8.1 Membership and Free School and their Different Relationship to the Submission Procedure of Motions
The problem of motions is from this and related viewpoints no longer only to be studied logically, legally or administratively, but rather within the reality of the social formative events that constitute the main task of the anthroposophical General Meetings (similar to the General Meeting of every modern society). Certainly, attention must be paid that within a free society and community no coercion be exercised from any side: the awareness of this and the congruence with this principle was just now emphasized as the basic obligation that the member of a modern mystery institution (an institution shaped out of ideational impulses) acknowledges for himself and without the respect and observation of which he does in fact not belong at all to such an institution. The nature of the problem of motions, however, is many-sided, depending on whether it is looked at from the viewpoint of membership in the Society or from that of the School (the office holding center).
From the side of the Free School no coercion may be exercised on the members with respect to the submission of motions, because the exercise of coercion is absolutely contradictory to the nature of the School and the Society. But not only in general; such coercion is also to be rejected from specific points of view. Of these special viewpoints may again be mentioned here the infringement of the public principle, which is at the same time an infringement of the esoteric-exoteric nature of the Free School, and furthermore the infringement of the intake principle that gives those seeking membership access to the General Anthroposophical Society. This intake principle is one of trust and the meeting of trust, since it does not impose any special obligations on entrants, but only connects to the trust they bring on their part to the Society that they want to join. The members can therefore not be obliged to refrain from submitting motions (even those of a special kind) or to indirectly enforce such a restraint. The representative of the Free School (the educational center of a consciousness society) can accordingly only appeal, as Rudolf Steiner has emphasized again and again, to the free insight of the members, because a modern society can only be a knowledge society and that therefore its inner life can only unfold in processes of consciousness-raising and not in the form administrative and dispositional regulations. With regard to motions that have or seem to have a coercive character, the representatives of the Free School can do nothing else than by consulting the ability to reason of the members to extract the cognitive content of such motions and address it or to refer their more exact examination to study circles (formed according to the libertarian not the administrative principle), the research results of which are to be made accessible in an appropriate way for the reaction of the members.
In this context, it is time and again to be stressed that the members of the Free School harbor the libertarian duty not to exercise any coercion on the other members, while the latter are not obliged to do so, even though an appeal is also to be made to them that their interest is directed to a free society. By admitting them as members their understanding for the existential conditions of a free community will be met with confidence, after during the intake meeting the insight on the part of those seeking admittance was created about the significance of their intended decision. However, the members of the Free School in accordance with the public and confidence principle expose themselves without reservation, just out of respect for the ability to reason of the members, to possible coercion exercised towards them. Were that, in spite of an unharnessing appeal on the part of the Council to the insight of the members, to occur someday on their part, the members of the Free School would have to make a cognitive, not an administrative decision how they would want to behave in such a case. They will also then not be able to base themselves on anything else than the free insight of the members. It is in no way compatible with the nature of the Free School to exert influence on the members and the voting procedure by a prior announcement if any of such an ensuing decision, thus by coercion. The spirituality of public law (that forbids threats against members) corresponds with regard to the inadmissibility of such an attempt to influence completely with the law of the Free School.
8.2 Common Efforts to Gain Insight and the Voting Procedure
Just because problems dealing with cognition cannot be voted on as if they involved decisions regarding the truth, cognitive discussions about questions of modern social design must be dealt with within the framework of an anthroposophical General Assembly. Otherwise administrative decisions supported by a majority will be taken with respect to these problems and with respect to the significance attributed to them as well as for the consequences resulting from them for actions. This would however arise, when (as at the General Assembly of the year 1972 actually did happen) the attempt would be made to prevent the submission of motions and the voicing of opinions pertaining to them and the vote by means of a vote, whereby a decision about cognitive questions (e.g. due to their supposed unconstitutionality) would not be made through explanation and clarification of the content of the motion, but by a vote. One would thereby become entangled in the most confused contradiction imaginable by abolishing majority decisions about cognitive problems and at the same time employ a power based on a majority decision in order to prevent the cognitive discharge of such problems. In that way one would act in the style of a reverse Baron von Münchhausen by not pulling oneself from one’s own thatch out of the swamp, but by tumbling into it. For decisions made on the basis of votes cannot be justified by themselves, thus by their efficacy possibly obtainable through voting, but only through their transparency for the knowledge of the members. Voting on cognitive problems cannot be prohibited by voting on cognitive problems. The helplessness revealing itself in this process makes it clear that a problem exists here that requires careful social scientific processing.
