THE GOOD WARS

America, Germany, and Waldorf

I.

I want to discuss something that may seem tangential to the main issues dealt with on this Web site. The two world wars probably presented a dilemma for at least a few of my teachers. Our Waldorf school was heavily staffed by individuals of German extraction. I do not know that any of these people contributed to the German war effort in either world war, and I do not know that any of them felt allegiance to the Kaiser or to Hitler. I certainly have no interest in charging any of them with insufficient loyalty to the United States. My point is simply that affection for the nation of one’s birth or heritage is a natural human impulse. Surely, for individuals of German extraction — even those who opposed the German wartime governments — seeing Germany brought to devastating ruin would have been painful. This, I suspect, is why at our school references to the wars often seemed to be tinged with a vague sense of embarrassment, as if some rule of correct behavior had been breached.

My father flew for the US Army in Europe during World War II. In seventh grade, I wrote an essay about the air campaign against Germany. When I handed the paper to my teacher, Joseph Wetzl, he frowned and dropped it on his desk as if it were offensive to him. I cannot know whether his reaction stemmed from Germanic staunchness or a spiritualistic pacifism. Nonetheless, I felt guilty, afterward, for submitting such a paper to a German-American.

Our school had a distinct if muted German tone. Here is a partial list of faculty, staff, and close associates of the school who may have been of German extraction (bear in mind that the school was small, so the following represent a large fraction): Baravalle, Bedding, Benner, Berlin, Fruchtman (this name is originally Jewish, from Fruchter), Karl, Kaufmann, Meissner, Ritscher, Scherer, Wachsman, Wehle, Weschler, Wetzl, and Winkler. The following may or may not have been of German extraction: Blumenthal (from the German, Blumen or flowers, and Thal or valley), Gardner (perhaps English, from Gardener, or German, from Gartner), Miller (perhaps English, or perhaps from the German, Mueller), Perl (originally Jewish, then German: after places called Perl or Berl, or possibly drawn from Middle High German, Perle), and Rose (English, Scottish, French, or German: from the name of the flower, originally from the Latin, rosa). In some cases, there were two individuals in the school — usually husband and wife — bearing the same Germanic surname. The student body also contained a large number of individuals with German names. A fair percentage of these kids were children of faculty and staff, which meant that sometimes there were three or more individuals at the school having the same German surname.

What does any of this have to do with anything? Perhaps not much. Or perhaps a bit more than that. Rudolf Steiner taught that “Ever since the Atlantean race [from Atlantis] began slowly to disappear, the great Aryan Race has been the dominant one on earth.” [1] And among the Aryans, Germans occupy a special place: “[The German] must be educated to [his] mission ... [which is] looking at the world from the most varied points of view. This is the special mission of the German people ... They shall take hold upon world culture from this side, even as the German people ... [C]ertain things that I shall touch upon today, for example, in the realm of knowledge, can be evolved only through the German people ... ” [2] Here we see Steiner endorsing the notion of German exceptionalism. Germans have the ability to see complex truths. Steiner stands on “this side,” promoting the special gifts of the German people, who will “take hold upon world culture.” To his faithful followers, Steiner’s words amount to gospel. To the rest of us, these particular words may seem chilling.

II.

Despite the number of “German” adults and children at our school, my impression is that most of the students — growing up in the USA, in the 1950-60s — were generally disposed to see the world wars in simplistic, even jingoistic terms: good vs. evil, democracy vs. militarism, and so forth. These attitudes can be traced far back, but we were especially affected by the patriotic fervor stemming from the war years, a fervor that was only heightened during the Cold War, which was raging at its worst while we grew up. Today, we tend to look back on WW II as a righteous crusade: Civilized nations opposing barbaric huns. (Prior to WW I, Kaiser Wilhelm himself characterized his nation as huns, and the term stuck.) In retrospect, the Holocaust provided more than ample reason to congratulate ourselves that we really seemed to be the good guys: I can remember black-and-white TV documentaries about heroic GIs liberating the skeletal inmates of concentration camps. For most students at our Waldorf, America was a synonym for heroism (the home of the brave) and virtue (the land of the free). We thought America had won both wars almost single-handedly — the sacrifices of the Russians, in particular, were ignored by most Americans, since the Reds had become our new foes. We kids garnered these views from our parents, movies, TV, radio, magazines and newspapers. (As Waldorf students, we weren’t supposed to watch TV, but most of us could not resist.) The kicker: We were also fed these views, indirectly, at school. Unlike many Waldorfs, ours attempted to be “American.” We said the Pledge, we had flags at assemblies, and our headmaster attributed our curriculum to American visionaries such as Emerson and Whitman. We were raised in a confusing German/American welter of accents and inclinations.

