Why I don’t trust our society to run nuclear...

The social problem with nuclear power is this. If some fool blows up the economy (or if a perverse structure of incentives drive a whole herd of bankers to blow up the economy) we all suffer for a few years, or even decades. But our grandchildren will be ok. If the same dynamic leads to a full reactor meltdown somewhere, then you could have 1% of the US uninhabitable for the next ten millennium (to say nothing of premature...

Polemic and History

Polemic and History A number of critics of Anthroposophy have acknowledged that they are writing polemical history when they attack Rudolf Steiner. Some even seem puzzled as to why that is considered a ‘bad’ thing. And certainly, from one point of view there is nothing ‘bad’ about polemic; it is what it is, after all. I have further argued that polemic history has important differences from standard,...

Steiner’s Critics and the Internet

Critics and the Internet

Originally published in the Autumn 2005 Newsletter of the Anthroposophical Society in America.

Defining Racism

Defining Racism, an Essay Introduction Almost everyone agrees that “racism” is bad. Yet no one agrees on just what, exactly, racism is. There is a reality of social inequality all around us today. And socioeconomic inequality is often closely correlated to skin color and perceived racial affiliation in many parts of the world. Unequal treatment, individual and systemic, is a reality that poisons our social...

Some thoughts on how to define ‘Anthroposoph...

Some thoughts on how to define ‘Anthroposophist’

The case of Rudolf Hess raises the question of what constitutes an Anthroposophist. The first point is to consider who is applying the term and what they hope to accomplish with this. In the case of polemical authors attempting to tarnish the Anthroposophical movement as a whole by the actions of a few individuals, an excessively broad definition will serve well.

Materialism and Science

Materialism supposes that all things and all actions in the physical world are effects of causes  that themselves lie in the physical world. The spiritual does not exist, and even if it did, it would  have no relationship to the physical world. Consciousness and all thoughts are effects of molecules in the brains of  evolved mammals. This is the essence of pure philosophical materialism. In common usage the word is a...

Working with Anthroposophical Revealed Information

I have found it important in spiritual research to know who the speaker of a given statement is; who stands behind it. This, to me, is an integral part of an idea, an inseparable part of its truth. In mathematics a statement may stand entirely on it’s own merits. However, this is due to humanity having developed to such a state that we are capable of thinking logically without error, and because the axioms of mathematical discourse are self-evident. With spiritual perception…