Besides, it is not true (with the exception of the case just mentioned) when it is maintained that decisions about cognitive problems are made by voting (or, what comes down to the same thing) that the latter would impermissibly be drawn into the voting sphere, if they play a role in connection with a voting procedure. A vote is after all a volitional statement; it indicates the willingness or not to adopt certain matters of knowledge or just the pursuit of them in the field of one’s own cognition or undertaking actions. In so far as decisions are taken, thereby, they will be made, if it happens correctly, out of knowledge or out of an attempt for knowledge, but not (as in the case of a crackdown on motions) about cognitive contents, which rather motivate the decision. In a knowledge society cognitive contents therefore belong intrinsically in the voting sphere, because the latter concerns the volitional decisions and because modern man as a free spirit acts out of knowledge. When he does this, no coercion can ensue from his decision. For the knowers meet each other in the insight with which they are not connected by coercion, but by their own thinking activity that first brought them together. Out of this it becomes obvious how unharnessing motions differ from those with a coercive character. Motions with the goal towards a common pursuit of knowledge as well as the expressed willingness to act in common out of knowledge belong to the libertarian sphere of spiritual social design. Motions of the sort, however, that want to prevent the cognitional clearance of spiritual problems (as was the case with the no-action motions from them [German: Nichteintretensanträge] at the General Assembly of the year 1972 at least what concerned their effect) contradict the forming of free insight with majority coercion of administrative-political measures. Whoever makes use of the power of the majority, subjugates himself to the power of the majority. In contrast, in a modern society and in its General Assembly there can be no domain, no process, no measure and no decision (as this in case of a vote is decided) for which cognitive contents and attempts to elucidate them through submitting motions and entering initiatives is not of decisive importance. It is not difficult to recognize that the suppression of a vote, which among mutually respecting partners proceeds in approval, rejection, reservation and graduated expressions of readiness, belongs to a mindset that has long since been superseded by the progress of development. This does not mean, however, that every motion as one that is suited to an anthroposophical (or any modern) meeting, must be considered as such. Rather, next to a vote of rejection a motion can also be met with a motion of disapproval. A motion of this kind appeals, if it is carefully motivated, in contrast to a no-action motion, which is based on a decision of irreconcilability not made in the spirit of freedom, to the free insight of the members as an indication of a cognitive impulse devoid of any coercion. In view of several oddities and regrettable incidents, this is what in principle ought to be obvious unfortunately necessary to say. May it be forgiven that, in view of the confusion about this question, attention was given to it here, something that under normal circumstances should truly be superfluous.
8.3 About the Special Position of the Active Members Regarding the Problem of the Motion
It will be objected that these remarks disregard the special viewpoints that pertain to the active members (carrying out special functions). The members that are active in a limited sense, as is known and understandable from the root of the matter, acknowledge through the fact of their being active within the General Anthroposophical Society (as in all modern societies) certain libertarian duties for themselves. One these duties, about which there can be no doubt among members of a modern society, and which also follows unequivocally from the social and spiritual design of the General Anthroposophical Society and which, besides, has already been developed here, is to refrain from applying any form of coercion against the other members (thus also dispositional coercion), for whom such duties initially do not exist. It is therefore freely up to the other members to submit motions; it is after all according to the text and above all the spirit of the “Principles” an intrinsic part of their membership borne out of interest, and in any case their undeniable right, supported and protected by the “Principles”, to submit such motions in a form, which proceeds from insight and which seeks insight through consultation with other members and the Initiative Council. For the active members, however, other motives obviously come into consideration. While the members that are non-active in a limited sense can submit motions, but are not obliged to do so, even though the filing of motions on their part also in the sense of their relation of interest to the Society may be expected, the active members are obliged to do so, at least in the cases of the submission of motions that concern the fundaments of the Society and their relation to the Council. It is namely an intrinsic part of the form of their membership to work “in unison with the Council”, for they have after all freely obliged themselves to collaborate in the forming of a common consciousness, which constitutes the main task of the Council (of a modern college of officeholders). To be “in