Anthroposophy and Ecofascism VI

So that was the first paragraph of Peter Staudenmaier's Anthroposophy and Ecofascism. It tries really hard to make Steiner a nationalist. This is not an easy task, as Steiner simply was not a nationalist, and was outspoken throughout his lifetime about the dangers of nationalism. One distortion is to mistranslate "Volk" as "National". If Staudenmaier professes to be an expert on Fascism then certainly he knows the difference between "Volk" (Folk) and "Nation". So either he is not nearly the expert he pretends to be, or he as deliberately mistranslated the sentence. Likewise the "national souls" don't exist in Steiner. Steiner talks of "Folk Souls". The nation is an artificial construct that comes late in European history. Folks, or Peoples, existed long before. Steiner talks of "Folk Souls", not "National Souls". This puts him together with German and other Idealist philosophers (I am aware that these ideas have been misused by the Nazi's, and that the very concept of Folk Souls is now suspect to anti-fascist crusaders). Mistranslating to "national souls" help demonstrate nationalism, but it is very underhanded. And finally the non-existant nordic-gremanic sub-race is the ultimate demonstration of Staudenmaier's method (it simply does not exist; Staudenmaier made it up to smear Steiner).

Staudenmaier is also ignorant of the details of Steiner's life and work, picking up just enough to hang himself by weaving it into a narrative that shows he hasn't really researched any details. And this he passes off as "scholarship".