Re: Of critics and cynics...
From: Joel Wendt
Date: Thu Dec 11, 2003 8:56 am
Subject: Re: Of critics and cynics...
On Thu, 2003-12-11 at 01:10, walden wrote:
The other level of criticism
and I suppose the *impulse* behind this list is aimed at Waldorf
as an institution. While we can dance forever here around the
roots of anthroposophy and Steiner and occultism and reincarnation
and soul work and whether there is any real "science"
in Steiner's "Spiritual Science"... the fact IS that
these topics are part and parcel of Waldorf Education in whatever
"context" one might feel comfortable taking them. And
that part of the equation - a very integral part - i . . . missing
from the way in which Waldorf promotes it's movement.
I suspect even the most ardent critic of critics would agree?
Dear Walden,
While I don't consider myself a critic of
the critics, but rather someone mostly interested in seeking
the true and the good, even from that somewhat different point
of view, I must confess to not being able to "agree"
with the above.
Since I am just returning to this list for
a visit, after a long sabbatical, perhaps I should give a short
overview of my understanding, so as to create a context for my
seeming "disagreement" with the expression of your
point of view.
I don't doubt for a moment Steiner's abilities
as a seer, or the wisdom that lives in his work. I don't doubt
for a moment the heartfelt striving that drives people connected
with anthroposophy to try to make live that toward which Steiner
directed our attention.
Nor do I doubt the sincerity of most of those
who find something off-putting about Waldorf and anthroposophy.
To my thinking, which has for many years now sought to understand
the deeper truths about human social existence, such a conflict
of beliefs, intentions and understandings appears as a most natural
and important social process - one quite healthy in its fundamental
dynamics.
Certainly there are excesses everywhere -
that too is human nature and it should not surprise us. At the
same time, unless there is a true will to learn, and a humble
honoring of the right of the Thou to seek its own truth, social
existence will remain a place of strife and disharmony.
This list tends to be a place where antagonism
and hard positions are frequently taken, as if social truth and
goodness (meeting each other as striving moral human beings)
was less important then reducing the world view of the Thou to
ashes and debris.
When I love my my own ideas self-righteously,
and fail to appreciate the inner (spiritual) freedom of the Thou
to chart its own course, then the shared social existence becomes
a place of war and intellectual bloodletting that harms almost
all and serves no one.
So, Walden, I put this question to you:
Is there only one right way to think, and
must your view be the only correct one?
warm regards,
joel
Shapes in the Fire http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/index.html
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