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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 5041 through 5050 of 6456

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335. The Crisis of the Present and the Path to Healthy Thinking: Education and Teaching in the Face of the Current World Situation 10 Jun 1920, Stuttgart

Rudolf Steiner
It is understandable that people want something they can call solid ground under their feet. But today the seriousness of our present world situation is so great that it is impossible to continue to keep silent about certain things that one believes one recognizes from the course of human development simply because they radically contradict, in a certain sense, what the prejudices of the broadest circles are.
When I am often told today that what comes from here is not understood at all by the majority of people, I am reminded again and again of what I have often heard from theater directors, whose only concern has always been to present as many trashy plays as possible to the audience; they have always excused themselves by saying that the audience wants this because it does not understand better things.
In other words, one arrives at a point where one can derive the abstract-logical scientific concepts from an artistic understanding of the world, from an aesthetic understanding of the world. One arrives at an understanding of what Goethe spoke so deeply from the foundations of his world view: Art is based on a perception of deeper natural laws that would never be revealed to man without art.
335. The Crisis of the Present and the Path to Healthy Thinking: Questions of the Soul and Questions of Life: A Contemporary Speech 15 Jun 1920, Stuttgart

Rudolf Steiner
I do not intend to talk about the content of this “Philosophy of Freedom” today, but I would like to touch on the intentions underlying this writing with a few introductory words. The underlying intention was to answer the question: How can a person, placed in the present, come to terms with the most important feeling, the most important longing of modern times, with the feeling of freedom, the longing for freedom, in the face of the great social demands of the present?
And so we can naturally always see that people go to church on Sundays and cling to what they do not understand, and during the week only understand that which comes from the basis of the materialistic world view.
I said: While it is actually natural for people today to strive for individual fulfillment, one can see how, because they do not understand themselves in this most modern of pursuits, they actually set the polar opposite goal externally.
335. The Crisis of the Present and the Path to Healthy Thinking: Who is Allowed to Speak Against the Decline of the West? A Second Contemporary Speech 29 Jul 1920, Stuttgart

Rudolf Steiner
It is nonsense for people to believe that they can understand scientific thought from the 10th or 11th century. No, they cannot understand it, because a completely different language was spoken then than is spoken today.
And so it may also be said: At the time when it struck the development of the earth, one had the Mystery of Golgotha; one understood it with the remnants of the old instinctive spiritual science - I have presented this several times in my lectures -; one must understand it today with the rising, new spiritual science. Then Christianity itself will experience a new birth, then Christianity will be understood again for the first time, because under the hand of theologians, Christianity has degenerated into materialism.
335. The Crisis of the Present and the Path to Healthy Thinking: The Great Challenges of Today in the Fields of Intellectual, Legal and Economic Life. A Third Speech on Contemporary Issues 20 Sep 1920, Stuttgart

Rudolf Steiner
Keynes says: Yes, the people around Clemenceau and Lloyd George did not say: “The Germans of Austria will not be allowed to unite with the Germans of Germany,” because Wilson would have rebelled against that; that is why they said: “The independence of German-Austria is to be guaranteed by a treaty with the Entente powers until the League of Nations pronounces otherwise.” Wilson understood that the independence and freedom of the Germans of Austria had to be guaranteed. If he had been told that they were forbidden to unite with the Germans of Germany, Wilson would have understood the same thing that he had otherwise understood as freedom and independence as the highest compulsion.
Out of the spirit we could bring Waldorf education to life through Waldorf education; in this way, one of the great tasks of our time would be solved step by step in practice, not in theory. But we need understanding, understanding in the broadest sense. We may hope that the spirit will continue to support us in our endeavors, because in a certain way it depends on us. But we need understanding, because the buildings in which the school is held are to be built; the teachers are to live in homes, and they are also to eat.
335. The Crisis of the Present and the Path to Healthy Thinking: The Spiritual Crisis of the Present and the Forces for Human Progress 10 Nov 1920, Stuttgart

