of goods and control of the means of production takes the place of governing of people.” Correct though this is, it is nonetheless equally true that in the old order social life was possible only because along with the economic processes of production, people themselves were guided and governed. If this joint governance of people and economic processes ends, then people must receive their motivating impulses (which hitherto came from those governing them) from a free and independent cultural life.
[ 10 ] Moreover, there is something else: The life of the spirit prospers only when able to unfold as a unity. The same exercise of the soul's powers that leads to a humanly satisfying and sustaining world view must also supply the productive power that makes one a good co-worker in economic life. Men and women with a practical sense for outer life will emerge only from an educational system that is able to develop in a healthy way our innate longings for a loftier world view. A social order that only manages goods and controls processes of production must in the end go completely awry if it is not kept supplied with persons whose souls are healthily developed.
[ 11 ] If, then, there is to be any renewal of our social life, we must find the strength to introduce an independent, self-sustaining educational system. If men are no longer to “govern” their fellows in the old way, then it must be made possible for the free spirit in every human soul, with all the strength possible for the human individualities of any one age, to make itself the guide of life. This spirit will not allow itself to be suppressed. Institutions that tried to rule educational life from the point of view of the economic system alone would constitute an attempt at suppression. This would lead the free spirit to revolt constantly out of the depths of its own natural foundations. Incessant shocks to the whole social edifice would be the inevitable consequence of any system that tried to organize education in the same way it controlled the processes of production.
[ 12 ] For anyone who perceives these things clearly, one of the most urgent demands of the times shall be the founding of a human community that will strive with utmost energy to realize the freedom and self-determination of the educational system. Other necessary demands of the times cannot find satisfaction as long as what is proper for this sphere remains unrecognized. It really requires only an unbiased observation of our spiritual life in its present form—in its distraction and disunity, its lack of strength to sustain the human soul—in order to recognize that just this is proper.
Freie Schule und Dreigliederung
[ 1 ] Die öffentliche Pflege des Geisteslebens in Erziehung und Schule ist in der neueren Zeit immer mehr zur Staatssache geworden. Daß das Schulwesen eine vom Staat zu besorgende Angelegenheit sei, wurzelt gegenwärtig so tief im Bewußtsein der Menschen, daß, wer an diesem Urteil rütteln zu müssen vermeint, als ein weltfremder «Ideologe» angesehen wird. Und doch liegt gerade auf diesem Lebensgebiete etwas vor, das der allerernstesten Erwägung bedarf. Denn diejenigen, die in der angedeuteten Art über «Wekfremdheit» denken, ahnen gar nicht, welch eine weltfremde Sache sie selbst verteidigen. Unser Schulwesen trägt ganz besonders die Charakterzüge an sich, die ein Abbild sind der niedergehenden Strömungen im Kulturleben der gegenwärtigen Menschheit. Die neueren Staatsgebilde sind mit ihrer sozialen Struktur den Anforderungen des Lebens nicht gefolgt. Sie zeigen zum Beispiel eine Gestaltung, die den wirtschaftlichen Forderungen der neueren Menschheit nicht genügt. Sie haben diese Rückständigkeit auch dem Schulwesen aufgedrückt, das sie, nachdem sie es den Religionsgemeinschaften entrissen, ganz in Abhängigkeit von sich gebracht haben. Die Schule auf allen ihren Stufen bildet die Menschen so aus, wie sie der Staat für die Leistungen braucht, die er für notwendig hält. In den Einrichtungen der Schulen spiegeln sich die Bedürfnisse des Staates. Man redet zwar viel von allgemeiner Menschenbildung und ähnlichem, das man anstreben will; aber der neuere Mensch fühh sich unbewußt so stark als ein Glied der staatlichen Ordnung, daß er gar nicht bemerkt, wie er von der allgemeinen Menschenbildung redet und eigentlich die Ausbildung zum brauchbaren Staatsdiener meint.