unison with the Council” is therefore not a prescription nor an oath, but the description of a fact that arises from the one’s being active in the General Anthroposophical Society since the Christmas Conference. For one cannot at the same time work for and against the emergence of this common consciousness. From this it becomes evident that “Unison with the Council “ is intimately connected with one’s own cognitive and active relation to the fundaments of the Society. These fundaments must after all be expressed in the nature and the behavior of the Council, which is why only, in so far this is the case, the unison with it can be sought and found. Where this concordance is destroyed based on grounds that are not personal but that concern insights into the nature of the Free School, these difficulties, because they evolve around problems related to the fundaments of the Society, must be clarified in a form that includes the whole Society. Because the interest that motivated the decision of the members to join, is based on the inner intactness of the Society and the School (educational center of a common consciousness). Only such an intactness can uphold the spiritual reality of the Goetheanum, whose functional existence has created the interest of the entrants, moved them to join the Society and that can motivate them to remain in it. Independent of their administrative-technical affiliation to the General Anthroposophical Society, the active members in fact declare their resignation from this Society the moment they neglect their duty to protect and guard its fundamentals through their cognition and action. On the other hand, the resolution that cannot be shaken by any form of coercion, to commit oneself to the truth, purity and reality of the General Anthroposophical Society in the sense of its spiritual foundations, forms the insoluble connection with its nature that cannot be affected by any external measures. If the active members were not in this way to observe their freely accepted duty, they would grossly deceive the incoming members with whom they share the serious co-responsibility for the formation of the society. The latter have after all joined the Society out of interest for the existence of a Free School (a spiritual education center), and under the described circumstances through misuse of their trust would be subjected to the measures of an administrative society – perhaps without them being able to conceive a clear idea of it, since they are not supported in this clarification but on the contrary obstructed in it – or even fall under the prevalence of influences rendering it impossible to bring their insight to bear, thereby stumbling in a deeply distressing situation, which they would accept out of love for the work of Rudolf Steiner.
It may certainly be expected that the active members, to begin with in consultation with the faculty of the School and the Council at the Goetheanum, would attempt to clarify the reasons for the breakdown of their harmonious relation and thus restore it. But even there where such a clarification succeeds, it is part of the duties of active members to bring this, at least in the form of a statement, to the awareness of the members and to gauge their state of readiness. Otherwise that unison would only be an administrative-technical prescription. Such a briefing for the members of a General Assembly and its corresponding reaction is of value as one of those basic processes without which the forming of a consciousness society would lack one of its most important contents, thus incapable of happening at all. Altogether however in the case where active members cannot restore their harmonious relation with the Council through consultation and cognitive meetings, it is their inalienable duty to make this fact known in a cognitive form to the members of an ordinary or extra-ordinary General Assembly and thereby to convey to them the information and manifestation possibility that appertain to them and to the development of which they as active members are obligated. It concerns hereby after all facts and processes that intercede deeply in the total consciousness of the Society and command the cognitive participation and expression of willingness of its members. It would be all too frivolous to believe that the harmonious relation between active members and the Council could simply be laid down, demanded and decreed. Since it has a modern (Christian) character, it can neither be a prescription nor pledge, but only a thorough processuality and constitutes as such an integral component of the continual formation of the Society. This can as a modern society proceed not under administrative viewpoints and administrative measures, but only in an atmosphere of trust and cognitive insight and the presence of a higher spiritual presence. Blurring or hiding the difficulties inherent to such a formative process would impinge on the basic elements of anthroposophical life, even of modern social life in general. And to demand a mindset and its corresponding results, not based on the exchange of rational souls, would rescind the esoteric duty (pertaining to the spiritual world) on which then such a demand was mistakenly based. For the unison with the Council of a spiritual society can for ethical individualists only be an intuitive one, thus one of free insight – as this is emphasized in the passage from the “Philosophy of Freedom” that was placed as a motto next to others at the beginning of this treatise.
