The Urgency of Social Threefolding in a World Still at War with Itself (draft article)

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16 responses to “The Urgency of Social Threefolding in a World Still at War with Itself (draft article)”

1. 

   Jean

   August 7, 2022

   “There are no easy solutions to resolve the conflicts that continue to lead our world down the warpath. History is a bloody ruin of failed ideologies. What social threefolding offers is not a ready-made solution but a new understanding of the problem rooted in a deeper perception of human needs and capacities.”

   Steiner’s threefolding is misguided, flawed and faulty because it (or Steiner rather) does not understand true human nature and the real world we’ve been living in. It’s a doomed failure like the “failed ideologies” of history that suffered from the same core issues. You can’t solve a problem unless you recognize and face the true WHOLE cause of it.

   Without a proper understanding of the world humans live in, and the nature of humans (study the essay “The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room” at https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html), no “easy” and no AUTHENTIC solution for humans’ vast ongoing destruction will ever come forward. All we get is more “failed ideologies” and more RE-ARRANGEMENT of the deck chairs on the Titanic.

   Your paper is just MORE of the traditional historical misdirection offered by theorists, intellectuals, and other “well meaning” folks. It’s an intellectually amusing albeit hollow distraction, nothing more.

   Reply
   1. 

      Matthew David Segall

      August 7, 2022

      Thanks for the constructive feedback 🤷🏻‍♂️

      Reply
   2. 

      Eli

      October 10, 2022

      I went to your essay. It seems what you point out regarding the suppression of available, well proven remedies is a case in point to support Threefolding. The current close link in our society between economic benefit and public health is not healthy.

      Reply
   3. 

      Eli

      October 10, 2022

      Thank you, Matthew David Segall for this excellent paper – extensive research clearly and compellingly presented. The bibliography is very helpful. I am pleased to see that you have included The Dawn of Everything!

      I would suggest not including footnote #6 since it is not essential to the thrust of the paper and would most likely raise hackles in some quarters. (you had commented that your intention was “not to antagonize but to dig below the superficialities that separate well-meaning people”).

      I would like to call attention to your paper on my new blog called Threefolding. https://threefolding.substack.com/publish/post/77383553

      Let me know if you are OK with me copying the last four paragraphs with a link to your whole article.

      Reply
2. 

   First Cause

   August 10, 2022

   A start to a conventional essay nevertheless, if one seeks to find a resolution one has to address the root cause of the problem. A quote from Robert Pirsig is therefore appropriate:

   “But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There’s so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.”

   There is a genetic defect in the underlying form of reasoning and rationality; and unless or until that genetic defect is addressed, nothing will change. So much talk but so little understanding……

   Reply
   1. 

      Matthew David Segall

      August 10, 2022

      What would you say that defect consists in? Pirsig was influenced by Whitehead, I believe, so I imagine it has something to do with misplaced concreteness and model-centrism.

      Reply
      1. 

         First Cause

         August 11, 2022

         It has its origin in the centrism of the self-model, no question about that fact; but more importantly, it can be traced to our world view that is best expressed by subject/object metaphysics (SOM). From a physical as well as a psychical perspective, SOM divides our world into parts. Once the division of that intellectual maneuver has taken place and become rooted in our psyche, there is no way to reconcile that division, a division which in itself creates a deep seated feeling of isolation.

         Unification is a personal journey, one that cannot be embarked upon utilizing the schemas of any and all institutional programs. It requires a novel, revolutionary metaphysics which I call reality/appearance metaphysics or RAM. First and foremost, RAM does not divide our world into parts wherein both truth and reality are a continuum based solely and entirely upon context. In the context of homo sapiens being the apex predator on the planet, the underlying form of reasoning and rationality is perfectly suited for that end; and that overall objective is physical as well as psychical survival. However, as long as the self-centric model of survival is the overall goal and objective, our current form of reasoning and rationality is incapable of resolving our personal and social problems because self-preservation trumps all other objectives. This schema is best expressed by the world’s religions, the suppression of human dignity overall and the unprecedented greed of capitalism with its disregard for the well being of others.

         I’ve written and published a book on my findings but have not released it for public consumption; maybe I will someday. Good luck Matthew, I find your essays to be insightful…..

3. 

   First Cause

   August 12, 2022

   You asked for constructive criticism, so here is my final comment….

   My main concern for any academic such as yourself is this Matthew: Do you really believe that a schema such as a version of Steiner’s social three-folding is the solution? One must take into consideration that the implementation of Steiner’s modality or any other social schema will require the incarceration or extermination of those individuals who choose not to comply. With that impending outcome, are we not once more faced with the full circle of reasoning that ends where it all began, one which results in the oppression of the powerless?

   Would it not be best to be the lone voice in the wilderness who is willing to point a finger at the real problem instead of being an active willing participant in the unfolding of circular history? There is a genetic defect in the underlying form of reasoning and rationality; and unless or until that genetic defect is addressed, nothing will change.

   Be at peace professor……

   Reply
   1. 