[ 2 ] In dieser Beziehung verspricht die Gesinnung der sozialistisch Denkenden von heute nichts Gutes. Man will den alten Staat umwandeln in eine große Wirtschaftsorganisation. In diese hinein soll sich fortsetzen die Staatsschule. Diese Fortsetzung würde alle Fehler der gegenwärtigen Schule in bedenklichster Art vergrößern. Bisher steckte in dieser Schule noch manches, was Zeiten entstammte, in denen der Staat noch nicht Beherrscher des Unterrichtswesens war. Man kann natürlich die Herrschaft des Geistes nicht zurückwünschen, der aus diesen alten Zeiten stammt. Aber man müßte bestrebt sein, den neuen Geist der fortentwickelten Menschheit in die Schule hineinzutragen. Dieser Geist wird nicht darinnen sein, wenn man den Staat in eine Wirtschaftsorganisation umwandelt und die Schule so umgestaltet, daß aus ihr Menschen hervorgehen, die die brauchbarsten Arbeitsmaschinen in dieser Wirtschaftsorganisation sein können. Man spricht heute viel von einer «Einheitsschule». Daß man sich theoretisch unter dieser Einheitsschule etwas sehr Schönes vorstellt, darauf kommt es nicht an. Denn, wenn man die Schule als ein organisches Glied einer Wirtschaftsorganisation ausgestaltet, so kann sie nicht etwas Schönes sein.
[ 3 ] Worauf es der Gegenwart ankommen muß, das ist, die Schule ganz in einem freien Geistesleben zu verankern. Was gelehrt und erzogen werden soll, das soll nur aus der Erkenntnis des werdenden Menschen und seiner individuellen Anlagen entnommen sein. Wahrhaftige Anthropologie soll die Grundlage der Erziehung und des Unterrichtes sein. Nicht gefragt soll werden: Was braucht der Mensch zu wissen und zu können für die soziale Ordnung, die besteht; sondern: Was ist im Menschen veranlagt und was kann in ihm entwickelt werden? Dann wird es möglich sein, der sozialen Ordnung immer neue Kräfte aus der heranwachsenden Generation zuzuführen. Dann wird in dieser Ordnung immer das leben, was die in sie eintretenden Vollmenschen aus ihr machen; nicht aber wird aus der heranwachsenden Generation das gemacht werden, was die bestehende soziale Organisation aus ihr machen will.
[ 4 ] Ein gesundes Verhältnis zwischen Schule und sozialer Organisation besteht nur, wenn der letzteren immer die in ungehemmter Entwickelung herangebildeten neuen individuellen Menschheitsanlagen zugeführt werden. Das kann nur geschehen, wenn die Schule und das Erziehungswesen innerhalb des sozialen Organismus auf den Boden ihrer Selbstverwaltung gestellt werden. Das Staats- und Wirtschaftsleben sollen die von dem selbständigen Geistesleben herangebildeten Menschen empfangen; nicht aber sollen sie, nach ihren Bedürfnissen, deren Bildungsgang vorschreiben können. Was ein Mensch in einem bestimmten Lebensalter wissen und können soll, das muß sich aus der Menschennatur heraus ergeben. Staat und Wirtschaft werden sich so gestalten müssen, daß sie den Forderungen der Menschennatur entsprechen. Nicht der Staat oder das Wirtschaftsleben haben zu sagen: So brauchen wir den Menschen für ein bestimmtes Amt; also prüft uns die Menschen, die wir brauchen und sorgt zuerst dafür, daß sie wissen und können, was wir brauchen; sondern das geistige Glied des sozialen Organismus soll aus seiner Selbstverwaltung heraus die entsprechend begabten Menschen zu einem gewissen Grade der Ausbildung bringen, und Staat und Wirtschaft sollen sich gemäß den Ergebnissen der Arbeit im geistigen Gliede einrichten.
