Was Rudolf Steiner racist? A review of the facts and my take on Problematic Anthroposophy
Was Rudolf Steiner racist? Is a question that is simply answered with yes quite a few online spaces, some even referring to him as an “Esoteric Nazi” with no backing or actual source material. Even the supposedly impartial institution of Wikipedia's pages are being edited by one guy who is vehemently anti-Steiner (tgeorgescu if you ever want to do a livestreamed debate leave a comment) it may seem that either anthroposophy is a dead, incorrect philosophy or it got dealt a really really bad hand by the internet.
Firstly, there is no outstanding, modern proof of Steiner being a racist that comes from his actual source material. You can find about 100 clickbait “MY CHILD GOES TO A RACIST SCHOOL?” articles from even mainstream news sites but in reality there are no (or not many) actual quotes from steiner that, with context, show that his philosophy is racist. I believe he may have, pre-Goetheanum have said some bad stuff but there’s no proof of that either. I can say for certain that as his physical body started to fail him he was a humanitarian (if that’s the right word), someone who has no concern for race.
Steiner’s work is translated alot, too. If one translator just was having a bad day or got one word wrong, that’s something to think about. How to know higher worlds literally has like 7 forewords, so they are edited quite a bit.
Also, one more thing. Apollonian and Dionysian, as proposed by steiner have nothing to do with race. Literally nothing. It’s not as black and white as you might like it to be.
Another thing, the relevance of if steiner actually was racist is definitely important, as the classics (philosophy of freedom, how to know higher worlds, an outline of occult science, theosophy) of anthroposophy do not have any of this alleged racism and these are the only books that quite alot of modern anthropsophists will read. They simply will not be exposed to this, if it is even out there. I, after spending quite a lot of time in anthropsophical circles cannot see any (ok maybe a little bit but the guy who runs r/anthropsophy is insane and nonscientific, he does not represent anthroposophy at all. r/steiner is way better you should join it) racism or bigotry from anyone who actually know anything about anthroposophy.
In the newsletter for the anthroposophical society in the UK, there is this line from a review of a book, i believe a translation.
“[Person’s Name] puts the material in context and takes pains to point out that Rudolf Steiner was neither a racist, nor a nationalist.”
If you are the person who made this book or the quote and want crediting i will, i’m redacting both your names for the sake of privacy.
It seems like everyone is both fine and agrees with this take of Steiner not being racist, and they are not racists themselves. This makes me wonder, even if he was a racist, in today’s society, would it even matter? Steiner’s followers are big on thinking, they’d probably figure out that racism is wrong soon enough even if he was.
Thanks for reading.
