A second phase of research into the UK Anthroposophy movement is proceeding more or less to schedule and, in need of a break, I’m just back from the Great Outdoors.
During the jaunt, sitting around the campfire one night, my friend asked me why I spent so much time and effort on researching Steiner and Anthroposophy when my heart was so much more into other things. As a ‘green’ activist he’d met a few ex-Steiner school pupils on his travels and had found them to be pleasant enough, well grounded people. My answer ran something along the lines of it being because of my ethical commitment to challenging racism, Steiner core belief being incontestably racist therefore needed exposing and challenging. Also, Steiner’s version of evolution of humans on Atlantis in turn actively challenges archaeological and scientific based understandings of where we come from as a species and how we got to where we are today. Anthroposophical applications expand year on year and are increasingly entertained, embraced and supported by the state. How could I not take an active interest in Steiner/Anthroposophy?
We didn’t come to blows over the subject – it’s hard to get a fight going between a Buddhist and a pacifist – but we have argued about Steiner education before now. He takes a utilitarian view on the matter – if the kids have a happy time at the schools and come out the other end as half-decent people then what can be wrong with that. I ask him if he’d be happy placing his kids into a school in full knowledge of the school operating to a racist doctrine. You pays your money you makes your choice, as the saying goes.
The situation today has changed significantly though because that element of personal choice in the matter as to which sorts of schools we support has been taken away from us. State funding of Steiner education means that we, as taxpayers, pay for an education system underpinned by a belief system that is at least contentious if not racist. So the issue of Steiner belief takes on a political dimension and, yes, I am bovvered.
I would say the same thing, why would I not care about it? I have sometimes got that question from anthros, and it sort of surprises me why they’d think it odd that someone takes an interest in what they’re doing. No matter if we agree or not, shouldn’t they think it’s natural people want to engage with this thing, anthroposophy, rather than ignoring it? Because to ignore it would be to say it isn’t worthy of attention. That, in my view, would be erroneus–for many reasons. Ideologically, politically, and so forth.
And if we care about higher education, anthroposophy making its way into pedagogical institutions or bogus medical courses, it’s all very worrying.
As for education and schools; wait a few years, and you may have 40 (or more! the UK is a larger country) state funded waldorf/steiner schools.
-z
I completely agree. Racism and irrational mystic beliefs often go hand in hand; particularly when religious beliefs leave the realm of poetic metaphor and are enacted as literal instruction.
Best wishes
Nick
I am very glad that you are doing this research, you are doing a very important work.
There are two problems, one the political indoctrination on a crypto-nazi ideology to children and their families covered up as just a lovely and harmless movement, the second one is the way in which are infiltrating and co-opting green, pacifist and any other “alternative” groups, making people think that the utterly unscientific “biodynamic” principles are better than anything else, while cashing in the revenues of all the people who are made to believe that their products are better. I am not happy when I go to an organic shop and I see so many product by companies linked to the Waldorf movement, because every penny expended on buying them means to help these ethnocentrist, racist, arian supremacist, arrogant and supersticious to further their movement and co-opt more new people.
How happy are children who are not allowed to laugh? or have hats on all the time because bad energies can get into their brains because they have thin skulls?