The main reason for the American patriotism in our school lay in the efforts our headmaster — John Fentress Gardner — made to disguise the true nature of the school. While he did not explicitly say so in class (he hinted, but he didn’t announce), in other forums Mr. Gardner specifically contended that the American Transcendentalists were spiritual antecedents of Rudolf Steiner. After resigning due to a scandal reported in the NEW YORK TIMES [3], Mr. Gardner wrote AMERICAN HERALDS OF THE SPIRIT [Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1992], about the American Transcendentalists Emerson, Whitman, and Melville. The third appendix deals with “Rudolf Steiner’s extensive and immensely fruitful research.” Mr. Gardner’s thesis was that the American Transcendentalists anticipated — in vague form — spiritual doctrines that Steiner would sharpen and perfect, “lending them the clarity of something fully experienced....” (p. 298).

Linking our school with great American thinkers of the past enabled Mr. Gardner to assure parents that Waldorf was essentially all-American: “...I worked to gain understanding for [the school and its methods]. I minimized the difference between a Waldorf school and other [American] schools.... As soon as fundamental questions began to be answered plainly, wild rumors and frightened guesses quieted down.” [4] Mr. Gardner’s “plain” answers apparently entailed the proposition that “There was nothing in Rudolf Steiner that Thoreau and Emerson and Whitman would not have approved wholeheartedly.” [5] This claim would be defensible only if the great bulk of Steiner’s teachings (the gods’ divine cosmic plan, the magical effects of eurythmy, the existence of human automata, etc., etc.) were kept hidden and the remainder were reduced to something like “The task of a truly liberal education ... must be to revive and train intuitive faculties, in a modern way, to take their place beside the intellectual. This is the simplest statement of the purpose of Waldorf methods....” [6] Simple, but quite incomplete.

III.

To return to the world wars: Our Waldorf generally ignored the unhappy wartime antagonism between Germany and America. History classes focused on ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, with later a patriotic version of the founding of America. The 20th century was rarely present in our classes, except for occasional assertions that Communism was uniquely evil. The world wars must have cropped up somewhere in our studies — I remember that, in high school, I wrote a completely unscientific essay about Einstein and the A-bomb (my thesis: It’s a good thing that the good guys got the bomb first). But I have no memory of the social or political currents of the 20th century receiving any sustained review or analysis in our classes. Much of our study of history came in art history classes, which were nice, but didn’t have much geopolitical content. We followed the development of civilization through the progression of artistic achievement — but we did not follow this as far as modern, cubist, or abstract art. Our view of the world was almost Victorian, as if history had been suspended at around the end of the 19th century. We were schooled in a general antipathy to things modern. Science, technology, TV — everything that smacked of the real, modern world — was (and still is) held in disfavor among Anthroposophists. [7]

Moving this possibly tangential discussion toward its close, let’s hear more from Steiner about the role of the German people in humanity’s development. “[I]t is necessary for us to ... make ourselves strong to meet those Ahrimanic forces. [Ahriman, according to Steiner, is a powerful demon who opposes human evolution.] It is a matter therefore of finding the way towards understanding the spiritual world with the very same powers we also use to understand the outside world. That, of course, is the way ... that is inwardly bound up with the whole mission of the German people.” [8] My teachers may have been able to accept Steiner’s statements about the special mission of the German people. Others may not.

Where does all of this leave us? In microcosm, my personal experience is that these matters count. During my high school years, I was the confused product of two conflicting delusions. I was a delusional, ill-informed junior Anthroposophist-in-training; at the same time, I was a delusional, ill-informed junior American super-patriot. If we today accept the propositions that Anthroposophy is nonsense and that super-patriotism is at least a tad excessive, then reality was nowhere on my radar. Thus, as in so many ways, I graduated from the Waldorf School unprepared to face the real world.

Here’s the macrocosm. Steiner said that humans used to possess greater clairvoyant powers than is common now. [9] Becoming clairvoyant again is an important goal, but in the meantime humanity has to evolve through a phase of materialism and material-brain thinking and feeling (while striving, of course, to avoid the snares of these). [10] Blonds have the best brains. [11] Generally, Aryans excel at thinking — it is their special field of endeavor. [12] Germans (who are high Aryans) understand the future of human evolution particularly well [13], and Germans’ mission now — in service to human evolution — entails comprehending the world from many angles. [14] Steiner founded Anthroposophy, an esoteric system that organizes spiritual wisdom gleaned from around the globe. [15] It’s not too much to say that Anthroposophy is designed to fulfill the German national/racial mission: seeing the world from many angles and consolidating the results. It follows that in establishing an educational system in Germany — that is, the first Waldorf School, with Anthroposophy at is base — Steiner intended to educate Germans precisely as he said they should be educated: “[The German] must be educated to [his] mission....”

