Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

pening in fact for a long time, but the cultural image of the motive for workhas not caught up with it. People still think they are mainly providing forthemselves through the work they do for others. The spirit of cooperationis further compromised by self-interest seeking power and influence. Theremay still be some cultural embarrassment about the attendant egoism. Exposingself-interest to ridicule is still great sport, but egoism is losing ground,our social thinking having gone at least as far as advocating cooperationin economic matters at the expense of competition. Competition is not thespirit of maintenance. Cooperation is.In developing his social thought, Rudolf Steiner calls for strong individualsto cooperate, not compete. To sacrifice the egoism of competitionon the altar of altruism takes great moral strength and courage, especiallyin the pioneering stage. Steiner puts it succinctly in a lecture he gave inZurich, Switzerland, not long after World War I (October 29, 1919): “Justas the trading system had to do with the clashing of one individual willwith another, so the economic order of the Commonwealth (the ThreefoldSocial Order) will have to do with a kind of collective will, which then inreverse fashion works back on the individual.” Speaking of cooperation andassociation as the basis of the collective will, and noting that in an entirelydifferent (“confused, by no means reasonable”) way socialism also yearnsfor a collective will, Steiner continues: “How will that be possible? As weknow, it must arise through the cooperation of single wills. The single willsmust give a result that is no tyranny for the individual, but within whicheveryone must be able to feel himself free.” And further in the same context,“Into that collective will must flow all that is felt by the individual man ashis own spiritual, moral, and bodily nature. This is imperative.” Noting thatthe aristocratic system was too instinctive, the trading system too haphazard,to build up a collective will properly, Steiner calls for a cultural life based onfreedom (spiritual activity) implemented by the study of spiritual science:“Hence it will only be possible to establish an economic order of the communitywhen the economic organization can be inspired by the independentspiritual life.” And further, “Only a spiritual culture that has been banishedfrom practical life can become foreign to life” (all quotations from The SocialFuture, Lecture V).In other contexts Steiner speaks of the need to transcend the boundariesof materialism and mere rationalism. This is harder than it may sound.Materialism and rationalism have been evolutionary necessities in orderto provide the individual with a basis for feeling that cognition is its ownpossession. This was well understood in the 18th century. As Peter Gay, in328