BEAT
Turning Kids Into Disciples
I.
A Waldorf or Steiner school can be an uneasy mix of radicalism and conservatism.
The more closely such a school clings to Steiner’s occult doctrines, the more radical it is likely to be. Steiner’s teachings are extreme: They are far outside both the secular and the religious mainstream. This radicalism often goes unnoticed because so few people have heard the term “Anthroposophy,” the name Steiner gave to his offbeat religion. But many average Americans have heard of Theosophy, from which Steiner drew most of his ideas. If a parent were to approach a school only to learn that it is closely linked to Theosophy, s/he might well decide to look for a less far-out academy; but learning that a school is tied, in some vague fashion, to Anthroposophy, the same parent might not immediately become alarmed.
The conservative element in Waldorfs derives from Steiner’s ideology as well as from more immediate considerations. Steiner was head of the German Theosophical movement before he left to set up his own cult. Both Theosophy and Anthroposophy are amalgams of religious teachings from around the world. Steiner, an intellectual, read widely, especially texts about arcane beliefs of various world religions. Steiner claimed that his occult “wisdom” arose from his own clairvoyant powers: He claimed to have clairvoyantly witnessed and confirmed the truth of every doctrine he presented to his followers. I do not believe him; nor should you: Clairvoyance is a crock. But whether we accept his claim or not, Steiner was clearly pushing an essentially conservative approach to faith, gathering together old beliefs and — despite their inherent contradictions — affirming their continued relevance. His approach was somewhat similar to that of judicial conservatives in the U.S. who maintain the continued relevance of the Constitution's original meaning (although Steiner often bent various faiths radically out of their original forms).
Other factors pushing Waldorf schools toward an essentially conservative stance (or at least the appearance of such) include the need to gain acceptance in their communities; the need to attract students, preferably from well-off families who can afford the schools’ tuition; and the need not to offend the political beliefs of many such families. Furthermore, as the headmaster of the Waldorf school I attended said, Waldorf schools are private institutions, made possible by a free-market system. The schools naturally support such a system — they want to preserve it (although some nowadays also push for taxpayer support).
One minor but nevertheless interesting reflection of Waldorfs’ conservatism is the stance many take vis-à-vis youth culture and bohemianism, it whatever forms these take. I attended a Waldorf school from 1951 until 1964. The “avant-garde” of my boyhood was represented by the Beat Generation. The Beats’ cultural center was Greenwich Village, in New York City; their music was jazz and folk; their poetry (generally) consisted of unrhymed declamations on the hollowness and corruption of modern American society. Berets, Vandykes, bongos, free love, booze, a little stash. "Cool," "crazy, "don't bug me, man," "square." Beatniks.
Although Anthroposophists generally agree that American society is hollow and corrupt, they rarely embrace radical countercultural movements. My teachers used the Beats as object lessons in the danger of straying from the warm shelter provided by Waldorf. They referred to the Beats often, and always in negative terms: people who were beaten, who were unfocused, lost. There was a trace of truth in this. “Beatniks” did think of themselves as being “beaten” by mainstream society. But (contrary to what my teachers said) most Beats also considered their own, cool culture to be vibrant and alive, an antidote to inauthenticity. Beat: as in the beat of the drum, the beat of the heart. Beat, as in Be-At: be present, be alive, BE! Chillin' on Charlie Parker, diggin' Miles and Ginsberg and Kerouac, wowin’ on Picasso and Pollock ...
My teachers used their negative portrayal of the Beats as one of the many techniques they employed to alienate students from the real world. For me and many others, it worked. I thought of the Beats as nihilists (whereas many of them were actually into existentialism — a philosophy I would discover and benefit from years later). Similarly, under Waldorf's tutelage, I came to feel an aversion to virtually anything modern. I thought that modern orchestral music was cacophonous, unbearable, and that modern painting was jagged, unaesthetic, chaotic. Brahms, Beethoven, Michelangelo, Albrect Dürer ... these and their ilk were the only artists we students were taught to appreciate. Geniuses, undeniably. But also, one and all, dead white (European, often German, at least nominally Christian) males.
All in all, Waldorf tried to alienate us from the contemporary, real world as much as possible. If they could have, our teachers would have kept us at the school 24/7, I'm sure. But because my Waldorf was a day school, complete immersion in soft-soap Anthroposophy was impossible, so our brainwashing was (in most cases) incomplete. But I can attest that for me and others, it took many years after graduation to find our footing and enter into reality. And I can attest that for some graduates, Waldorf’s effects are lifelong.
We students were the ones who took a beating, as it were.
II.
Statements made by my old headmaster, John Fentress Gardner, in his book THE EXPERIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE, help explain why he and his colleagues detested the freedom-loving, free-living Beats (and, later, hippies, and later...). Gardner was a strong advocate of discipline — even when it verged on, or actually became, a form of mental/spiritual bullying. He taught that teachers should be unquestioned authority figures, and that students should be their “disciples.”
The following three quotations are drawn from the chapter "Authority, Discipline, and Freedom."