Rudolf Steiner
But what is necessary in order for something like this to be undertaken in a purposeful way? It is necessary to understand what the most important, the third crisis is, of which the other two crises mentioned are basically only the outward expression.
Only those who do not merely want to repeat the old, do not merely want to collect the old, but who develop the will to create spiritually anew understand the spiritual crisis. We must ask ourselves: Why do the most beautiful words prove powerless?
It leaves unaffected the emotional life, which should lead to that proper understanding between man and man, which is the decisive thing in the state, and it leaves equally unaffected the will, which should have a formative effect in economic life.
335. The Peoples of the Earth in the Light of Anthroposophy 10 Mar 1920, Stuttgart
Translated by Charles Davy, Adam Bittleston, Jonathon Westphal

Rudolf Steiner
Mere knowledge of everyday dealings between man and man will never bring about mutual understanding between the peoples. To travel and live among other peoples is not enough, any more than cursory observation of a man's gestures and movements enables us to understand his whole being.
This application of all the forces to the understanding of man himself is especially manifest in the man of Middle Europe—when he is true to his own being.
My only answer could be: ‘You have no real understanding of the true greatness of oriental philosophy, for it is expressed in the very repetitions which you want to cut out.’
336. The Big Questions of our Time and Anthroposophical Spiritual Knowledge: The Social Question as Determined by the Necessities of Contemporary Humanity 06 Feb 1919, Bern

Rudolf Steiner
Yes, esteemed attendees, I had the opportunity to observe what I believe is of primary importance to observe if one wants to understand the social question. Above all, I had the opportunity to observe, to witness, what I would call the proletarian state of mind.
One has only to observe with true love for the facts and with true love for the observation of human nature to see how the proletarian soul was touched by an understanding of such difficult, such exact precision - at least an attempt at exactness is made - such exact thought work as that of Karl Marx ; one must see with love for the facts, with love for the observation of human nature, how the proletarian mind has been tried in an astute way to understand where Karl Marx, the leader of the modern proletarian movement, the theoretical leader, was actually mistaken.
As if by historical suggestion, his attention was fixed on this. And he understood that Karl Marx, in a special study of economic processes, also wanted to explain to the modern proletarian how he actually comes to his social position.
336. The Big Questions of our Time and Anthroposophical Spiritual Knowledge: The Realistic Solutions Demanded by Life for the Social Issues and Necessities 07 Feb 1919, Bern

Rudolf Steiner
If a Czech has committed some crime, he is tried by a judge who speaks German, because that is simply the way it is under the current political conditions. The Czech does not understand a word of what is being said about him.
Now one would like to believe that what influential people refused to understand during the war catastrophe, now, one would like to believe, now some of those who were brought to misfortune by this war catastrophe in Central and Eastern Europe and some others who have been given a reprieve, now they should understand, at the right time, show understanding for things!
Therefore, may as many people as possible be found who open their hearts and minds to what must be done to make possible an understanding, an understanding between heart and heart, an understanding between soul and soul within the social coexistence of humanity, before the instincts are unleashed to such an extent that such an understanding between people, given the terribly animalistic instincts, will no longer be possible.
336. The Big Questions of our Time and Anthroposophical Spiritual Knowledge: The Social Necessities of Contemporary Humanity Based on a Study in Spiritual Science 13 Feb 1919, Basel

Rudolf Steiner
On the other hand, how did those personalities who were somehow in a leading position during this time of horror stand under the influence of the social demands of humanity, so that they were essentially influenced by this side in their actions?
And that was new, original, elementary soul power. It understood much more than the highly educated Greeks and Romans in terms of what the time demanded. We see something very similar today, only most people have not yet recognized it.
That is why all modern life springs from two roots, and that there is so little possibility of mutual understanding between the classes. On the other hand, the formerly leading classes have brought up intellectual, state, and economic life.
336. The Big Questions of our Time and Anthroposophical Spiritual Knowledge: Realistic Attempts to Solve the Social Questions on the Basis of a Spiritual-Scientific View of Life 14 Feb 1919, Basel

Rudolf Steiner
Within the development of modern technology and modern capitalism, these had an interest in regulating the economic underpinnings from the rights, as they were conceived, within the state adapted to the bourgeois and other ruling classes.
They do not see what results in this area from a real understanding of the social organism. Among the various schools that have emerged in modern times, one was already in the eighteenth century for economics.
Modern social democracy has included a single area in an impulse that goes in the direction described here, but not out of an appreciation of this area, but precisely out of an underestimation of it: religion should be a private matter. Of course it should be. And anyone who does not underestimate religion, but understands its full value, will demand this all the more!

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