[ 5 ] Da das Leben des Staates und der Wirtschaft nichts von der Menschennatur Abgesondertes sind, sondern das Ergebnis dieser Natur, so ist niemals zu befürchten, daß ein wirklich freies, auf sich selbst gestelltes Geistesleben wirklichkeitsfremde Menschen ausbildet. Dagegen entstehen solche lebensfremde Menschen gerade dann, wenn die bestehenden Staats- und Wirtschaftseinrichtungen das Erziehungs- und Schulwesen von sich aus regeln. Denn in Staat und Wirtschaft müssen die Gesichtspunkte innerhalb des Bestehenden, Gewordenen eingenommen werden. Zur Entwickelung des werdenden Menschen braucht man ganz andere Richtlinien des Denkens und Empfindens. Man kommt als Erzieher, als Unterrichtender nur zurecht, wenn man in einer freien, individuellen Weise dem zu Erziehenden, zu Unterrichtenden gegenübersteht. Man muß sich für die Richtlinien des Wirkens nur abhängig wissen von Erkenntnissen über die Menschennatur, über das Wesen der sozialen Ordnung und ähnliches, nicht aber von Vorschriften oder Gesetzen, die von außen gegeben werden. Will man ernstlich die bisherige Gesellschaftsordnung in eine solche nach sozialen Gesichtspunkten überleiten, so wird man nicht davor zurückschrecken dürfen, das geistige Leben - mit dem Erziehungs- und Schulwesen - in seine eigene Verwaltung zu stellen. Denn aus einem solchen selbständigen Gliede des sozialen Organismus werden Menschen hervorgehen mit Eifer und Lust zum Wirken im sozialen Organismus; aus einer vom Staat oder vom Wirtschaftsleben geregelten Schule können aber doch nur Menschen kommen, denen dieser Eifer und diese Lust fehlen, weil sie die Nachwirkung einer Herrschaft wie etwas Ertötendes empfinden, die nicht hätte über sie ausgeübt werden dürfen, bevor sie vollbewußte Mitbürger und Mitarbeiter dieses Staates und dieser Wirtschaft sind. Der werdende Mensch soll erwachsen durch die Kraft des von Staat und Wirtschaft unabhängigen Erziehers und Lehrers, der die individuellen Fähigkeiten frei entwickeln kann, weil die seinigen in Freiheit walten dürfen.
[ 6 ] In meinem Buche «Die Kernpunkte der sozialen Frage in den Lebensnotwendigkeiten der Gegenwart und Zukunft» habe ich mich bemüht, zu zeigen, daß in der Lebensauffassung der parteimäßig führenden Sozialisten im wesentlichen nur die nach einem gewissen Extrem getriebene Gedankenwelt des Bürgertums der letzten drei bis vier Jahrhunderte weiterlebt. Es ist die Illusion dieser Sozialisten, daß ihre Ideen einen völligen Bruch mit dieser Gedankenwelt darstellen. Nicht ein solcher liegt vor, sondern nur die besondere Färbung der bürgerlichen Lebensauffassung aus dem Fühlen und Empfinden des Proletariats heraus. Dies zeigt sich ganz besonders stark in der Stellung, welche diese sozialistischen Führer zum Geistesleben und seiner Eingliederung in den gesellschaftlichen Organismus einnehmen. Durch die hervorragende Bedeutung des Wirtschaftslebens in der bürgerlichen Gesellschaftsorganisation der letzten Jahrhunderte ist das Geistesleben in eine starke Abhängigkeit von dem Wirtschaftsleben gekommen. Das Bewußtsein von einem in sich selbst gegründeten Geistesleben, an dem die Menschenseele Anteil hat, ist verloren gegangen. Naturanschauung und Industrialismus haben diesen Verlust mitbewirkt. Damit hängt zusammen, wie man in der neueren Zeit die Schule in den gesellschaftlichen Organismus eingliederte. Den Menschen für das äußere Leben in Staat und Wirtschaft brauchbar zu machen, wurde die Hauptsache. Daß er in erster Linie als seelisches Wesen erfüllt sein solle mit dem Bewußtsein seines Zusammenhanges mit einer Geistesordnung der Dinge und daß er durch dieses sein Bewußtsein dem Staate und der Wirtschaft, in denen er lebt, einen Sinn gibt, daran wurde immer weniger gedacht. Die Köpfe richteten sich immer weniger nach der geistigen Weltordnung und immer mehr nach den wirtschaftlichen Produktionsverhältnissen. Beim Bürgertum wurde dieses zu einer empfindungsgemäßen Richtung des Seelenlebens. Die proletarischen Führer machten daraus eine theoretische Lebensauffassung, ein Lebensdogma.
