Embodying Love

My Presentation at Harvard Divinity School, Tomorrow, Tuesday, December 16th

Dear friends, tomorrow, Tuesday, December 16, I will present for 20-minutes on research I have been conducting on Rudolf Steiner’s view of race and culture. This presentation will take place as part of the 100 Years of Rudolf Steiner Conference being organized by Harvard Divinity School. More information and a detailed schedule can be found here. There is no cost for this event and to my knowledge it is still possible to register to participate virtually for this event here. Below you can read the abstract that I submitted to get a flavor for my research. For my subscribers relatively new to Steiner and anthroposophy, you should know that most of the presentations at this conference, including mine, presume a strong background in the work of Rudolf Steiner. I will share the recording of this presentation as soon as it is available here on my Substack and in the Spring, I will offer a short course on this topic, details to be announced soon.

Embodying Love: Rudolf Steiner’s Phenomenology of Race and its Relevance for our Time

Though Rudolf Steiner’s view of race has faced increasing and justified scrutiny, in this paper I suggest that Steiner made important contributions to a truly Christian, healing, and ethical understanding of race and culture that has particular relevance for our times. This contribution is easy to miss and misconstrue because:

1. Steiner did not set out to explicate a theory of race;

2. His view of race is embedded in an elaborate esoteric worldview filled with idiosyncratic terms and redefinitions of conventional terms;

3. His views of race and culture evolved over the course of his life;

4. He spoke differently about race to different audiences in differing contexts;

5. The prevalence of racist theories in his historical context naturally prompts skepticism toward his ideas and perspectives.

When the inessential, personality- and context-dependent elements in his philosophy are clarified, however, what emerges is a healing, balanced, phenomenological understanding of race that has much to offer present discourse, which tends to polarize around the fault lines of postmodern constructivist, and traditional essentialist, views of race. This paper will elucidate and explain key aspects of Steiner’s philosophy in three main categories:

Ethical Individualism: Every human has a unique, divine self that both encompasses and transcends racial, cultural, and other generic influences.

The Evolution of Consciousness: While races and ethnic cultures express essential biological and spiritual characteristics, these influences evolve and are now diminishing, allowing universal human values to come to the fore.

Conscious Social Development: All races and cultures reflect aspects of the universal human. By engaging with people of diverse backgrounds we both enrich our humanity and make it possible to solve the problems of the modern world.

I conclude by exploring the practical applications of these views to a host of contemporary race and culture related challenges.