The healthy social life is found When in the mirror
of each human being The whole community finds its
reflection And when in the community The virtue of each
one is living. From the beginning of his public work,
Rudolf Steiner saw his spiritual mission as
civilizational. He understood that individual spiritual
development means little unless, spreading through a
community of practitioners, it leads to larger societal
and cultural transformation. As always, his views were
radical. He realized that a healthy social life would
depend, above all, on the transformation of work from a
commodity into a gift. As he said in 1905: Evolution is
moving towards totally uncompensated work. No one
rejects the idea and no one can change it. Whereas Greek
workers performed their work in bondage to their master
and modern workers are compelled to work for pay, in the
future all work will be performed freely. Work and
income will be completely separated. That is the healthy
state of social conditions in the future. That same
year, he formulated what he called "the fundamental
social law": The wellbeing of an entire group of
individuals who work together becomes greater the less
individuals claim the income resulting from their own
accomplishments for themselves-that is, the more they
contribute this income to their fellow workers, and the
more their own needs are met not through their own
efforts but through the efforts of others. In this
important book, Peter Selg shows us a different Rudolf
Steiner. Here, the emphasis of his teaching is mostly on
the need to cultivate selflessness and readiness to
sacrifice. Selg first describes the context in which
Steiner expressed these ideas, how much they meant to
him, and how, when they fell on barren ground, he
selflessly laid them aside while holding them in his
heart in the hope of a more opportune moment. He goes on
to show how this moment came after World War I, when
Rudolf Steiner dedicated himself tirelessly to the
Threefold Social Organism, lecturing extensively on
economics and social policy. Finally, in a last,
extraordinarily moving chapter, Selg shows the essential
Christ- and Gospel-inspired nature of these ideas: As
long as you feel pain That passes me by, The Christ
works unrecognized... Weak is the spirit That can feel
suffering Only in its own body. Anyone interested in a
just, equitable, healthy, and spirit-based social future
should read this important book!
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