[ 7 ] Verheerend würde dieses Lebensdogma werden, wenn es grundlegend sein wollte für den Aufbau des Schulwesens in die Zukunft hinein. Da in Wirklichkeit ja doch aus einer noch so vortrefflichen wirtschaftlichen Gestaltung des sozialen Organismus sich keine Pflege eines wahren Geisteslebens, insbesondere auch keine produktive Einrichtung des Schulwesens ergeben kann, so müßte zunächst diese Einrichtung durch die Fortführung der alten Gedankenwelt herbeigeführt werden. Die Parteien, die Träger einer neuen Lebensgestaltung sein wollen, müßten das Geistige in den Schulen von den Trägern der alten Weltanschauungen fortpflegen lassen. Da aber unter solchen Verhältnissen ein innerer Zusammenhang der heranwachsenden Generation zu dem fortgepflegten Alten doch nicht aufkommen kann, müßte das geistige Leben immer mehr versumpfen. Die Seelen dieser Generation würden veröden durch das unwahrhaftige Stehen in einer Lebensauffassung, die ihnen nicht innerer Kraftquell werden könnte. Die Menschen würden seelenleere Wesen innerhalb der aus dem Industrialismus hervorgehenden Gesellschaftsordnung.
[ 8 ] Damit dieses nicht geschehe, erstrebt die Bewegung nach dem dreigliedrigen sozialen Organismus die völlige Loslösung des Unterrichtswesens von dem Staats- und Wirtschaftsleben. Die soziale Gliederung der am Unterrichtswesen beteiligten Persönlichkeiten soll von keinen anderen Mächten abhängen als nur von dem an diesem Wesen mitbeschäftigten Menschen. Die Verwaltung der Unterrichtsanstalten, die Einrichtung der Lehrgänge und Lehrziele soll nur von Personen besorgt werden, die zugleich lehren, oder sonst produktiv im Geistesleben sich betätigen. Jede solche Person würde ihre Zeit teilen zwischen Unterrichten oder sonstigem geistigen. Schaffen und Verwalten des Unterrichtswesens. Wer sich vorurteilslos in eine Beurteilung des geistigen Lebens einzulassen vermag, der kann einsehen, daß die lebendige Kraft, die man zum Organisieren und Verwalten des Erziehungs- und Unterrichtswesens braucht, nur in der Seele erwachsen kann, wenn man tätig im Unterrichten oder sonstigem geistigen Hervorbringen drinnen steht.
[ 9 ] Voll zugeben wird dieses für unsere Gegenwart wohl nur derjenige, der unbefangen sieht, wie eine neue Quelle des Geisteslebens sich eröffnen muß zum Aufbau unserer zusammengebrochenen Gesellschaftsordnung. Im Aufsatz «Marxismus und Dreigliederung» habe ich auf den richtigen, aber einseitigen Gedanken Engels hingewiesen: «An die Stelle der Regierung über Personen tritt die Verwaltung von Sachen und die Leitung von Produktionsprozessen.» So richtig das ist, so wahr ist das andere, daß in den gesellschaftlichen Ordnungen der Vergangenheit das Leben der Menschen nur möglich war, weil mit der Leitung der wirtschaftlichen Produktionsprozesse zugleich die Menschen mitregiert wurden. Hört dieses Mitregieren auf, so müssen die Menschen aus dem frei auf sich gestellten Geistesleben die Lebensantriebe empfangen, welche durch die bisherigen Regierungsimpulse in ihnen wirkten.