I’ll leave it to others to decide whether Waldorf schooling is appropriate inside Germany itself. It’s hard to believe that even German kids benefit from an “education” steeped in esotericism. But that aside, there seems to be no denying (although Anthroposophists will deny it) that Waldorf schooling is inappropriate everywhere outside Germany, unless the coursework is modified so as to fulfill the “missions” of other peoples. But since the esoteric concept of such missions is absurd, the proviso I just added is irrelevant. Waldorf schooling is inappropriate in America — and probably all around the globe.

— Roger Rawlings

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“German brainpower has achieved things in certain areas by applying mechanical powers ... [T]hese mechanistic and demonic powers can be overcome on the basis of our particular spiritual mission. Then however, a German may easily get himself misunderstood as he comes to see ... that it is not his function to stop at the purely meachanical element that is of such great service to him also in the present day, with the challenges presented by the war. He must not stop at what is merely mechanism, for then he would merely create demons. No, he must develop powerful forces within him that can boldly face these demons. This means we have to stand in the spiritual world, not blindly but in a way that arises from, and is guided by, conviction.” [Rudolf Steiner, DESTINIES OF INDIVIDUALS AND OF NATIONS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1987) p. 81.]

For information about Ahriman and Lucifer,

please use this link: "Ahriman".

Wet-on-wet painting by a Waldorf student

[courtesy of PLANS].

From a chapel window,

Mighty 8th Air Force Museum.

Ahriman in his cave.

[R.R., 2009 — from sketch by Steiner,

ART (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003), p. 145.]

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ENDNOTES

[1] Rudolf Steiner, THE TEMPLE LEGEND (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1997), p. 201.

[2] Rudolf Steiner THE CHALLENGE OF THE TIMES (SteinerBooks, 1979), pp. 207-209. Steiner praised Germans for a form of doublethink: The ability to affirm two or more disparate “truths” simultaneously. 

Concerning the German mission: “Anthroposophy as Steiner taught it focused crucially on ideas like ‘the German spirit’ and ‘the German soul’ and ‘the German essence’ and ‘the German mission’ and so forth ... What many anthroposophists sought in the 1920s was a “spiritual revolution” in Germany for the sake of the whole world. Here is an example from anthroposophist Ernst Boldt’s 1923 book FROM LUTHER TO STEINER: ‘The “mobilizing” of Spirit and intellect that has been going forward in Germany, under Rudolf Steiner, ever since 1900 is now almost complete; at the given moment the “troops” standing in readiness will carry out their appointed parts in the operations and strike a blow for German Idealism, for the German Spirit, and for German Culture, doing so against the pseudo- and un-German barbarism, as exemplified by Russian Bolshevism, Roman Catholicism, and Jesuitry, against Roman Law and against Anglo-American Materialism and Imperialism, all of which have sought to make their homes on our soil.’” [Ernest Boldt, FROM LUTHER TO STEINER (Dutton, 1920), p. 184, translated by Agnew Blake — Peter Staudenmaier, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorf-critics/message/9771 , March 25, 2009.]

To put the German mission in context: Steiner also spoke of the “missions” of other peoples. Take one example. “Among the English-speaking people self-seeking and political goals simply coincide. It leads to the fact that all politics performed in an utterly naive fashion — and this does not justify attaching any blame to a politician of the English-speaking peoples — can be used by the self-seeking person to fulfill thereby the mission of the English-speaking people.” [Ibid., p. 197.] The tone, here, is condescending and dismissive, the interjected qualification notwithstanding.

[3] See my essay “Unenlightened” on this Web site.

[4] John Fentress Gardner, “The Founding of Adelphi’s Waldorf School,” ONE MAN’S VISION: IN MEMORIAM, H.A.W. MYRIN (The Myrin Institute Inc., 1970), p. 48.

[5] Ibid., p. 46.

[6] Ibid., p. 48.

[7] See “Steiner’s ‘Science’” on this Web site.

