Current Social and Economic Issues

GA 332b — 1 August 1920, Stuttgart

Address at the Transfer of Leadership of the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism

to Walter Kühne in front of all the employees of the building at Champignystrasse 17

Dear attendees,

The Federation for the Threefold Social Organism is actually, I would say, the banner under which we are gathered here today, for what has now been created in Stuttgart has emerged from the anthroposophical movement via the Federation for the Threefold Social Organism. The Anthroposophical Movement is a spiritual movement; the means of its work are entirely in the realm of spiritual activity. And when the difficult situation in Central Europe gave rise to the need to create the Federation for the Threefold Social Order out of the anthroposophical spirit, a start was made on implementing the anthroposophical goals directly and immediately in everyday practice, in reality. This is an extraordinarily important, significant and responsible task. You are aware that the efforts of the Federation for the Threefold Social Organism have so far resulted in the Waldorf School and the economic enterprise “Der Kommende Tag”. The “Coming Day” as such has not yet had the opportunity to show the outside world how it wants to present itself to the public with a new work in the economic field, but with a work that comes from a new spirit. It will fulfill its goals if everyone who works with it is actively aware, really of what is actually supposed to happen; that something is supposed to happen out of a completely new spirit, for that, my dear attendees, one needs not only the slogan, the phrase “one wants to work out of a new spirit,” but for that one needs the will to work out of such a new spirit into everyday life and into business habits. And if people wanted to use the phrase “working in a new spirit” to maintain the old business practices and the whole old way of doing business, then the “day to come” would gradually be drawn into the very old and, of course, none of what is actually meant would be achieved. Do not think that what I have just said can be taken only superficially, for there are a great many enterprises in the world that make a big show of things and then simply drift into the most everyday old philistinism. And believe me, man's tendency not to let go of the old in his habits is extraordinarily great.

We see this particularly when we look at the socialist procedures in the very present, in the very latest times. The socialist movement has gradually taken on a form that can be characterized as follows: it is dominated by the most beautiful, immediately ear-catching slogans – and it is dominated by habits of life, by business habits, which truly go back far further in old philistinism and old conservatism than any of the basically reactionary parties. It does not help if one is not supposed to say such things in a moment when one has not exactly gathered for nothing; it only helps if one holds the truth before oneself, and therefore one must say: what is demanded of the time is precisely the opposite of what is mostly talked about by socialists today; it is to work out of a new spirit. How difficult this is – why should this not be said even in such a small circle – becomes apparent the moment one really wants to start working out of such a new spirit in practice. The “Coming Day” and the Federation for the Threefold Social Organism and everything connected with it should work out of such a new spirit. The Waldorf School has begun to work out of such a new spirit. You can understand that the greatest concern in setting up all these new affairs, which are so energetically demanded by the times, must be to find the right people for the job.

Now, you see, I stated in a public lecture a few days ago that Professor Eugen Varga, who would have had all the power as Minister of Economics of Council Hungary, was as clever as anyone could be, but he was hindered in his cleverness on the one hand that he is a bullish Marxist, and on the other hand, that he is a Central European professor. He admits that in an unnoticed part of his arguments, which he has published, it is above all important to put the right people in the right places. Today is basically my first time here, so I can only speak to some extent about the external conditions that have led to what is crystallizing here. But if we disregard everything that is here, then an example may be given which shows how difficult and troublesome the task is that I have just spoken to you about; the Federation for the Threefold Social Order can only do its truly extraordinary, comprehensive and far-reaching work if it has as many co-workers as possible. This spring, the idea was mooted of holding a course here that would provide a foundation for what a person who is not indoctrinated with socialist issues and armed with party slogans should really know when they go before the public to talk about what is needed in today's world. It was not, as was erroneously assumed, a course in public speaking, but rather something that should work in this direction. When the time came to select the people who were to take part in such a course, it turned out that the course could not be started because no suitable audience for such a course could be found in the area that was initially accessible to us. So, as you can see, we are already coming up against the obstacle that Professor Eugen Varga is talking about; because today it is the case that basically everyone believes that if they were appointed the next day by the most important authority to administer any other field, they would be the most suitable person for the job. But when it comes to finding the truly suitable personalities, that is, when one makes a serious effort out of empty phrases, then very little comes of these things. Those personalities who are here in Stuttgart themselves not only have their hands full today, but if they had ten times as many hands as they have – of course, two hands always require something else in a person – then they would still have plenty to do. All this points to the difficulties of working today, which are disguised in the most frivolous way by those people who lead party life in the field of all parties. Without being aware of this, one cannot work on such an undertaking as this.

