To: <anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com>
References: <20040311020746.546.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] agreement and disagreement
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 21:53:05 -0500

Hi Daniel, thanks for an informative and interesting reply. You wrote:
"While Steiner of course frequently spoke out against hatred of all types as well as agitation in general, his pro-assimilationist views were simply an extension of his general philosophy, and completely consistent with his views on race and nationality."

Peter Staudenmaier:
I agree with the "consistent" part, though not with the "simply" part. Steiner singled out Jews as his favorite example of group-soulness and national insularity. They evidently played a special role in his broader thinking about race and ethnicity.

Daniel:
Steiner singled out Jews as his favorite example of group-soulness and national insularity only in the few quotes you have pulled out. This is simply not representative of his approach to the issue of group-soulness and national insularity in general; he was strongly and in principle agains all forms of group-soulness and national insularity, and mostly talked in general on the theme. You have found the few places where, because he was specifically asked, he talked about Jews in particular. Jews most certainly did not constitute anything like his favorite example to be trotted out whenever the theme arose. His spoke about Jews and Jewishness very infrequently.

-----------------------------
Daniel wrote:
"Of course, in as much as any assimilationist view is "tendentially antisemitic" this applies to Steiner as well."

Peter Staudenmaier:
It is not the case that any assimilationist view is tendentially antisemitic. The kind of assimilation that mainstream German and Austrian Jews strove for during Steiner's lifetime was not tendentially antisemitic. Steiner's version of assimilation differed fundamentally from their version. His version, when combined with the foolish claim that Jews are closed and insular and tied to the past, played right into a number of the crucial antisemitic prejudices of the time.

Daniel:
I don't think you have understood Steiner very well, even as you have pulled out quotes that ought in principle to help you in this. I just posted a translation of a quote that you shortened severely. I find nothing in Steiner's statement to preclude Jews from maintaining some form or their religious practices and assimilating precicely as they desired (and as you claim Steiner was against).

-----------------------------------------
Daniel wrote:
"But Steiner did not have a separate approach for Germans and Jews; his warnings and efforts applied to both in equal measure, as well as all other nationalities and all races."

Peter Staudenmaier:
I disagree. Where are Steiner's statements that the existence of Germans as such is a mistake of world history? Where are Steiner's statements that the German people ought to disappear? For that matter, if your reading were correct, what could Steiner possibly have meant when he said that Jews should dissolve into the other peoples? In other words: Why did Steiner focus on Jews as the ones who need to disappear by blending in with the other peoples?

Daniel:
How, if Steiner talked repeatedly on how ALL forms of nationalism are harmful, does this somehow NOT apply to Germans? How, if Steiner talked repeatedly about how ALL forms of nationalism should be replaced with a universally human cosmopolitanism, does this somehow NOT apply to Germans? Steiner did not focus on Jews as the ones who need to disappear by blending in with the other peoples. He mentioned it on a few occasions when directly asked. He repeatedly spoke on the general theme without prompting.
--------------------------------

Daniel wrote:
"That Steiner was trying to prevent the type of racial and national chauvenism that animated the Third Reich is testified to by the Nazis themselves in their systematic denunciations of Anthroposophy and Steiner himself and their unambiguous efforts to destroy the Anthroposophical Society."

Peter Staudenmaier:
I think that's a non sequitur. The Nazis denounced and disbanded all sorts of aggressively racist and nationalist groups, from the ariosophists to the Ludendorffers. This hardly means that these groups were opposed to racial and national chauvinism.

Daniel:
Granted, the mere fact that the Nazi's banned Anthroposophy does not say anything about the content of Anthroposophy. But if you actually read their careful justification for the ban, you will notice that they had a very accurate understanding of Anthroposophy, and were very specific about why they were banning it. It is these denunciations that demonstrate that Steiner was trying to prevent the type of racial and national chauvenism that animated the Third Reich. I can point you to the relevant documents, if you are not familiar with them.

-------------------------------------------
Daniel wrote:
"In addition to understanding the historical aspects of Austrian and German anti-Semitism during Steiner's lifetime and beyond, it is necessary to have a comprehensive view of Steiner and a thorough understanding of his philosophical foundations in order to come to this type of overview."

Peter Staudenmaier:
I think what you and I really disagree about on this score is what counts as comprehensive and thorough. It seems to me that a genuinely comprehensive view of anthroposophy in the sense relevant here would include the work of people like Heise and Thieben, for example, and would only tangentially include Steiner's work on architecture or eurythmy, if at all. Those latter phenomena do not impinge upon his philosophical foundations, in my view.

Daniel:
Granted, every last thought of Steiner's is takes us too far afield. You could restrict yourself to his main themes, for example, just the things he mentioned more than twenty times, to set a rather arbitrary threshold.
--------------------------------------------------

Daniel wrote:
"Picking out a score of isolated quotes from 300 volumes of Steiner's work and selecting a few counter-examples from the history of the Third Reich (from the inconsequential Agricultural Ministry, of all places)"

Peter Staudenmaier:
A quick aside: I think you'd do well to re-think that characterization. The Agriculture Ministry had the fourth largest budget of all the myriad Nazi ministries even well into the war. Darre was a very prominent Nazi leader.

Daniel:
Granted, the budged of the Agriculture Ministry may have been large. But just how much influence did it have? Darre may have been prominent, given his position, but how much influence did he have? Gordon Craig's "Germany 1866-1956" devotes just over a page (out of 800) to agriculture in the Third Reich, and does not mention alternative techniques at all. Walther Darré gets a simple name check

"As [Hjalmar] Schlacht has written, Darré was more a philosopher than a practical administrator; he took seriously the rhetoric about the mystique of the soil that had been the stock-in-trade of party orators in rural parts before 1933...” (page 609)

Most historians of the era find the whole issue of agriculture in the Third Reich almost irrelevant.

Daniel Hindes

So far the exchange is straightforward. But watch what Peter Staudenmaier does with the replies.