The Rudolf Steiner Archive

16. The Roots of Social Life

[ 1 ] In my book "The Key Points of the Social Question" the comparison of the social organism with the natural human organism is well used; at the same time, however, attention is drawn to how misleading it is to believe that views gained from the one can be transferred to the other without further ado. Anyone who considers the effectiveness of the cell or an organ in the human body according to the views of natural science and then searches for the "social cell" or the "social organs" in order to get to know the structure and living conditions of the "social organism" will all too easily fall into an insubstantial analogy game.

[ 2 ] The situation is different if one points out, as was done in the "Key Points", that a healthy view of the human organism can educate one's thinking in the way that is needed for a realistic view of social life. Such an education will enable us to learn to judge social facts not according to preconceived opinions, but according to their own laws. And this is necessary above all else in our time. For at the present time we are deeply immersed in party opinions with regard to social judgment. These are not formed from what is founded in the living conditions of the social organism, but from the dark feelings of individual people and especially groups of people. If one were to apply the type of judgment used in party programs to the study of the human organism, one would soon have to realize that one is not promoting its understanding, but rather creating obstacles to it.

[ 3 ] In the organism, the inhaled air must constantly be converted into something useless. The oxygen must be converted into carbonic acid. Therefore, there must be facilities to replace what has been converted and rendered useless with something useful. Whoever properly applies his judgment, trained on the human organism, to an impartial consideration of the social organism, will find that the one member of this organism, the economic cycle, must, if it is properly arranged, continually produce conditions which must be compensated for by other arrangements. As little as one can demand of the organ equipment, which in the human organism is designed to make the inhaled oxygen unusable, that it makes it usable again, so little should one presuppose of the economic cycle that the equipment can arise in it itself that has a balancing effect on that which it must produce out of life life-inhibiting.

[ 4 ] This balance can only be brought about by a legal organization that exists alongside the economic circle and forms itself out of its own essence, and a spiritual life that grows freely from its own roots in independence of economic and legal organization. Only superficial judgment can say: Should the cultivation of spiritual life not be bound to the existing legal relationships? Certainly it must be. But it is something else whether the people who cultivate spiritual life are dependent on legal life; something else whether this cultivation itself comes from the institutions of legal life. You will find that the idea of the tripartite organization of the social organism is one that easily gives rise to objections if you hold it to preconceived opinions, but that the objections fall to nothing if you think them through to the end.

[ 5 ] The economic cycle has its own law of life Through this it creates conditions which destroy the social organism if they are the only effective ones in it. But if one wants to eliminate these conditions through economic institutions, one destroys the economic cycle itself. In the modern economic cycle, damage has been caused by the private capitalist management of the means of production. If you want to eradicate the damage through the economic institution of communal management of the means of production, you are undermining the modern economy. But one counteracts the damage by creating a legal system and a free intellectual life that are independent of the economic cycle. The damage that continues to result from economic life will thus be neutralized as it arises. It will not be the case that the damage first arises and people have to suffer from it before it disappears. Rather, the abuses will be derived from the organizations that exist alongside the economic institutions.

[ 6 ] The party opinions of recent times have diverted the judgment from the living conditions of the social organism. They have carried it over into the currents of the passions of groups of people. It is urgently necessary that these opinions be corrected from a side where people can acquire impartiality. They will be able to do so if the life of thought corrects itself by considering those conditions which, by their very nature, challenge impartiality. The natural organism makes such demands.

[ 7 ] However, those who only apply the usual scientific concepts for this correction will not get very far. For in many respects these ideas lack the power to penetrate deeply enough into the facts of nature. However, if one tries not to stick to these ideas but to nature itself, one will be able to gain impartiality there rather than within the party views. Despite the good will of many natural scientists to transcend materialism in their thinking, the common scientific ideas are still permeated by materialistic influences. A spiritual view of nature can strip away these influences. And it will be able to provide the basis for an education of thought whose results are also equal to the understanding of the social organism.

[ 8 ] The idea of the threefold structure of the social organism does not simply take knowledge of nature from the natural realm into the social field of life. It only wants to gain the strength to view the social world of facts impartially by looking at nature. This should be borne in mind by those who superficially inform themselves that this idea speaks of a threefold structure of social life, just as one can speak of a threefold structure of the natural human organism. Whoever takes the latter seriously in its peculiarity will realize through it that the one cannot be transferred to the other. But through the approach he is forced to apply to the natural organism, he will create the direction of thought that enables him to find his way around the social facts as well.

[ 9 ] It will be believed that such a way of looking at things relegates social ideas to the field of "gray theories". It may perhaps be said that one only holds such an opinion as long as one looks at the "deportation" from the outside. However, we will perceive as "gray" what we see indistinctly in the distance. And on the other hand, you will experience as colorful what is born out of the "near" passion. But come closer to the "gray". One will find that something similar to passion then stirs. But this will go to everything truly human, which one loses sight of on the standpoints of party and group opinions.

[ 10 ] And it is bitterly necessary for the present to come closer to the truly human. For the fighting positions of the groups of people who separate themselves from one another have caused enough damage. And the insight should mature that it is not new battle positions that can repair the damage, but the observation of what history itself demands at the present moment of human development. It is obvious to see the damage and to demand its abolition as a matter of program; but it is necessary to penetrate to the roots of social life and, through their recovery, to bring about that of blossoms and fruits.