TITLE PAGE AND LIST OF CONTENTS

   STUDY MATERIAL FOR THE SPIRITUALIZATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF CIVILIZATION

HERBERT WITZENMANN

  

TO CREATE OR TO ADMINISTRATE

Rudolf Steiner’s Social Organics –

A New Principle of Civilization

Working Translation of 
Gestalten oder Verwalten -
Rudolf Steiners Sozialorganik / Ein neues Zivilisationsprinzip
by

Robert J. Kelder
Willehalm Institute
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

 * * *   

The congregation is the kingdom of Christ, whose active, present spirit is Christ, because His kingdom has a real presence, not just a future one.

The congregation comes into being with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

                                                                                              G.W.F. HEGEL

To live for the love of deeds and to let live in the understanding of the will of others is the ground maxim of free human beings. They know no obligation other than that with which their volition enters in intuitive agreement; what they will want to do in a special case will be prompted by their ideation.

If freedom were to be understood as it was meant at that time (in the “Philosophy of Freedom”), there would be a completely different tone in what is now spoken about the world order around the whole planet. To this end, it is necessary that ethical individualism be apprehended in its root, how it is built on the insight that the human being by apprehending himself . ..free thinking. . .is actually related to what can be called: the pulsing of the cosmic impulses through the human soul. Only from there can the impulse for freedom be grasped, only from there it is possible to regenerate those impulses that are now all coming to a dead end.

                                                                                                   RUDOLF STEINER

List of Contents

Introduction by the Translator - 100 Years Christmas Conference 1923

Preface to the Second Edition by the Author

1. Introduction to the Scope of the Problem

1.1 About the Members' Meeting of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach in 1972

1.2 On the Issue of Governing Bodies

1.3 "The Anthroposophical Society considers politics not to be part of its task.”

2. Explanation by Way of Example: An Imminent Nuclear War

2.1 Stating The Problem  

2.2 The Community-building Meaning of Outward Action

2.3 The Community-building Meaning of Inward Behavior

2.4 The Community-building Meaning of an Attitude Summarizing the Two Previously Mentioned Directions

3. Incidental Remark on the Issue of Group Formation

4. A Mindset Distinct from the Three Previously Characterized

5. The Modern Principle of Social Design

5.1 The Origin and Function of Management or Administration

5.2 The Consciousness and Action Community of Free Individuals

5.3 The Fundamental Problem of Our Time

5.4 The Evolutionary Nature of Modern Community-building and Some Objections Raised Against It

6. On the Issue of Cooperation Between Officeholders (Direction) and Co-workers (Staff)

6.1 On the Issue of Motions (Proposals) and the Submission of Motions

6.2 Motions and Concerns (Wishes)

6.3 The Societal and Communal Constitutive Function of Motions

7. Public Law and the Spiritual Creation of Rights 

7.1 The Spiritual Content of Public Law

7.2 Submission of Motions and Modern Mysteries

8. The Pursuit of Knowledge as a Formative Principle

8.1 Membership and Free School and Their Different Relationship 
To the Submission Procedure of Motions

8.2 Common Efforts to Gain Insight and the Voting Procedure

8.3 About the Special Position of the Active Members Regarding the Problem of the Motion

8.4 The Goetheanum Board as an Initiative Board

8.5 The Interplay Between Motion and Initiative

8.6 The Building of Frameworks and Social Organic Development

9. Rudolf Steiner as the Creator of a New Principle of Civilization

9.1 The Criterion for the Essential

9.2 New Forms of Social Knowledge and Volitional Development

9.3 On the Matter of the Meetings of Delegates

9.4 Rudolf Steiner's Greatest Work

10. Concluding Remarks

10.1 The Complaint of Contentlessness. The Difference between  Representations or Mental Images and Living Concepts

10.2 Some Words of Rudolf Steiner About the Nature of the Constitution of the Free School  and the Anthroposophical Society

10.3 The Seriousness of the Task

10.4 About the Inner Attitude of What Has Been Developed in this Writing

APPENDICES

I. Why I Do Not  Consent To The Decision of January 14, 1968, Concerning the Book Question

II.  Principles (Founding Statutes) of the Anthroposophical Society