Anthroposophy

Thoughts and considerations on life, the universe and anthroposophy by Daniel Hindes. Updated occasionally, when the spirit moves me.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Anthroposophy and Ecofascism 75

Yesterday I wrote that Rudolf Steiner appreciated aspects of Nietzsche's work. An example, from his book, is when Steiner praised Nietzsche's stance against nationalism:



"The patriotic feelings of his German compatriots are also repugnant to Nietzsche's instincts. He cannot make his feelings and his thinking dependent upon the circles of the people amid whom he was born and reared, nor upon the age in which he lives. "It is so small-townish," he says in his Schopenhauer als Erzieher (Schopenhauer as an Educator) to make oneself duty-bound to opinions which no longer bind one a few hundred miles away. Orient and Occident are strokes of chalk which someone draws before our eyes to make fools of our timidity. I will make the attempt to come to freedom, the young soul says to itself; and then should it be hindered because accidentally two nations hate and fight each other, or because an ocean lies between two parts of the earth, or because there a religion is taught which did not exist a few thousand years previously?" The soul experiences of the Germans during the War of 1870 found so little echo in his soul that "while the thunder of battle passed from Wörth over Europe," he sat in a small corner of the Alps, "brooding and puzzled, consequently most grieved, and at the same time not grieved," and wrote down his thoughts about the Greeks."



Steiner, Rudolf. Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom. Englewood, NJ: Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1960. Page 45.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Anthroposophy and Ecofascism 74

Continuing my commentary on the 23nd paragraph of Peter Staudenmaier's Anthroposophy and Ecofascism.


Steiner's book Friedrich Nietzsche, Ein Kämpfer Gegen Sein Zeit is divided into three sections:



  1. a critical analysis of Nietzsche's character,

  2. an exploration of the idea of the Superman, and

  3. an attempt to trace Nietzsche's path of development.


We find not the fawning applause of an acolyte, but instead a profound effort to place Nietzsche in the context of various directions in the philosophy of his times, an effort that to this day ranks as one of the more insightful attempted. Put quite simply, Rudolf Steiner was never a Nietzsche disciple, never a follower. He was deeply familiar with Nietzsche's work (and was even offered the position of editor of a planned edition of Nietzsche's complete works, a job he turned down when it became evident that he would not have editorial freedom and full access to the archives*) and appreciated elements of them.


* For the details, see Chapter 17 of Christoph Lindenberg's Rudolf Steiner, Eine Biographie. Stuttgart: Freies Geistesleben, 1997. Pages 240-260.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Anthroposophy and Ecofascism 73

Continuing my commentary on the 23nd paragraph of Peter Staudenmaier's Anthroposophy and Ecofascism.


His interest in, but distance from Nietzsche Steiner repeated frequently when referring to Nietzsche. In a memorial address given September 13th, 1900, Steiner speaks of himself in the following way:



It is strange that with the infatuation for Nietzsche in our day, someone must appear whose feelings, no less than many others, are drawn to the particular personality, and yet who, in spite of this, must constantly keep before him the deep contradictions which exist between this type of spirit, and the ideas and feelings of those who represent themselves as adherents of his world conception.(Steiner, Rudolf. Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom. Englewood, NJ: Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1960. Pages 201.)



Or in an article in the Wiener Klinischer Rundschau (14th year, No. 30, 1900):



For Nietzsche does not work upon his contemporaries through the logical power of his arguments. On the contrary, the wide dissemination of his concepts is to be traced to the same reasons which make it possible for zealots and fanatics to play their role in the world at all times.( Steiner, Rudolf. Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom. Englewood, NJ: Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1960. Pages 153-154. )



These are hardly the words of a man "under the sway of" Nietzsche. We find Steiner repeatedly distancing himself from the "zealots and fanatics" or even ordinary "adherents" of Nietzsche's world conception.