[ 10 ] Zu alledem kommt noch ein anderes. Das Geistesleben gedeiht nur, wenn es als Einheit sich entfalten kann. Aus derselben Entwickelung der Seelenkräfte, aus der eine befriedigende, den Menschen tragende Weltauffassung stammt, muß auch die produktive Kraft kommen, die den Menschen zum rechten Mitarbeiter im Wirtschaftsleben macht. Praktische Menschen für das äußere Leben werden doch nur aus einem solchen Unterrichtswesen hervorgehen, das in gesunder Art auch die höheren Weltanschauungstriebe zu entwickeln vermag. Eine Gesellschaftsordnung, die nur Sachen verwaltet und Produktionsprozesse leitet, müßte nach und nach auf ganz schiefe Wege kommen, wenn ihr nicht Menschen mit gesund entwickelten Seelen zugeführt würden.
[ 11 ] Ein Neuaufbau unseres gesellschaftlichen Lebens muß daher die Kraft gewinnen, das selbständige Unterrichtswesen einzurichten. Wenn nicht mehr Menschen über Menschen in der alten Art «regieren» sollen, so muß die Möglichkeit geschaffen werden, daß der freie Geist in jeder Menschenseele so kraftvoll, als es in den menschlichen Individualitäten jeweilig möglich ist, zum Lenker des Lebens wird. Dieser Geist läßt sich aber nicht unterdrücken. Einrichtungen, die aus den bloßen Gesichtspunkten einer wirtschaftlichen Ordnung das Schulwesen regeln wollten, wären der Versuch einer solchen Unterdrückung. Sie würde dazu führen, daß der freie Geist aus seinen Naturgrundlagen heraus fortdauernd revoltieren würde. Die kontinuierliche Erschütterung des Gesellschaftsbaues wäre die notwendige Folge einer Ordnung, die aus der Leitung der Produktionsprozesse zugleich das Schulwesen organisieren wollte.
[ 12 ] Wer diese Dinge überschaut, für den wird die Begründung einer Menschengemeinschaft, welche die Freiheit und Selbstverwaltung des Erziehungs- und Schulwesens energisch erstrebt, zu einer der wichtigsten Zeitforderungen. Alle anderen notwendigen Zeitbedürfnisse werden ihre Befriedigung nicht finden können, wenn auf diesem Gebiete das Rechte nicht eingesehen wird. Und es bedarf eigentlich nur des unbefangenen Blickes auf die Gestalt unseres gegenwärtigen Geisteslebens mit seiner Zerrissenheit, mit seiner geringen Tragkraft für die menschlichen Seelen, um dieses Rechte einzusehen.
Free school and threefolding
[ 1 ] The public cultivation of spiritual life in education and schools has increasingly become a matter for the state in recent times. The fact that the school system is a matter for the state is currently so deeply rooted in people's consciousness that anyone who thinks they have to shake this judgment is regarded as an unworldly "ideologue". And yet it is precisely in this area of life that there is something that requires the most serious consideration. For those who think about "unworldliness" in the way I have indicated have no idea what an unworldly thing they themselves are defending. Our school system is particularly characterized by traits that are a reflection of the declining currents in the cultural life of contemporary humanity. The social structure of the newer states has not kept pace with the demands of life. They show, for example, an organization that does not meet the economic demands of modern mankind. They have also imposed this backwardness on the school system, which, having torn it away from the religious communities, they have made completely dependent on themselves. The school at all its levels educates people in the way that the state needs them for the services it deems necessary. The needs of the state are reflected in school facilities. There is much talk of general human education and the like, which one wants to strive for; but the newer man unconsciously feels himself so strongly as a member of the state order that he does not even realize how he is talking about general human education and actually means the training to become a useful public servant.
