Anthroposophy & Ecofascism 47

Peter Staudenmaier writes in Paragraph 14 of Anthroposophy and Ecofascism:

Steiner asserted that root races follow one another in chronological succession over epochs lasting hundreds of thousands of years, and each root race is further divided into sub-races which are also arranged hierarchically. By chance, as it were, the root race which happened to be paramount at the time Steiner made these momentous discoveries was the Aryan race, a term which anthroposophists use to this day. All racial categories are purely social constructs lacking any scientific meaning, but the notion of an Aryan race is an especially preposterous invention. A favorite of reactionaries in the early years of the twentieth century, the Aryan concept was based on a conflation of linguistic and biological terminology backed up by spurious "research." In other words, it was a complete fabrication which served only to provide a pseudo-scholarly veneer to racist fantasies.

Aside from the fact that in the anthroposophical world-conception the periods of time described by the term "root races" are tens of thousands of years, and not hundreds of thousands of years, and that time is linear and not, as Peter Staudenmaier conceives, hierarchical, there are several further and more significant errors in his presentation. There is simply no talk of any Aryan race among anthroposophists today or during Steiner's time, and Steiner did not talk of an Aryan race either. Peter Staudenmaier's derision for the very notion of an Aryan race is clearly evident, but his indignation towards anthroposophists is simply misplaced. It is rather sad to see the vehemence with which he denounces so-called Aryan superiority directed against a philosophy that inherently opposes it.