Television and computers are often held in special disfavor at Waldorf schools. Of course, most people would agree that too much time spent in front of a TV or computer is bad for children. But the Waldorf position is rooted in occultism. “Eliminating television is not only a practical concern. There are spiritual reasons for eliminating television. Some members of the Waldorf community believe that a being called Ahriman [a demon] is especially present in electronic media such as computers and the Internet. This might help explain why Waldorf is so adamant about eliminating television for children, even when the American Association of Pediatrics says limited TV is OK for kids over 2 years of age.” [Ahriman and Television, http://www.openwaldorf.com/media.html  .] Ahriman is the devil in Zoroastrianism. For Rudolf Steiner and his followers, Ahriman is, in effect, Satan — and he shows up in such devices as TVs. “Whatever the merits of certain inventions, they show the face of Ahriman. Under such headings one could consider all sorts of mechanisms but in particular such appliances as television, radio, cinema and the thousand and one things dependent on electricity.” [Roy Wilkinson, RUDOLF STEINER, Chapter 6, “Forces of Evil” http://www.anthroposophy.org.uk/book/chapter6.html  ] There are good reasons to restrict TV and computer time for kids; but at Waldorf schools there are also wacky reasons. (I last checked the Web sites referred to here on March 3, 2009. It is interesting to note, in passing, that Waldorf advocates are willing to use the demonic Internet for their own good purposes.)

[8] Rudolf Steiner, THE DESTINY OF INDIVIDUALS AND OF NATIONS (SteinerBooks, 1986), p. 78. 

Steiner asserted that the Central European powers had a special mission in World War I: The Central Powers occupied a Christlike position, resisting the evils of two demons, Lucifer and Ahriman. Central Europe, by this accounting, played a messianic role in the war. “Steiner sees a parallel between Christ’s central, but equalizing position [between Lucifer and Ahriman] and Central Europe’s mission in World War I. He implies that Germany’s and Austria’s militarism and political intransigence alone did not lead to war against the world powers in the East (Russia) and the West (France, England and, since 1917, the United States). According to Steiner, World War I was the earthly expression of a struggle between luciferic forces in the East and ahrimanic forces in the West, and it was Central Europe’s destiny to mediate between these forces.” [Rudolf Steiner, “Christ in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman” — http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/ChrLuc_index.html  .]

[9] E.g., “People, however, who have preserved a certain nature-sense, i.e. the old clairvoyant forces which everyone once possessed....” [NATURE SPIRITS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), p. 63.] For more about Steiner’s views on cognition, see my essays “Thinking Cap” and “Steiner’s 'Science'” on this Web site.

[10] “[T]he essential characteristic of the fourth post-Atlantean period was that human powers of intellect and feeling were strengthened by being cut off from direct interaction with the world of soul and spirit. The souls who incarnated then and greatly developed those powers then carried the results of their development over into their incarnation during the fifth period.” [Rudolf Steiner, AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC SCIENCE (Anthroposophic Press, 1997), pp. 386.] The fourth period is the historical stage before our own, the fifth. “Incarnation” reflects Steiner’s borrowed doctrines of karma and reincarnation. We will at attain a higher sort of clairvoyance before too long: “[W]hen the sixth period begins, humanity will have been able to reacquire the non-sensory perception it possessed in a dusklike way in earlier times — but now on a higher level....” [Ibid., p. 389.]

[11] “Blond hair actually bestows intelligence. In the case of fair people, less nourishment is driven into the eyes and hair; it remains instead in the brain and endows it with intelligence.” [Rudolf Steiner, HEALTH AND ILLNESS, Vol. 1 (Anthroposophic Press, 1981), pp. 85-86.]

[12] “[A]t the present time it is the task of the Aryans to develop the faculty of thought and all that belongs to it.” [Rudolf Steiner, COSMIC MEMORY (SteinerBooks, 1987), p. 46.]

[13] “Germanic mythology, from the way in which it was developed out of the native powers of the Archangel, is in its pictures closely akin to the anthroposophical conception of the world such as it shall grow to be in the course of time for all mankind.” [Rudolf Steiner, THE MISSION OF THE FOLK SOULS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005), p. 123.]

[14] “... looking at the world from the most varied points of view ... [C]ertain things ... for example, in the realm of knowledge, can be evolved only through the German people.”  See endotes 2 and 7, above. 

[15] E.g., RUDOLF STEINER (Western Esoteric Masters Series), anthology edited by Richard Seddon (Berkley: North Atlantic Books, 2004, general editor’s preface by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke), p. 7. Also see my essay “Unenlightened” on this Web site.