[ 2 ] In this respect, the attitude of today's socialist thinkers promises nothing good. They want to transform the old state into a large economic organization. Into this the state school is to be continued. This continuation would magnify all the faults of the present school in the most alarming way. Up to now, there was still much in this school that came from times when the state was not yet the ruler of education. Of course, one cannot wish back the rule of the spirit that originated in those old times. But one should endeavor to bring the new spirit of advanced humanity into the school. This spirit will not be there if the state is transformed into an economic organization and the school is reshaped in such a way that people emerge from it who can be the most useful working machines in this economic organization. There is much talk today of a "unified school". It doesn't matter that in theory this unified school is imagined to be something very beautiful. Because if the school is designed as an organic part of an economic organization, it cannot be something beautiful.
[ 3 ] What is important for the present is to anchor the school entirely in a free spiritual life. What is to be taught and educated should only be derived from the knowledge of the nascent human being and his individual dispositions. True anthropology should be the basis of education and teaching. The question should not be: What does a person need to know and be able to do for the existing social order? What is inherent in man and what can be developed in him? Then it will be possible to constantly supply the social order with new forces from the growing generation. Then there will always live in this order what the full human beings who enter it make of it; but the growing generation will not be made into what the existing social organization wants to make of it.
[ 4 ] A healthy relationship between school and social organization can only exist if the latter is always supplied with the new individual human dispositions formed in uninhibited development. This can only happen if the school and the educational system within the social organism are placed on the basis of their self-administration. State and economic life should receive the people educated by the independent spiritual life; they should not, however, be able to dictate their course of education according to their needs. What a person should know and be able to do at a certain age must result from human nature. The state and the economy must be organized in such a way that they correspond to the demands of human nature. It is not for the state or economic life to say: This is how we need people for a certain office; so check us for the people we need and first make sure that they know and can do what we need; but the spiritual part of the social organism should, out of its self-government, bring the appropriately gifted people to a certain degree of education, and the state and economy should organize themselves according to the results of the work in the spiritual part.
[ 5 ] Since the life of the state and the economy are not something separate from human nature, but the result of this nature, it is never to be feared that a truly free spiritual life, left to its own devices, will train people who are alien to reality. On the other hand, such alienated people arise precisely when the existing state and economic institutions regulate the educational and school system of their own accord. For in the state and the economy, the points of view must be taken from within what already exists and has become. The development of the nascent human being requires completely different guidelines for thinking and feeling. As an educator, as a teacher, one can only cope if one faces the person to be educated or taught in a free, individual way. For the guidelines of one's work, one must only be dependent on knowledge about human nature, the nature of the social order and the like, but not on rules or laws given from outside. If one seriously wishes to transform the existing social order into one based on social aspects, one must not shy away from placing intellectual life - including education and schools - under its own administration. For from such an independent member of the social organism people will emerge with zeal and desire to work in the social organism; from a school regulated by the state or by economic life, however, can only come people who lack this zeal and desire, because they feel the after-effects of a rule that should not have been exercised over them before they are fully conscious fellow citizens and employees of this state and this economy. The nascent human being should grow up through the power of the educator and teacher who is independent of the state and the economy and who can freely develop individual abilities because his own are allowed to rule in freedom.
