Anthroposophy and Ecofascism 53

Peter Staudenmaier writes in Paragraph 15 of Anthroposophy and Ecofascism: :

Anthroposophy's promotion of this ridiculous doctrine is disturbing enough. But it is compounded by Steiner's further claim that—in yet another remarkable coincidence—the most advanced group within the Aryan root race is currently the nordic-germanic sub-race. Above all, Anthroposophy's conception of spiritual development is inextricable from its evolutionary narrative of racial decline and racial advance: a select few enlightened members evolve into a new "race" while their spiritually inferior neighbors degenerate. Anthroposophy is structured around a hierarchy of biological and psychological as well as "spiritual" capacities and characteristics, all of them correlated to race.

So first it is claimed that Anthroposophy promotes the discredited idea of an Aryan race. This turns out to be untrue – based on a misrepresentation and misunderstanding of the source material combined with a willful ignorance of the historical context. Now it is claimed anthroposophists believe the nordic-germanic sub-race to be the most advanced within the Aryan root race. This cannot even be called a misunderstanding; Steiner has not combined the words “nordic” or “germanic” with “sub-race” anywhere. I repeat, there is no such phrase in as the “nordic-germanic sub-race“ anywhere in Steiner's complete works. There are a few references to nordic-germanic mythology, and a few to nordic-germanic peoples, but nowhere is there such a sub-race.(Steiner had long since discarded the use of the term 'sub-race'; it is nowhere in the book Peter Staudenmaier cites.) Nor does such a sub-race exist anywhere in Blavatsky's work. This then culminates in Peter Staudenmaier's claim that anthroposophists believe in some sort of nordic-germanic superiority. Given that the nordic-germanic sub-race doesn't exist, it is not surprising that this, too, is nowhere present in any of Steiner’s work. And it certainly is not in Steiner's book The Mission of the Individual Folk Souls, where we hear him praise the importance of all races in human development and tell his listeners that they will reincarnate in every race. The description in the above paragraph can only be characterized as a complete fabrication. And this is the only way to make a racist out of Steiner: to fabricate quotes.

Thus the "narrative" of racial decline and advance is actually a description of cultural progression. Mr. Peter Staudenmaier has completely misunderstood his source material, or more likely limited himself to a very narrow range of secondary material that misrepresents the source material, and this, combined with a bit of imagination and a determination to prove his polemical point at all costs has resulted in this unrecognizable presentation of Steiner and Anthroposophy. The claim that all Anthroposophy is structured around a biological hierarchy correlated to so-called spiritual capacities and characteristics, and that this is correlated to race, is simply indefensible. Indeed, it can only be made by making up racist beliefs, beliefs nowhere evident in any of Steiner's work. And of course Peter Staudenmaier makes the claim without any sort of support in the form of citations from primary source material.