For that reason the limitedly active members can in view of the responsibility for their own truthfulness not evade the necessity of submitting a motion at least in case that serious doubts arise in their minds concerning the recoverability of their harmonious relationship with the Council at the Goetheanum. The content of these motions that they probably feel moved to file, would naturally have to be adapted to the case in question. To the form of such motions would certainly always appertain an appeal to a common cognitive effort of the members and the therewith related survey of the situational awareness within the Society, thus the attempt to gauge the willingness or lack of it on which depends the healing of the wounds that endanger the Society. At the same time the active members would thereby call upon the cognitive effort and as the case may be also for a decision of the whole membership in view of its own behavior and its motives. This also appertains to their indispensable duties.
8.4 The Goetheanum Council as an Initiative Board
The objection can be raised here that the Council at the Goetheanum as an Initiative Council takes care of its own business. This is true in so far as this complies with its full accounting report. This refers analogously also to the manner and the results of the inner order of its activity. Therefore these results must be made known to the members in a way that appeals to their insight and, insofar the transparency demands this, be brought forward in a genetic form. Accordingly, the Council at the Goetheanum, for so far it has communicated partial results or difficulties of this process of inner order, before an at least preliminary final result could be reached, has thereby committed itself to allow the membership to participate in this total process of inner order in a manner that respects their insight and its manifestation. This is above all necessary when the processes in question just through their procedure concern all members regarding the fundamentals of the Society to which their interest and initiative are directed. That for this sphere administrative-political powers of disposition are even more misappropriate, need scarcely be emphasized. And generally speaking, what has been mentioned to that end cannot be judged by an esoteric Council (a Council freely obligated to create together with the members of the Society a spiritual principle of civilization) as the prevention of its freedom to act, since only those acting out of knowledge can belong to such a Council.
8.5 The Interplay between Motion and Initiative
One may, to begin with, be reminded of the preceding remarks that, instead of extracting the cognitive core of the faulty motions at the General Assembly of the year 1972, it so happened, even more than just amazing, that certain motions, because of their supposed flaws were withdrawn from the cognitive interest of the Assembly and subjected to no-action motions, without a preliminary attempt at cognitive clarification of the reasons laid down by the Council with the aid of the majority of the Assembly for taking no action (namely the supposed “unconstitutionality”). It may hereby truly not be forgotten, as so often already happens after a short time, that the motions thus affected were in principle requests for a cognitive conversation and for an agreement about initiatory consultation, also statements of willingness to acknowledge certain insights as the basis of a volition and action that leaves everyone free, or also statements of unwillingness to approve of such matters that are not accessible to their own insight.[1] One could also list other nuances of the attitudes underlying them; however, completeness is quite unnecessary here, since it is in a modern society not a question of viewing the things from an administrative-technical aspect, but only of integrating them in the living process of social design and thereby to also give the legal form in the spirit of the Free School the prominence that befits it.
Insofar there could still be lingering doubts about the cognitive attitude and disposition of the motions in questions, it would therefore not have been difficult to bring to light the constitutionally justified contents of them while removing the defects possibly adhering to them. One could very easily in accordance with the content of these motions and certainly under approval of their representatives establish that the application form to submit motions merely aimed to correspond with the right to manifest that expressly appertains to all members of a free society and the members of the General Anthroposophical Society on the basis of its “Principles”. Moreover, these motions fulfilled the duty to manifest, the exercise of which by the limitedly active members must be expected in view of such questions that concern the fundamentals of the School and the Society. Furthermore, these motions were submitted in the interest of the task of the Council to inform itself about the judgment and willingness on the part of the membership and beyond that to commence a consciousness-raising dialog which everyone could join, because it took place in an open meeting of the Society. Those motions were therefore in line with the task of consciousness-raising, which is the “concern” from the beginning to the end of every General Assembly of the General Anthroposophical Society (as after all of every modern society that deserves that name). Establishing facts, requests for a cognitive conversation and for the initiative of the Council as well as manifestations of willingness and unwillingness do not possess a coercive character. Therefore, the exercise of majority-backed coercion against such motions is unnecessary, unreasonable and abusive. Such coercions can in any case not be exercised by those whose adherence to the School depends on the question whether they want to be bearers of the torch of freedom.