We have shown that it is at least possible in a small circle to make a start where the aim is to work in an at least limited comprehensive sense from the spirit that is meant here. And it can be said that a small part of the tasks, which could only be achieved in part of its field, has so far been achieved in a comprehensible way by the Waldorf school teachers. There it was possible to find a number of people from the circle of the now existing skills who, in the field that has a certain outer limit, which I will describe in a moment, where in a certain area what is really meant has today, in a way that can be grasped. This could not yet be the case with the other things, because they have only existed for such a short time. What has been grasped and taken from the basis of the spiritual life that we cultivate has been grasped in a way that can be grasped today. There is no reason for anyone to become vain or proud about what has been decided, for there is still much to be done and only those who feel inadequate in the face of their immediate tasks will come to the right realization. You will have heard: There is a lack of understanding again where there should be understanding so far-reaching that the social organism has a threefold structure, where there should be understanding for the fact that, above all, spiritual life should be supported economically, there is a lack of understanding again in the widest circles today. There is an enormous amount to be done to bring understanding into the environment of today's humanity, so that one has to say: The Federation for the Threefold Social Organism has an enormous amount to do, for it is the inspirer and the real active force that is to work in everything that is to be founded in detail. What is to come from the Federation for the Threefold Order of the Social Organism, to which the other fields are spiritually, if not administratively, attached and for the sake of which they actually work, cannot be one-sidedly business-like, nor one-sidedly scientific, nor one-sidedly in any other direction, but must be completely be so that, every week, one discovers afresh the tasks that are set each week, for the person who leads the Federation for the Threefold Order of the Social Organism and those who help him must be people who have an extremely finely tuned, soul-social magnetic needle, the slightest deflection of which can be quickly noticed. Those who are to care for the Federation for Threefolding must have a fine sense for everything that is happening in social life today. Even if it is quite impossible to discuss things directly because they are often much too clumsy and too fleeting, one must still have a sense for the right thing to happen at the right moment, even if it seems to have no connection at all to what is happening.

The goal towards which the threefold social order should develop, my dear assembled friends, cannot be described in a few words, but I would like to hint at it with a few words. As you know, there were matters in the old world, which is much more gone than one thinks today, which is much more on the verge of extinction, in complete decline, than one thinks. In this old world there was what was called “diplomacy”. Diplomacy, ladies and gentlemen, has a name that, I would say, not only causes retching, but almost vomiting. Diplomacy has made its name, which is so not only by what it is supposed to be, but by what it has become, because it has been carried out behind closed doors, because it has worked with means that often had to shy away from the full light of the public. The Socialist parties, in particular during the war and up to the present, have not shown that they would have been able to put something new and honest in the place of the old dishonest diplomacy. On the contrary, anyone who has had the opportunity to observe how the Socialist leaders, must say: the habits, the bad, disgusting habits of the old diplomats have been greatly increased by the diplomats from the socialist parties, who began to pursue their diplomacy in the most diverse fields during the world war. One day, when the diplomatic disciples of the old dishonest diplomats are described, it will be a very dark chapter of history, showing how they have operated up to the present day; but the art of the little diplomat of the socialist parties also belongs precisely in the place of that which is completely ripe for destruction and that which is ripe for destruction in this direction. That which has matured in public life for the most complete downfall must be replaced by something that works in the full light of the public eye but at the same time is endowed with the qualities that the old diplomacy has gradually lost through its bad habits, but which in its better times, even if sometimes cultivated to a point of undesirable sophistication, it certainly excelled in. A knowledge of human nature that goes as far as observing the social soul processes – knowledge of groups of people, knowledge of human contexts, knowledge of human parties, knowledge of human instincts – all this belongs to the foundation from which the one who is to work in the right sense in what is meant by the League for the Threefold Social Organism is to work. This is something that must emerge from direct observation, from the most thorough knowledge of human nature, from the contemplation of the active forces in the present. This is what he must, I would say, keep fairly quiet in his bosom as the scope of the motives from which he must act. But then he must arrange what he does according to this knowledge of human nature, otherwise, if he does not arrange what he does according to this knowledge of human nature, then he simply speaks so that he is understood, as if he were standing in front of a forest of trees and speaking into them; for that is the characteristic, that today, basically, if something is to be effective in public that does not look like the public journalism of all parties or the public talk of all parties, so that when people listen or read, their souls behave like tumblers, so that they immediately straighten up when they hear the buzzwords, when they have fallen over. Today we live off the automatic machines of newspapers and public orators, but if you want to speak to people from a different direction, you speak as if to trees that do not hear. You can only penetrate them gradually if you try to apply a truly diplomatic art, which is honest, as has just been suggested. Nothing less than this must be the task of the League for the Threefold Social Organism, and all the fields of activity associated with it must set themselves this task. Nothing less than to take the place of the old diplomacy of public affairs, which is dying out and has come to mean dishonesty and evil.

