Lecture XIII

GA 173b/1916-12-31/p008 ·1916-12-31 · English MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
Record: stenogram (shorthand transcript). Shorthand transcript taken during the lecture — the strongest kind of lecture record in this corpus. Evidence: «Diese dreibändige Ausgabe wurde auf der Grundlage der stenografischen Nachschriften vollständig neu bearbeitet.» (This three-volume edition was completely re-edited on the basis of the shorthand transcripts.). The publisher's description of GA 173a-c, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 173a-c). The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

You see, it would be an offence against all truth to consider in isolation a single event which is part of an ongoing evolution. What you can say is that what has since developed is one of the consequences of the Opium War. You can say this quite objectively, without taking up a positive or negative moral stance. It is not permissible to paint over the facts with shades of morality. If we do this today, we are preventing the possibility of any subsequent insight into what is going on now. On karmic and moral grounds we have to presume that, looking back on today's events in the decades or centuries to come, people will condemn with an equal degree of certainty and conviction what is today defended with noble moral patriotism. In the centuries to come, today's events will look very similar.

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Cite: GA 173b/1916-12-31/p008 · edition English