The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. What is Needed

[ 1 ] You will not find the sense of reality that lives in the idea of the threefold structure of the social organism if you compare it with the thoughts that you have acquired about what is practically possible from the traditions into which you have grown through education and habits of life. The fact that these traditions have led to habits of thought and feeling that life has outgrown is precisely the reason for our social and state confusion. Whoever therefore says that the threefold structure does not take into account the impulses from which human institutions have hitherto grown, is living under the delusion that overcoming these impulses is a sin against any possible social order. The idea of threefolding, however, is based on the realization that the belief in the continued viability of these drives is the strongest obstacle to a healthy impulse for progress that takes into account the current stage of human development.

[ 2 ] The fact that the old drives cannot be carried any further should be recognized from the fact that they have lost their impetus for the productive work of mankind. The old economic drives of capital profitability and wage-earning could only maintain their thrust as long as there was still enough left of the old goods of life for which man could develop inclination and love. These goods of life are clearly exhausted in the age that has passed. And there were more and more people who, as capitalists, no longer knew what they were accumulating capital for; there were also more and more people who, as wage earners, did not know what they were working for.

[ 3 ] The exhaustion of the impulses at work in the state structure is shown by the fact that in recent times it has become almost a matter of course for many people to regard the state as an end in itself and to forget that the state exists for the sake of the people. One can only regard the state as an end in itself if one has lost the inner individual self-assertion of the human being to such an extent that one does not demand the corresponding state institutions for this self-assertion and out of it. For then one must seek the essence of the state in all kinds of institutions that run counter to its actual task. One will be fulfilled to put more into the institutions of the state than is necessary for the self-assertion of the people united in it. But every such more of the state is a testimony to a less of the people supporting the state.

[ 4 ] In the spiritual life, the unfruitfulness of the old impulses is revealed in the mistrust that is shown towards the spirit in general. One is interested in what grows out of the unspiritual conditions of life; one forms opinions and thoughts about it. What comes from spiritual production is best regarded as the personal affair of the person producing it. It is hindered rather than promoted if it wants to be included in public life. It is one of the most widespread peculiarities of our contemporary people that they lack an open sense for the individual intellectual achievements of their fellow human beings.

[ 5 ] The present needs to take a look at this wastefulness with regard to economic, governmental and spiritual impulses. An energetic social will must be kindled from this observation. Until one recognizes that in our economic, governmental and spiritual distress it is not merely external living conditions that are at work, but the state of the soul of modern man, the foundation for the necessary new construction has not yet been laid.

[ 6 ] A dichotomy has entered into the constitution of the human soul. Something new is rumbling in the instinctive, unconscious impulses of human nature. In conscious thinking, the old ideas do not want to follow the instinctive impulses. But if the best instinctive impulses are not enlightened by thoughts that correspond to them, then they become barbaric, animalistic. Humanity of the present day is drifting into a dangerous situation through the animalization of its instincts. Salvation can only be found by striving for new thoughts for a new world situation.

[ 7 ] A call for socialization that does not take this into account cannot lead to anything salutary. The shyness to regard man as a spiritual being must be overcome. A one-sided transformation of economic life, a one-sided reorganization of the state structure without the cultivation of a socially healthy and fruitful constitution of the soul is likely to lull mankind into illusions instead of imbuing it with a sense of reality. And because only a few can decide to see the question of life in the present and the near future in the comprehensive sense of a question of external organization and internal renewal, this is why we are making such slow progress on the path to social reorganization. When many say that inner renewal takes a long time and should not be rushed, it is precisely the fear of this renewal that lurks behind such talk. Because the right mood can only be that: to actively consider everything that can lead to renewal and then watch how slowly or how quickly the journey of life will progress.

[ 8 ] The events of recent years have poured a certain weariness over the souls of our contemporaries. For the sake of future generations, for the sake of the culture of the near future, this weariness must be combated. It is out of such feelings that the idea of threefolding has come to public attention. It may be imperfect, it may be completely wrong; its supporters will understand if it is fought against from the point of view of other new ideas. The fact that it is often found "incomprehensible" because it contradicts the familiar old, however, cannot be taken as a sign that such opponents hear the call which, as one should believe, can be heard clearly enough from the development of humanity for our time.