Anthroposophy and Ecofascism 96

Peter Staudenmaier writes in Paragraph 29 of Anthroposophy and Ecofascism:

In the midst of the war's senseless savagery, Steiner used his military and industrial connections to try to persuade German and Austrian elites of a new social theory of his, which he hoped to see imposed on conquered territories in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately for Steiner's plans, Germany and Austria-Hungary lost the war, and his dream went unrealized. But the new doctrine he had begun preaching serves to this day as the social vision of Anthroposophy. Conceived as an alternative to both Woodrow Wilson's self-determination program and the bolshevik revolution, Steiner gave this theory the unwieldy name "the tripartite structuring of the social organism" (Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus, often referred to in English-language anthroposophist literature as "the threefold commonwealth", a phrase which obscures Steiner's biologistic view of the social realm as an actual organism). Steiner wrote that "the social organism is structured like the natural organism" in his nationalist pamphlet from 1919, "Aufruf an das deutsche Volk und an die Kulturwelt." The pamphlet is quoted extensively in Walter Abendroth, Rudolf Steiner und die heutige Welt, Munich 1969, pp.122-123.] The three branches of this scheme, which resembles Mussolini's corporatist model, are the state (political, military, and police functions), the economy, and the cultural sphere. This last sphere encompasses "all judicial, educational, intellectual and spiritual matters," which are to be administered by "corporations," with individuals free to choose their school, church, court, etc.Quotes from Steiner as cited in Christoph Lindenberg, Rudolf Steiner, Hamburg 1992, pp. 111-112.]

So now we turn to Steiner's proposal for a Threefold Social Order. As is distressingly typical in this article, both the idea itself and the history surrounding it are factually incorrect. At this point this is not at all surprising, seeing as to how all four "Steiner" quotes are individual words taken from secondary sources. Peter Staudenmaier, it seems, has never attempted to understand Steiner's Threefold Social Order as Steiner explained it. Instead he has formed his opinion from four openly hostile secondary sources. It should thus surprise no one that his grasp of it is faulty.

As to Staudenmaier's footnotes in Paragraph 29, by citing secondary sources Peter Staudenmaier is again admitting to not having read the original. Quotes of quotes are the extent of his scholarship on Steiner. Little wonder, then, that he is so often in error. Lindenberg is a widely acknowledged expert on Steiner, and his two-volume biography published in 1998 is considered the most comprehensive yet. This earlier, and much shorter biography is also excellent. It yields to Peter Staudenmaier a sentence that is factually accurate, for once. In this paragraph, inasmuch as Peter Staudenmaier has quoted Steiner (from a secondary source) he has not distorted the original. That is, he has grasped the barest essentials of the concept of a three-part division of social life. The facile comparison to Mussolini is particularly superficial. Steiner's entire position is fundamentally antithetical to fascism, as fascists ideologues themselves have determined.