Only out of this consciousness, not out of a program, not out of a set of abstract propositions, but out of the goodwill to appropriate people and groups of people as well as one can, can arise what the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism is actually supposed to do. If a possibility for working in such a direction does not arise, then the Federation for the Threefold Social Organism will be something that perishes, probably with all that belongs to it, and one will be able to say: We will have to wait a long time for humanity to mature before we can implement what is so urgently needed today. Those of you who are present today will be the first to realize that when one speaks as I have just done, one is speaking of realities; often one is told in response to these things: Yes, but if one sets such goals, then humanity will need decades or centuries.

One can hardly imagine a worse indictment of these people; for it proves nothing other than that people mean something quite different from what they actually say; it proves that they have not the slightest will to acquire insight into how, today - today! - this must be realized, how it is meant with such practical goals as we mean here. But we need helpers, not hundreds but thousands, tens of thousands. We need more and more helpers, and our work is only just beginning because a large part of our work consists of first having to look for the people who will do the work. We can only do the smallest part of our work because we have to spend most of our time looking for people to do it, even if it looks like we are doing something else.

All this I want to live as a guiding thought every day, every hour, every minute, every second, here where we want to work in the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism. The aims we have set ourselves are truly not too high; for there are no aims too high for that which is today tiny, like the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism, but which is destined to become outwardly great, truly great, infinitely great. The Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism is something that arouses opposition when three or four people get together, as has happened here in Stuttgart, to achieve its goals. The Federation for the Threefold Order of the Social Organism is something that causes a sensation and has a small following; when the three or four are joined by ten, then there are a few hundred who look to it; then, of necessity, something happens in these few hundred that makes them feel the old habits rising up in their inner soul life and that so and so many fall away again. Then, I might say, the small group of purposeful personalities, who stick together, must return to their old loneliness, continue to work, and then the opposition that arises turns into slanderous opposition, into furious enmity, and it must be worked on slowly and intensely, with the aim of winning over as many people as possible to the ideas. There comes a time – and we are in the midst of it; we have already passed through the other stages – there comes a time when one learns to sense what one really knows when one is immersed in practice. You see, after working for the anthroposophical movement for two decades, I can say that I have worked in the anthroposophical movement, in assemblies consisting of three, before assemblies consisting of three hundred, but also before assemblies consisting of three thousand and many more. What has become of the anthroposophical movement is what has become of it – certainly for many other reasons, but also for one reason: I have always counted on it, based on a certain life practice, that after you have been able to speak to a thousand people, you have found two with whom the matter has initially taken hold.