Apart from that, the preceding remarks should contribute to some extent to the consciousness-raising nature and social formative function of the motion that could cast the right light on the process under consideration. For is it not after all so that interest offered and consulting initiative in an event that for the course of an anthroposophical General Assembly is of central significance must meet and intermingle through a process by which the initiatives brought from the Free School to the attention of the members, thus becoming motions that on the part of the members are either adopted or not, and on the other hand by which the motions proceeding from the members becoming initiatives, which on the part of the Free School are accepted and developed further or either not directly accepted but met with other initiatives. This conciliatory event of creating insight constitutes for all modern working communities the existential means of sustained development.
In this context, the social basic law may not be overlooked, according to which every output requires by its nature an input. Such an input is the manifestation of the interest on the part of those entering the Society by having acquired their membership. This entrance into the Society requires as input a vital interest in it coming from the part of the representatives of the Free School. The latter will therefore, insofar as they understand the task assumed by them, to make it one’s duty to learn and understand to which extent there exists a willingness or non-willingness among the members who placed their trust in them. This requires that the willingness and non-willingness to continue this manifestation of trust should be expressed at the General Assemblies through motions and the manner and scope of their admission. The careful, confidential and confidence-building handling of the motions and the dispositions inherent in them is therefore a duty of the Council at the Goetheanum complimentary to the duty to present an accounting report. The spiritual autonomy of the Council in its sphere of freedom can only be created through initiatives. It is free through productivity in every direction and only insofar and to the extent free that this productivity flowing out of knowledge proves its fruitfulness. Every knower will seek and find himself in unison with true, reformative and reassessing productivity, he will be aware of the fact that he would deny his own higher being if he did not regard it as one of his highest tasks to protect the freedom to create. Incompatible, however, is this productive autonomy with every kind of authoritarian dispositional claim based on a behavioral empowerment. And nobody could more critically misunderstand the true nature of those with whom he wishes to be in harmony as well as himself, as someone who seeks to be in unison with such attitudes and actions that are irreconcilable with the fundaments of the Society and the School. Therefore it belongs inclusively to the duty of the Council to present an accounting report that should indeed stir and encourage the spiritual life within the Society through a review and preview at the end of the working year in order to develop a most lively as possible interplay between motion and initiatory consultation. Where the willingness and capability to start such an interplay is lacking on the part the membership, there arises an important social pedagogical task for the council of a free society. It constitutes one of the most beautiful and fruitful spheres of its formative productivity. By exerting it, a general assembly can develop into a happening, a festive contest between those striving in common for the greatest good.
[1] See concerning, “Was in der Anthroposopischen Gesellschaft vorgeht. Nachrichten für deren Mitglieder“, Vol. 49, Nr. 17 to 30.
8.6 Building Frameworks and Social Organic Development
Admittedly, everything said here only becomes significant through the view that one has about the nature of the Society, the process leading to its formation and the relation between the School (the consciousness-raising center) and the Society. One will therefore only be able to understand what has been delineated so far about the process of social design as well as submitting motions, if one holds it together with the preceding remarks that deal with the behavior of certain groups, thus certain archetypes of human cognition and behavior.
According to what was already presented, two views as summarized here by way of repetition, confront each other:
1. From the viewpoint of administration or management, the well-being, if not the salvation of the Society depends largely on the building of a framework that must indeed be flexible and modifiable, but must possess a certain strength. This strength is based on conventions of functionaries, who come to an understanding about opinion making as well as statements of solidarity and dispositions that concern the course of procedures and action undertaken by them and by which they mutually empower each other, and, if required, by general acknowledgement about observable and transmissible rules. With these administrative-technical policies (that in principle correspond with those that are valid and functional by every type of management) the conviction is connected that such a framework is on the one hand reliable, because it provides social life within its realm the necessary continuity and protection from external and internal destructive tendencies, and on the other hand, because through its consistency it keeps the space open for the freest possible forces that confide in them. The basic concept thereby is that within such a frame work, which forms the jurisdiction of an administrative elite, everything can and should unfold that is then also called upon in a healthy exchange to retro-act or feedback on the framework.
This view can call up centuries-old experiences and habits of thought and action as its key witness. The success that this administrative-political concept of order until now has met more or less, can in view of the facts not be denied and seems to justly label divergent conceptions as quixotic and phantasmal. Such an order of social life from above and below that at the same time allows in this way everything taking place in its interior a free space, has undoubtedly its historic rank and right. It therefore requires some effort to free oneself from such a concept and the habits that have been nurtured by it in order to gain a view of Rudolf Steiner’s modern social organics.