[ 6 ] In my book "Die Kernpunkte der sozialen Frage in den Lebensnotwendigkeiten der Gegenwart und Zukunft" (The Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life in the Present and Future), I have endeavored to show that in the conception of life of the leading party socialists essentially only the world of thought of the bourgeoisie of the last three to four centuries, driven to a certain extreme, lives on. It is the illusion of these socialists that their ideas represent a complete break with this world of thought. This is not the case, but only the particular coloring of the bourgeois conception of life from the feelings and sensibilities of the proletariat. This is particularly evident in the position which these socialist leaders take on intellectual life and its integration into the social organism. Through the outstanding importance of economic life in the bourgeois organization of society in recent centuries, intellectual life has become strongly dependent on economic life. The consciousness of a spiritual life founded in itself, in which the human soul has a share, has been lost. The view of nature and industrialism have contributed to this loss. The way in which the school has been integrated into the social organism in more recent times is connected with this. Making people useful for external life in the state and the economy became the main concern. Less and less thought was given to the fact that he should first and foremost be filled as a spiritual being with the awareness of his connection with a spiritual order of things and that through this awareness he gives meaning to the state and the economy in which he lives. Minds focused less and less on the spiritual world order and more and more on the economic relations of production. Among the bourgeoisie, this became a sentimental direction in the life of the soul. The proletarian leaders turned it into a theoretical view of life, a dogma of life.
[ 7 ] This dogma of life would become disastrous if it wanted to be fundamental for the development of the school system in the future. Since in reality no cultivation of a true spiritual life, and in particular no productive establishment of the school system, can result from an economic organization of the social organism, however excellent it may be, this establishment would first have to be brought about by the continuation of the old world of thought. The parties who want to be the bearers of a new way of life would have to have the spiritual in the schools cultivated by the bearers of the old world views. But since, under such conditions, an inner connection between the growing generation and the cultivated old cannot arise, the spiritual life would become more and more stagnant. The souls of this generation would become desolate through the untruthful standing in a view of life that could not become a source of inner strength for them. People would become soulless beings within the social order emerging from industrialism.
[ 8 ] To prevent this from happening, the movement for a tripartite social organism strives for the complete separation of education from state and economic life. The social organization of the personalities involved in education should not depend on any other powers than the people involved in this system. The administration of educational institutions, the organization of courses and teaching objectives should only be undertaken by persons who at the same time teach or are otherwise productively engaged in intellectual life. Each such person would divide their time between teaching or other intellectual activities. Creation and administration of the teaching system. Anyone who is able to enter into an unprejudiced assessment of the spiritual life can see that the living power needed to organize and administer education and teaching can only arise in the soul if one is actively involved in teaching or other spiritual production.
[ 9 ] Only those who see impartially how a new source of spiritual life must open up for the construction of our collapsed social order will fully admit this for our present day. In the essay "Marxism and the Threefold Order" I referred to Engels' correct but one-sided thought: "The administration of things and the management of production processes takes the place of the government of persons." As true as this is, it is also true that in the social orders of the past, human life was only possible because people were co-governed along with the management of economic production processes. If this co-government ceases, then people must receive the life impulses from the free spiritual life, which have worked in them through the previous government impulses.
[ 10 ] There is another aspect to all this. Spiritual life only flourishes when it can unfold as a unity. From the same development of the powers of the soul that gives rise to a satisfying conception of the world that sustains man, must also come the productive power that makes man a true collaborator in economic life. Practical people for external life will only emerge from an educational system that is able to develop the higher worldview instincts in a healthy way. A social order that only administers things and manages production processes would gradually go astray if it were not supplied with people with healthily developed souls.
[ 11 ] A reorganization of our social life must therefore gain the strength to establish an independent educational system. If people are no longer to "rule" over people in the old way, then the possibility must be created for the free spirit in every human soul to become as powerful a director of life as is possible in each human individuality. But this spirit cannot be suppressed. Institutions that wanted to regulate the school system from the mere point of view of an economic order would be an attempt at such suppression. It would lead to the free spirit continually revolting from its natural foundations. The continuous shattering of the social structure would be the necessary consequence of an order that wanted to organize the school system from the management of the production processes at the same time.
[ 12 ] For those who see these things, the establishment of a human community that energetically strives for the freedom and self-administration of the educational and school system becomes one of the most important demands of our time. All other necessary needs of the time will not be satisfied if the right is not recognized in this area. And all that is really needed is an impartial look at the shape of our present intellectual life with its disunity and its limited carrying capacity for human souls in order to recognize this right.