Anthroposophy and Critics: March 2004 Archives

After "discussing" history with Peter Staudenmaier for several weeks on the Anthroposophy Tomorrow e-mail list, I wrote an article on polemic and history summarizing my views on the matter. Peter Staudenmaier excerpted two sentences and responded. I replied:

In the essay I wrote wrote:
"In such true historical research, contrary viewpoints would be first and foremost interesting, and therefore included, rather than distained and dismissed."

Peter Staudenmaier:
Why do you say "rather than"? The proper approach is to include contrary viewpoints and then criticize them and explain why you think they are mistaken. There is nothing wrong with disdaining and dismissing arguments that you think are erroneous, especially ones that you think are silly and pointless.

Daniel:
It is all about intentions again. And attitude. If you find contradictions interesting, you are more likely to try to understand each viewpoint on its own merit. If you find contradictions stupid, it is unlikely you will spend much time trying to properly understand them, and your chances of succeeding are slim. And it all goes back to whether your goal is truth or power. Peter Staudenmaier is particularly interested in criticising and distaining Rudolf Steiner's philosophy, and is so fixated on this exercise that he fails to realize he has not actually understood Steiner. This becomes truly pathetic when so many people try to help him and he ignores them all and repeats his silly claims.

After "discussing" history with Peter Staudenmaier for several weeks on the Anthroposophy Tomorrow e-mail list, I wrote an article on polemic and history summarizing my views on the matter. Peter Staudenmaier excerpted two sentences and responded. I replied:

Peter Staudenmaier:
Thanks for your thoughts, Daniel. I think you still have a shaky grasp of what objectivity means to a historian and what role it plays in historical writing. I also think that a large chunk of your argument depends on the notion that persuasion is a kind of coercion. I think that idea is entirely wrongheaded. The part of your post that struck me most was this:

Daniel:
Peter, my essay on the subject suggested that the determining factor in whether persuasion is coercion is the intention of the writer. This is consistent with a number of schools of thought in the fields of ethics. I am applying it specifically to polemical writing here.

It surprises me not in the least that you would claim my solidly grounded discourses on objectivity are "shaky" to your eyes. It is entirely consistent with your agenda, and I would expect nothing less of you.

After "discussing" history with Peter Staudenmaier for several weeks on the Anthroposophy Tomorrow e-mail list, I wrote an article on polemic and history summarizing my views on the matter. Based on some responses, I wrote the following clarifications:

True, polemic alone does not equate automatically to dishonesty. But the polemical approach is one that offers many temptations to dishonesty, especially to the historian. Some may be able to navigate the road with their integrity intact. Others fail. The reader should be aware of this in reading a polemical writer.

Further, it is hard to remain an effective polemical writer and at the same time remain an honest historian. As a historian, it is your responsibility to consider objections and additional complementary material that is brought to your attention. As a polemical writer, it is not in your interest to consider these objections and additional complementary material. Doing so weakens your argument. One way out of this is to "play dumb" and not actually "hear" any objections. That is the path Peter Staudenmaier has chosen. In his mind, his integrity is intact, because he has never met a serious objection to any of his work. At this point that game is starting to look utterly ridiculous. It also demonstrates that he in no measure can claim that he is an honest historian trying to understand a phenomenon of the past. He is merely a polemical writer with no interest in hearing anything that doesn't support his hypothesis. In as much as he claims to the contrary, his is impinging his own integrity.

The epochs of the "the theosophical-anthroposophical theory of evolution" are cultural, and not racial. The word "Aryan" for example, originally was a linguistic term for all cultures whose language derived from the Indo-European. It has nothing to do with racial characteristics. The term was borrowed by racists starting a little bit before the beginning of the 20th Century, and by the end of the Nazi era had completely lost it's original linguistic meaning, such that even linguists no longer use it. The "Aryan" epoch, lasting 21,600 years and starting about 15,000 years ago was renamed the "Post-Atlantean" by 1906 (as Steiner noticed that the word "Aryan" bore less and less it's original meaning) and only in older documents will you find that term used. I think it is historically ignorant to call all 19th Century linguists who used the term a racist, and likewise its use in most early Theosophical literature was not intended racially. The smaller epochs are named after the culture (culture, not race) that is most prominent during that era. However, it is explicitly clear that these are not the only cultures of importance during that era. Every culture is an important part of the whole, just as every individual is an important part of the whole of humanity. If critics of Anthroposophy spent more time studying the system that they are already sure they understand, these things would perhaps become clearer.

I have noticed of a number of critics of Anthroposophy on the Internet that (wonder of wonders) they have not actually understood that which they attack. For example, to an Anthroposophist, to say that "humanity" has evolved means that a group of individuals, collectively called "humanity" has incarnated in different races at different times, and each individual has grown and learned as a result of their experiences. The same individuals, different races. To take a hypothetical example, let us imagine any person currently alive, and imagine that an individual had lived his last life as a Chinese around the time of Marco Polo, previous to that she lived in Africa, before that in pre-Columbian America and before that in Palestine as a shepherd in the time of King David. Now in this hypothetical situation, however improbably the average critic might find it, our hypothetical individual would hopefully have learned a few things, so it could be said that he/she evolved. Taking the racial characteristics into account, it could be said that this individual "evolved through races." However it is not to imply a hierarchy, that the individual is now at some peak of perfection (which implies - with nowhere to go but down) either in his/her racial characteristics or any of his/her personal characteristics; it only implies that he/she has lived in different races, and grown as a result of what he/she has learned. Anthroposophy recognizes that there have existed in the world, and continue to exist different races. Anthroposophy does not categorize the races into a sort of hierarchy, with one race at the bottom, and another at the top. Some critics, with a heightened sensitivity to racism, read this into the statement "humanity has evolved through races" inferring the hierarchy and every other backwards misconception that they so despise. But were they were to take the time to understand what is meant, as opposed to instantly finding that which they would so righteously attack, they would perhaps see that the statement is to be understood differently. Reincarnation and Karma are THE central beliefs of Anthroposophy. If an Anthroposophist talks of evolution, it is ONLY in this context. And if some Anthroposophist says that he believes in the Anthroposophical theory of evolution, a critic would do well to understand that theory before attempting to lynch an Anthroposophist on account of it.