If you want to achieve something new, you will achieve nothing if you are optimistic about life; if you are pessimistic about life, if you let your courage sink because it is the case that out of a thousand you can win two, if you are pessimistic about life, if you are constantly under the impression that it is the case, you will achieve even less than nothing, you will make things even worse. The only thing possible is to feel everything that optimism and pessimism give us, but when it comes to moving from feeling to will, to not give a damn about whether the world is good or bad, but to do what one feels is one's duty; then, even if slowly or quickly, the world will become better. We must think of acting in such a way that the world can become better tomorrow. This is what must govern us as a new spirit. This new spirit arises much more from feeling, sensing, and wholeheartedly engaging with this whole impulse of will than from anything else; it certainly does not arise from empty phrases. We could draw up the most beautiful programs, put out the most beautiful brochures to the world, do everything possible that can be put together in words, we could do this in the seemingly most brilliant management; if we do not work ourselves out of this spirit in every hour, in every minute, in every second, we will achieve nothing through the most beautiful words, the most beautiful brochures, through everything we shall achieve nothing, for today we must fight with our hearts, not with the shrivelled and depraved hearts that are nowadays called hearts because they have been formed by all kinds of old world-views, but with hearts that are capable of really feeling the great impulses of the time and of acting on them with all their energy. Today it is a matter of working from this heart and being there for things from this heart.

Therefore, you must also have a heart for when – since the work here is being done out of a new spirit, to the extent that it is understood – everything changes, so to speak, down to the details of business practice – because if nothing changed, we would mess up the matter – and when someone somewhere comes along and says to something that is being practiced out of the new spirit: Yes, but someone who is an expert in the field and has looked at the field in the world, thinks that this is not right, is talking nonsense; because what has entered into all fields, what has become the spirit of all fields, has shown its impossibility through the world catastrophe, and everywhere practice, not just feeling and thinking, must become something completely different. Without understanding this, we will not make any progress.

And if I may emphasize something today, then it must be that I say: our federation for the threefold social order must work on its own education; it was born out of a world that loves a flood of phrases. Those who have to place themselves in it do not know how strong the power of this flood of phrases is, how strong the power of the old habits is that have led us into decline. And in our work, we must above all progress in freeing ourselves from the old flood of phrases and old bad habits. Only when what I mean is understood, when it is not taken in a way it should not be taken, will what is behind it be able to signify something for the actual goals of the movement for the threefold social order; for a word becomes a mere phrase not only when it is spoken heartlessly, but also when it is heard heartlessly. You can say the most impregnated words, those words in which there is still so much inside; if they are heard in such a way that you only hear the phrase in them and perhaps even translate this phrase into the old flood of phrases, then, then nothing comes of it. We can speak from experience here, because these are precisely the most important cases that come to us, that what is actually meant by our anthroposophical movement resonates in the world outside, but becomes something something quite different, something quite different, which has not only become a mere phrase, but has first become a mere phrase, then been re-prepared, so that the phrase has in turn become the slogan of something else.

For example, something is pronounced, people come into the anthroposophical movement – let's take a specific case – from some sect or other, they make what prevails in the anthroposophical movement into a phrase. Then they reshape it in the sense in which they mean it from the habits of their sect, then they speak or print it, and then the opponents come and fight against what has come into the world in this way, and then come those who say, “Yes, has been said here and there, you haven't refuted it at all - it hasn't been refuted because most of the time one has something to do with it, but not with what has nothing to do with it, because it has arisen on the path, as I have just described, [to refute]. But when it grows to such an extent that one finds the refutation necessary, then supporters and also opponents come and say: Yes, but you are polemicizing far too much, you are fighting far too much; one must work the positive; well, and so on, and so on.

Just recently someone said to me: I don't really like the fact that this is being fought with trumpeting children and house keys in one city, which was said in our defense; I'm only saying it because it was said: What you want is much too lofty to get involved in such things. Yes, you see, that is also the bad thing that comes from good supporters. What comes from good supporters in this regard comes because they have no way of

to replace the old diplomacy; because it is a matter of finding exactly the place, the point where one has to intervene, in order to possibly ignore scribblers and swine, but to take them into account at the right moment. It is a matter of doing the right thing at the right moment. Such well-meaning people, like the one I have just spoken of, are people who look at the world, but in the surrounding area of not very great expanse, spiritual walls arise and through these they do not see through; they talk all kinds of things that sound very nice, but they know nothing about the world. What is important is the good will to know about the world and to act accordingly, not out of some kind of instinctive urge to develop some kind of behavior, and therefore one must not turn into a phrase what I have actually said today that might resonate with something, but I would very much like very much that it penetrates a little into the hearts, that it penetrates from the heart into the most everyday work, and has an effect there; because only in this way will we achieve what can be achieved, what should be achieved through the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism and through everything that is connected with it.

