THE ANTHROPOSOPHIC SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
AND ITS INDIVIDUAL APPLICATION

A lecture by
Valdemar W. Setzer
Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of São Paulo, Brazil; member, Anthroposophic Society in Brazil;
www.ime.usp.br/~vwsetzer – this version: 10/31/21
See the abstract and the presentation of this lecture

1. July 24, 2021 lecture for the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society in the USA, and interested people. Assessment form: https://forms.gle/QiQFQnavdRhrSAoc9. Info: Andrei Onegin rudolftogethersteinerbranch att yahoo pt com. Questions: [1] What is your degree of satisfaction with this lecture? (1 - very unsatisfied, 5 - very satisfied: 66.7% of 4, 33.3% 5. [2] What were the most important things that you have learned? [3] What are the biggest remaining doubts? [4] Comments. [5] Did you already know the Anthroposophic social order? 33.3% Yes, in detail; 66.7% Yes, superficially. [6] Did you learn new things? 100% Yes. [7] Did you receive some impulses for your social life? 100% Yes. My comments are preceeded by COMM.

1. [1] 4. [2] Identifying students as part of the economic life and teachers as part of the cultural life; even more, that everyone is right if they apply their answers to the correct part of society! (socialism in the economic life, etc); young people have a high sense of justice; animality and machinery do not lead to a sense for freedom or altruism. [3] I needed more time with slide 24. [4] Thank you for your courage to deliver a lecture in English on such a major topic!! [5] Yes, in detail. [6] Yes. [7] Yes. COMM.: I think we should use "spiritual life" instead of "cultural life". I understand the preocupation of making Steiner more palatable, but I think we should have the courage to use his expression. It has a much deeper meaning than "cultural". I have changed the wording of slide 24; maybe now it is more understandable. I thank all of you for the opportunity of realizing that I can still say something in English, because I have no opportunity of practicing it, and the age does not help...
2. [1] 5, [2] The relationship between needs/interactions/skills at multiple levels, but most importantly the individual, family and classroom. [3] How to change American society to be less self-centered (selfish) and more egalitarian. [4] Dr. Setzer: Thank you for sharing all your resources on your web site. [5] Yes, superficially. [6] Yes. [7] Yes. COMM.: I think it will only be possible to change American society thgough education, but not the traditional one, which induces young people to be competitive and materialist. The education should produce free people, with social sensitivity and consciousness, open to the spirit. Waldorf has (or should have) these intentions.
3. [1] 4. [2] The destructive table that you display to contrast the constructive one. [3] How could you classify an school and a hospital as a part of the economic sphere and the nature of the activity that is done there in the cultural sphere. The three fold social organism is an image of the human being and it feels to me like that way of seeing things will be equivalent for instant to say that an organ of the human body belonging to an sphere of the three foldness of the human being belong to it and at the same time its cells or the orgaqnisms that conformed it belong to other sphere. It just does not make sense for me at first thought, but since I am aware that there are always different ways to look at things and things that can at first sight seem contradictory or false, can be truth if one is able to see them from a perspective from which the observation could be right. In another way, I am having difficult trying to figure it out from which perspective your affirmation could be true. But I will continue thinking about it, although if you could help to expand a little bit in your view I will appreciate it. I am having difficulty specially because each sphere has its own laws and principles and it is precisely when we don't apply the principles and laws that below to each of the sphere it is when illness come (in the body and in the social system). My understanding is that anyone working in the spiritual sphere will satisfy its own needs out the money and support that the people who benefit from their services want to donate or give freely to them. In another words a service offered by the cultural sphere can't have a fix price negotiatated in the same way that the prices are fixed in the economic sphere. This by itself positioned a school, a hosptil and a church for instance out of the economic sphere, because the principles apply in the economic sphere can't be applied to organizations belonging to the Cultural sphere. Rudolf Steiner even said, that if someone in the cultural sphere offered a service and can't make a living out of that service, because there are not people interested or satisfy with the service, the organization/person should trasnfer their activities to the economic sphere and that the rights sphere should take care that this happened. [4] I