2. This effort is directed to the view already characterized here as well that wants to supplant the administrative model with the gradual formation of a common consciousness (in contrast to a consensus of corresponding opinions and sentiments). Through focusing the cognitive efforts of a number of free, namely individuals judging out of insight, on the same archetypal realm and its specific formation of organs and formative tendencies a communal sphere comes about that makes the intrinsic indwelling presence possible of a superindividual, namely common conscious within the complete intactness of individual acts of consciousness. This spiritual presence leads in the actual encounters of motion and initiative to the events that shape society. This is the new social organic basic thought from which Rudolf Steiner through the Christmas Conference gave rise to the spirit-form of the General Anthroposophical Society, a deed whose archetypal power reservoir is on the one hand capable of the most manifold adumbrations in the world of appearances and is therefore awaiting many embodiments, but that on the other hand, in accordance with the moment of consciousness in which present humanity finds itself, it can in no way by itself command. Instead, this foundation deed can only abide by the actualizing insight of single, free individuals; it can moreover provide these bearers of the free spirit with its cognitive content only by way of an incentive and advice for their common efforts to gain insight. Therefore, the process of shaping society and community according to the idea of a common consciousness takes place through the cognitive encounter and the collaboration between the bearers of interest and initiative, thus in the realm of motions. The latter constitutes the realm of the merging of interest and initiative. This merger is on-going, it represents the continual occurrence by which society is shaped. Therefore the realm of motions is one of constitutional functionality extending into the further life of the Society beyond the General Assemblies that should however in a condensed form give utterance to it. In the properly understood realm of motions (be it in an General Assembly or in the continual process of shaping society) offerings and initiative are, as already delineated here, continually transformed into one another, if this process is spiritually assessed, encouraged, protected and continued.
The formation of organs of the Society and the execution of social formative and regulatory measures occurs accordingly not from above and outside, but from inside and below such that everything concerning the Society is an occurrence among people meeting each other and not the filling in of authority fields as well as the execution of corresponding empowerments. In order to expose themselves to the risks that should not be underestimated , the ones responsible require courage to bear momentary failure and the confidence in the final invincible power of insight. Whoever can only see unfruitful philosophy in the “rigorousness of the idea”, will find it indeed difficult to begin with to muster this courage and install this confidence and instead look to the safeguard of a majoritarian support and an administrative frame work. He will probably term the notion to abandon a society to the unpredictability’s involved in the process of raising consciousness as frivolous, and will remind one of the not exactly encouraging experiences made in this realm in the past. One can basically respond to that with hardly anything else than the renewed reference to the new social organic principle of Rudolf Steiner. Whoever at some point has beheld it, does not doubt that it will prevail, be it under abnormal difficulties and setbacks. He also still has the much stronger argument at his disposal that there is simply no other way than the courage and confidence addressed here that leads to overcoming the old and attaining the new. This can be understood, if one is capable of focusing on the essence of what comes into consideration here. For the spiritual presence of a common consciousness, the event of our epoch, to which collaborators in the common pursuit of knowledge elevate themselves, will feed the social organic formative occurrences with the spiritual content that will engender and enliven its spontaneous events. The courage to face the unpredictability of the spiritual presence and the confidence in the power of insight of striving human beings will be the forces that can put the social vehicle in motion that reveals its spiritually active driver on the road to freedom.
The significance of the problem of motions will be assessed and solved, depending on which viewpoint one takes concerning it. One will either label motions concerning the core of anthroposophical life as “unconstitutional” and attempt to misuse the law of associations to suppress this basic right of shaping society. Or one will expose oneself to the risks involved in submitting motions with cognitive courage and in spiritual confidence. If one is capable of this, then one will attempt to consult the power of insight of the members with initiatives, to distill the free cognitive content from their interest brought forward and thus to protect and further on the one hand the constitutional-like free game of interest and motion and on the other hand consultation and initiative. On the decision taking about this alterative, will depend whether the basic event of our epoch will be able to bestow its blessing on the Anthroposophical Society, as on every other truly modern society.
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