You are sitting there, my dear attendees; by virtue of that you are part of the whole. I had to speak to you today; I could not help but speak to you about the difficulty of the task. Whether I have spoken rightly or wrongly does not depend on whether I have put my words this way or that today, but rather depends solely on whether each individual has the good will to be towards each individual as it should be in the sense of what has been expressed. When the reorganization of the old covenant for the threefold social organism was undertaken, I asked our dear friend Mr. Molt, who is essentially involved in the whole development of anthroposophical social work – the things are only ever in the invisible germ, actually already since the autumn of 1918 and only came to light in the spring of 1919 – I have asked Mr. Molt to take on the role of curator for the new federation, so that he can, firstly, find his way out of his connections with the present world, all those points from which our future work should be undertaken from, and because it is to be hoped that he, of all people, will continue to develop this will for renewal after he has become one of the first to work from here in the spirit of the threefold social order. Mr. Kühne has taken over the leadership of the newly founded Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism, and I have the prerequisite that what has been agreed with Mr. Kühne in long negotiations should be realized by his personality as the spirit of the new leadership of the federation. But, my dear attendees, only what is in the world, what is the best will of your curator, what is the urgent insight and good, best will of the secretary of the Federation for the Threefolding of the Social Organism, will be able to bear the right fruits, will be able to work in the right way on everything what is to be worked with - and what is related to us - should be worked with in a collegial way with all those who are leading in the Waldorf School, should be worked with in a collegial way with all those who are leading in the Anthroposophical Society, should be worked with in a collegial way should work together with all those who are to be involved in the “day to come”, should work together in a spirit of collegiality with all those who are new to our movement, with everything that is in the world, what the best will of the curator is, what urgent scientific and social training and impulsiveness and the best will of the secretary, it will only be able to bear fruit if each individual, in whatever position he is, is willing to adjust himself here so that these qualities, which I have just mentioned, find appropriate support in the collegial cooperation, in the comradely cooperation of all - all who sit here and will still sit here.

I would like to add a few words to the very last (Messrs. Molt, Kühne, Trommsdorff, Uehli had spoken in the meantime), for the reason that everything that is effective in our work should be stated with absolute clarity, which was the case when the Federation for the Threefold Order of the Social Organism was first founded, the work was shaped in its further development in such a way that at a certain point in time it became necessary for an organ of the Federation for the Threefold Order of the Social Organism to introduce the weekly journal “Threefold Order of the Social Organism”. Until now, this weekly journal, which we all long to see developed into a daily newspaper that works in our interest in the foreseeable future, was incorporated into the Federation for the Threefold Ordering of the Social Organism. And this was a matter of course inasmuch as it arose out of the work and was placed within it. But it is also a matter of course in the re-establishment of the Federation for the Threefold Social Organism – because here, after all, the real thing must always be taken into account – that Mr. Uehli's excellent work has had an, I would say, organ-forming effect. And this has led quite organically to the fact that in the future - this belongs to the reorganization - on the one hand, the management and so on will work propagandizing the ideas of the federation, so that this - the effectiveness of the federation for the and on the other hand, the management of the journal 'Threefolding of the Social Organism', which stands alone and is solely called upon to work together with the other management. Both things will thus in future be parallel organizations and will only have to work together in a collegial manner. It is also natural that the fields of work will expand, and that many things that were originally one current will split into several currents, requiring independent leaders. This is the remarkable thing about the geographical formation of countries: that a small river arises, all kinds of tributaries join it, and a large river arises from it, which flows into the sea. It must be the nature of such movements as ours that they also begin as small rivers, that tributaries flow to them from all over the world, but that they then split up and then, moving in parallel, work together and in this way work together in a collegial manner to flow into the great sea of the social construction of the future.