The Rudolf Steiner Archive

52. Dead Politics and Living Ideas

[ 1 ] In my "Key Points of the Social Question", it was said of the politics to which modern civilization has brought itself that it had reached the nil point of its ability in 1914. It has not left this point since. The path from Versailles to London is the impossible attempt to stop at this point and yet at the same time to make progress. The terrible war proved that it was not possible to continue the policy pursued up to that point. We sailed into the decisions by force. The negotiations in London did not get beyond this way of bringing about decisions.

[ 2 ] We will not get out if we do not move in the direction of the insight that the future of modern civilization will be decided by ideas. What these ideas must be has often been said in this journal. Until what has been said here has been introduced into the realm of insightful will by a sufficiently large number of people, we will have to continue to live under the sign of violence.

[ 3 ] A union of states has won a victory. In America, before this victory was won, Woodrow Wilson said what the victors wanted to do with the victory. America had to convince itself through Versailles that what had been said were insubstantial words. You cannot create realities with insubstantial words. Lloyd George is reported to have said recently that you never know how far you will be led if you have to resort to force. In America, Harding has been seated in the chair where Woodrow Wilson previously spoke insubstantial, ineffective words. Harding has now also spoken. For all that is relevant to modern civilization, these new words are nothing more than a continuation of Wilson's.

[ 4 ] Victory will decide nothing for modern civilization. For ideas must decide. And these ideas will decide, regardless of whether they appear with the victor or the vanquished and gain recognition. The situation within modern peoples is such that the necessary ideas can override victory or defeat.

[ 5 ] It is sad when those who speak of ideas in this way today are answered: The victors have the power, and ideas cannot help the defeated. Without ideas, the victors will only be able to bring about a life of violence and through violence. With this life, they will lead the world and thus themselves into decline. The defeated could lead the world to uplifting forces through ideas. He could make much out of defeat with ideas, the victors will not be able to make anything out of victory without ideas. Seen from the center of Europe, it is truly tragic when the victor, Lloyd George, longs for a capable German statesman. From the London point of view, however, one should find it tragicomic, because one cannot find it comic, because the world situation is too serious for that.

[ 6 ] The negotiations in London, Harding's inaugural speech, are proof that the victors are helpless in everything except the use of force. Wherever one recognizes this, one will be at the beginning of the insight that only new ideas can help. For the helplessness is only a consequence of the fact that in London, as in Versailles, they want to build a new world with the old ideas and do not realize that among the dead that the war has brought are above all these old ideas. The war was characterized by these old ideas. It owed its existence to the fact that these ideas were already corpses in 1914.

[ 7 ] In London they were negotiating about economic matters. If the modern unitary state formations want to bring about economic decisions, they can only do so by force. The real decisions must be made by world economic life, which is detached from these entities. This is one of the points on which the threefold structure is based. It must do this because it wants to speak out of reality. In Versailles and London, people wanted to act out of unreality.

[ 8 ] People keep coming and saying to the promoters of the ideas of threefolding: Why don't you make us practical suggestions? They don't realize that the necessary ones have already been made. We can only make progress with the threefold structure. Without it, you can go to Versailles, to London, to Italy, to America; it will help nothing.

[ 9 ] This has often been said here. Today it only needs to be pointed out that the events in London and their consequences speak the same language.

[ 10 ] And the East? One looks longingly towards it; one longs for Lenin's and Trotsky's fall. One assumes that these fanatics for destructive forces will disappear from the scene tomorrow. After all, it will only help modern civilization if ideas of construction flow over that on which they have worked with forces of decline.

[ 11 ] There is talk of the need to seek economic links with the East. They must certainly be established. But above all, the East is seeking intellectual understanding with Central Europe. This has not yet been offered to it. If it first brings it the stimulating ideas, then the economic connection will come as a consequence. To talk about the latter without wanting the former is to place oneself outside the conditions of real life.