really appreciate your efforts sharing the way how you think or see the three fold social order applied in the practical life at many levels. It is always nurturing know how different anthroposophy lives in each person and how each of us relate to it in so many different ways and look at different aspects in so many different ways and at the same time how each of us try to bring it into the world in many different ways too. I love your dedication, enthusiasm and efforts trying to explaining in your own individual way the three fold social order. Thank you for all your efforts through your work, papers and books to bring some antrhoposophical ideas in your own individual way. Also I feel that the options you provide to some of the answers does not represent my case. For instance the question 5. I don't feel that I can claim to know in detail the three fold social order because there are always ways to immerse oneself more in deep with this concepts. But also I don't think that I can claim that I know it superficially. I feel my answer is in between of this two options. I only feel comfortable saying that I am familiar with it and I keep constantly researching different aspects of it in different ways. A last thing that I want to comment to it is that I would had appreciated that you would had share your comment on the vaccines as an individual statement not as a true general statement. Is clear by your comment that you and your wife believed that the "vaccine" is helping and could actually help to end the pandemic, which in my opinion si not true. I of course respect your view and I appreciated that you are aware that forcing in any way people to take the vaccine is not right. You said in your presentation that critics are destructive and then you were critizicing the president of your country and in a way saying that unvaccined people are not "helping" others, I found that very contradictory. I found that view very materialistic and unilateral and I wish that you would had share that as your subjective truth not as an objective truth. Is always very helpful to meet anthroposophical colleges and experience their different world views and research and was lovely to meet your wife. I really appreciate your openness to have a conversation with us and your interest to hear our thoughts and feedback that your presentation awoke in us. Thank you so much for that. [5] Yes, superficially. [6] Yes [7] Yes. COMM.: Thank you very very much for your assessment. I've never received such an extensive one, in all my lectures! I classified schools and hospitals, as whole institutions, as belonging to the economic life because of my concept (1) that this life is characterized by the exercise of skills and providing services ("Dienstleistung"). Another concept (2) is that skills and services apply not just to material goods (production, distribution and consuption), but also to soul and spiritual subjects (this is my idea). A school as a whole deos not provide something material, but education, nowledge and development. If you don't agree that a school, as a whole institution, is not a part of the economic life, then it seems to me that you would have to deny one of the two premises. We could continue this discussion through e-mail or a personal chat (my e-mail address is on top of my home web page). As for our members, the three systems permeate all members, but each member has a main characteristic. In the same way, each person belongs to the three social lives, but, e.g., professionally, s/he may belong more to one area. A teacher in her/his class belongs mainly to the spiritual life. I think one could pose the following question: what is the main activity of a person in a certain moment? In his class, a teacher is creadosting education, and has to be free to do it as s/he finds best. When this teacher is taking part in the internal conference of a Waldorf school, s/he has to follow the rules established by that collegiate; s/he is part of the judicial life. When s/he speaks something, s/he is being part of the spiritual life -- s/he should have complete freedom of speech. Obvioulsy what I said about he vaccines was my personal opinion. But there are facts which provide the ground for my opinions. E,g, an experiment was made in the city of Serrana, in my state, with about 45,000 inhabitants, who used to commute to larger cities to work. 95% of the population got the Coronavac vaccine, of inactivated virus. The rate of deaths fell by 95%. The federal government policy agaist social isolation and use of masks, and initially against the vaccination, produced at least 100,000 aditional deaths, acording to a couple of scientific studies. These are also objective facts, not my critizing the president; those are measures that he took, period. Nobody knows if the vaccines will put an end to the pandemic (the flu vaccine has to be taken each year -- I have never taken it, but I took the two dosis of the Coronavac), but it is an objective fact that they diminish the pandemic ill health effects.

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