"The educator ... does not apologize for his authority ... he can induce his small charges to welcome strong guidance ... The strict disciplinary approach ... finds individuality in something above and beyond the organism ... Anyone, however, who supposes that organisms themselves are capable of thinking, does not really believe in objective truth; and he will shrink from discipline, as though it were a form of bullying." [1]
"Authority calls for discipline, for discipleship from those under authority; but he alone is worthy to have disciples under personal guidance who is himself a disciple of an impersonal ideal." [2]
"A youth whose childhood has been touched by the blight of 'critical thinking' will come to the moment of independent insight badly crippled ... Because skepticism has long since robbed him of part of his heart, he will now feel unable to embrace enthusiastically what he has come to understand." [3]
These statements are consistent with Steiner’s. Steiner, too, asserted that Waldorf teachers must be unquestioned authorities. I deal with this in other essays on this site. For now, though, let’s stick with Gardner. What, then, can we draw from the above statements? ◊ Real Waldorf teachers are disciples (of Anthroposophy, i.e., Steiner). ◊ Waldorf students are supposed to freely accept the authority of their (Anthroposophical) teachers, to the end that they become disciples themselves. ◊ Waldorf students are to be shielded from critical thought — they are taught to "think" with their hearts (and imaginations) rather than with their rational brains.
I suggest we linger over that last point. The most astonishing part of the quotations, above, is the following: “Anyone, however, who supposes that organisms themselves are capable of thinking, does not really believe in objective truth.” This is straight Anthroposophy, which Steiner taught is the path to objective truth [4]. Steiner also taught that real thinking does not occur in the brain [5]. Gardner’s style is an interesting echo of Steiner’s — but consider: Organisms cannot think. Humans, of course, are organisms. So, we cannot think? The only nearly sensible inference to be drawn is that Steiner and Gardner were saying that we shouldn’t think. They were both profoundly adverse to rational thought, logic, and science [6]. They asserted that true wisdom comes through imagination, intuition, or (to be blunt) clairvoyance [7]. They also advocated authoritarianism [8]. Wisdom is handed down from on high, from those who are more spiritually advanced: the great chain of greater beings: teachers, headmasters, and (at the pinnacle) Steiner.
Let’s turn this around and consider it again, from a slightly different angle. Gardner, like other Anthroposophists, often wrote in code (the word “love” pops up from time to time, for instance). But we can clearly see that Gardner was advocating what I have called brainwashing [9]: Students, as disciples, absorb a set of beliefs that they uncritically accept as true (beliefs that they "come to understand" before the onset of "independent insight"). Note that Gardner does not say "independent thought" — independent insight, for an Anthroposophist, is an extension of the Anthroposophical tenets that the child has absorbed, which lead her/him (theoretically) to have insights akin to those of his/her masters. Anthroposophists do admit that eventually the nearly adult child will develop intellectual capacities [10], but consider how shaped and focused these capacities are likely to be after years of the brainwashing Gardner advocates. And ask yourself this: What is the good of intellectual capacities — are such capacities even conceivable? — if thinking does not occur in the brain, and if organisms are incapable of thought?
— Roger Rawlings
Rudolf Steiner, detail
[THE STORY OF MY LIFE (Kessinger),
facing p. 320.]
And yet there is much beauty in the schools,
and much created there.
[Waldorf student art courtesy of PLANS.]
And yet not all Waldorf students succumb to the schools' occult agenda. The class ahead of mine included several rebellious students. Indeed, the class as a whole was looked upon as troublesome (although many members were, in truth, quiet and obedient.) Our headmaster took the class to task in his message to them, in the 1963 yearbook: “Self -indulgent laziness, capricious self-will, stubborn self-interest should ‘get lost’....”
Here are two drawings used in that yearbook, the work of a 1963 senior (and one of my friends). Obviously the work of a talented artist, the pictures may not strike you as subversive — but a sort of thrill ran through the school when they appeared. (The yearbook staff evidently gave the teachers no preview.) This is not Waldorf-style art, by any means. One might almost think that a ruler was used, for instance — and note that the seniors apparently left the school through a back door, leaving the door open! Man oh man...
Much of this essay originally appeared, in different form, at the free-speech forum
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/ .
I encourage anyone with an interest in Waldorf education or Anthroposophy
to consider joining the discussion.
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ENDNOTES
[1] John Fentress Gardner, THE EXPERIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE (Waldorf Press, 1975), pp. 121-122.)
[2] Ibid., p. 130.
[3] Ibid., pp. 127-128.
[4]Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 495.
[5] Rudolf Steiner, THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE, Foundations of Waldorf Education (Anthroposophic Press, 1996), p. 60.
[6] Steiner assailed science and rational though often. Consider, for example, Rudolf Steiner, AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE: EXPLORING OUR SUPRASENSORY NATURE, (Steiner Books, 2000), p. 84.
Steiner’s attitude toward rational thought is neatly summarized in “Let now these intimations come/To claim their rightful place,/Supplanting thinking’s power....” [Rudolf Steiner, THE ILLUSTRATED CALENDAR OF THE SOUL (Temple Lodge Publishing, 2004), meditation #7.] By intimations, he meant the results of clairvoyance or its precursors, such as imagination.
[7] Steiner made this claim repeatedly, also. For one interesting example, see Rudolf Steiner, KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS AND ITS ATTAINMENT (Anthroposophic Press, 1944), p. 28, etc.
