Anthroposophy and Ecofascism 59

Continuing my commentary on the 17th paragraph of Peter Staudenmaier's Anthroposophy and Ecofascism.

In his footnote, Peter Staudenmaier cites Rudolf Steiner's writing to support his contention. Here's what Steiner says on page 32 of Aus der Akasha-Chronik. This English translation taken from the online Rudolf Steiner eLib and Archive where the reader can find the whole book.

"The ancestors of the Atlanteans lived in a region which has disappeared, the main part of which lay south of contemporary Asia. In theosophical writings they are called the Lemurians. After they had passed through various stages of development the greatest part of them declined. These became stunted men, whose descendants still inhabit certain parts of the earth today as so-called savage tribes. Only a small part of Lemurian humanity was capable of further development. From this part the Atlanteans were formed.

Later, something similar again took place. The greatest part of the Atlantean population declined, and from a small portion are descended the so-called Aryans who comprise present-day civilized humanity. According to the nomenclature of the science of the spirit, the Lemurians, Atlanteans and Aryans are root races of mankind. If one imagines that two such root races preceded the Lemurians and that two will succeed the Aryans in the future, one obtains a total of seven. One always arises from another in the manner just indicated with respect to the Lemurians, Atlanteans, and Aryans. Each root race has physical and mental characteristics which are quite different from those of the preceding one. While, for example, the Atlanteans especially developed memory and everything connected with it, at the present time it is the task of the Aryans to develop the faculty of thought and all that belongs to it."

The key phrase in German is:

"Er wurde zu verkümmerten Menschen, deren Nachkommen heute noch als sogenannte wilde Völker gewisse Teile der Erde bewohnen."

I would translate this as:

"These languished, and their descendants inhabit certain parts of the earth as the so-called wild peoples to this day."

The word "verkümmerten" is the adjectival form of the intransitive verb "verkümmern." In the dictionary it is defined as: of growth: to become stunted; of muscles: to atrophy; of plants or talents: to wither, wilt; of people: to languish (Langenscheidts Handwörterbuch Deutsch-Englisch, Berlin 1996, p. 1396). I feel that the adjective "languish" best fits the meaning of the original, though it is difficult to work into the flow of an the English. In German you can "become languish people" but in English it doesn't work. So as a translator, you either have to drop the "become" ("wurde zu") because it is implicit in the activity of languishing, or you keep the word "become" and go for a more active adjective. The translator, one Karl E. Zimmer, opted for the phrasing "became stunted men," which I disagree with.