Language Crisis and Spiritual Thinking in Social Life

Consider this fact in connection with another, which I have mentioned in various places, but also here before. I have often said: Among those writers of the past epoch - in the present I could no longer imagine it -, among the writers of the nineteenth century living out, those whom I love most of all for their style, for the way they shape thoughts, is Herman Grimm. Herman Grimm shapes that which has emerged as his view into such thoughts that I have always been extremely fond of dwelling on these thoughts. Nevertheless, when I once spoke with Herman Grimm and wanted to counter only very little of my view of life with his, he simply replied: “Let's leave that, dear doctor, we can't understand each other on that!” It was impossible to say anything to Herman Grimm about the way I viewed the things of the world. He simply could not do otherwise than to brush it away with a wave of his hand. But if you want to know how these things were thought about in the nineteenth century from a certain Central European social background, then you have to go to Herman Grimm, who came from Bern on his mother's side, so he had not only southern German but also Swiss blood in him, who had the uncle Jakob Grimm, the father Wilhelm Grimm, and who had as his wife the daughter of Bettina Brentano, Gisela von Arnim, who was thus completely immersed in a certain social outlook of the nineteenth century. Today, when I read Herman Grimm, it seems to me as if I were reading from a distant past, centuries ago. What appears in Herman Grimm are documents of the nineteenth century. And it has been very interesting for me – as I have often said – that when I looked at history and read Woodrow Wilson's literary reflections, I sometimes found echoes of Herman Grimm that sounded literally familiar to me in Woodrow Wilson. Nevertheless, they are not copied, because Woodrow Wilson might not even understand something if he read Herman Grimm. But if you have an eye for such things, you notice something very peculiar about Wilson. He notices that Wilson speaks as if something were actually being recorded phonographically, as if his consciousness were not fully present during his speech, and as if a demon ruling in the subconscious were gushing forth everything, with the exclusion of the actual personality of Woodrow Wilson, which then mechanically clothes itself in the words and sentences. When you read Woodrow Wilson, you feel as if you are talking to Ahriman himself, who reigns in the depths of Woodrow Wilson's soul. — Herman Grimm is there, with every single sentence, the whole personality is always there; Woodrow Wilson is completely gone, a demon speaks through a human mouth in the depths of the human soul. Those who do not know this do not understand the most important and essential connections for the current world view.