      Matthew David Segall

      August 12, 2022

      I must have failed to adequately convey in this draft that the use of force to implement threefolding would be fundamentally at odds with the whole approach, which is anarchist in orientation. There is no place in threefolding for a “they” who would implement, via incarceration or extermination, the “plan.” This is an approach to social transformation that can only spread via dialogue and persuasion from individual to individual, community to community, and would begin by associations of people building organizations in parallel to the existing order in the hopes that others would notice it working and voluntarily take up the idea themselves.

      What you call the self-centric model of survival and admit is basic to animality is what Steiner would call the anti-social nature of our existence in the economic sphere. This is just part of being an organism among organisms who needs to consume to live. At the other extreme is our asocial nature as individual spirits, each a microcosmic recapitulation of the One, which is the creative source that drives the evolution of the cultural sphere. To generate true social relations these two extremes need to be mediated, which is where the political sphere comes in, allowing us to take a true interest in the well-being of others.

      As I see it, reality is not a simple unity. It is a dynamic polarity, which drives an evolutionary process of increased complexity and deeper consciousness.

      Reply
      1. 

         First Cause

         August 12, 2022

         “To generate true social relations these two extremes need to be mediated, which is where the political sphere comes in….”

         And just who will make up this body of unbiased righteous mediators? Isn’t this political sphere which does the mediating Nietzsche’s infamous master/slave morality, a blueprint for corruption and abuse of power? As long as human nature remains unchanged, there will always be the oppressor and the oppressed. Furthermore, no schema no matter how much intellectual fluff is applied to that naive idea will ever change the brute fact that human nature is self-serving.

         “As I see it, reality is not a simple unity. It is a dynamic polarity, which drives an evolutionary process of increased complexity and deeper consciousness.”

         And what “exactly” is that polarity and why does that polarity drive the evolutionary process of increased complexity?

         We find ourselves suspended in the SOM paradigm, a world of duality. For the Cartesian there is I, the locus of consciousness; that’s one thing and then there is everything else. For the theist there is the creator; that’s one thing and then there is the creation which is another thing. For the idealist there is the mind of the One which is one thing then there is the thought of that mind, which is another thing. In direct contrast to the SOM model, Reality is a simple unity whereas the Appearance is the dynamic polarity and yet, the Reality and the Appearance are one and the same. RAM is a metaphysics which does not divide Reality into parts…….

         There is a reason why Whitehead insisted that all of philosophy is nothing more that a footnote to Plato and Aristotle. This is because those two fellows along with their other Greek cronies gave us subject/object metaphysics, a paradigm that still dominates both eastern and western thought today. Reality/Appearance Metaphysics is a revolutionary paradigm shift that is in direct contrast to SOM.

4. 

   Mark VanderSchaaf

   August 21, 2022

   Introducing myself as a recent student of Whitehead/Cobb, a longtime admirer of Rudolph Steiner, and a career government bureaucrat who functioned as an economic and cultural planner both at the city and regional level in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Area.

   I applaud Steiner’s threefold vision and your article seeking to make it relevant in our time. I do think, however, that some modifications of his vision are in order. Fundamentally, I think it makes more sense to see the political realm as negotiating between the economic and cultural realms rather than functioning as part of an overlapping Venn Diagram.

   It is also important, I think to define both economics and culture carefully and indeed to acknowledge that both terms have multiple meanings.

   At the simplest level, economics can be descriptive, articulating what goods and services (not simply commodities) people choose to provide for themselves and other people. Within that definition, even cultural products are part of an economy. Economics shades into a prescriptive endeavor when the cash nexus is added to its definition, and monetary value is added to the trading of goods and services. Normativity then stands at least in the background of economic activity, with issues arising as to whether the particular goods or services should be allowed at all, should subject to a cash nexus or not, or as to whether the prices for goods or services are fair, appropriate, etc.

   Similarly, culture can be descriptive, applying to an entire “way of life.” From that perspective, economics is just one aspect of culture. But culture shades into a prescriptive endeavor when the question is asked as to whether particular ways of life are good or not. As such, it may seek to distance itself from economic activity and develops opinions about what kinds of economic activity are appropriate.

   The political realm then enters the picture from both the economic and cultural side. Relative to both economics and culture, the political realm can (1) Directly provide certain kinds of economic and/or cultural activity; (2) Incent certain kinds of economic and/or cultural activity; (3) Remain neutral about certain kinds of economic and/or cultural activity; (4) Discourage certain kinds of economic and/or cultural activity; or (5) Prohibit certain kinds of economic and/or cultural activity. All of these possibilities also beg the question of what kind of polity is most appropriate for sustaining the desired mix of economics and culture.

   Another clarification that I think would be helpful has to do with the term “capitalism.” I agree with some of Herman Daly’s early writings when he observes that the problem of our time is not just with capitalism but with what he sometimes calls “growthism,” which infects both capitalist and socialist economies. Or as an alternative to the not sufficiently descriptive term of “growthism” I would advocate for using the term “industrial consumerism” as the source of so many of our contemporary woes.

   The paradox of our time (and indeed of nearly all times throughout history) is that the economic realm seems to hold more cards than the cultural realm, providing undeniable benefits that then become self-perpetuating and cancerous. Some of this occurs as a simple matter of population growth. But much is a result of good old fashioned avarice on the part of economic actors, a “deadly sin” that far predates any form of industrial consumerism.

   A final thought, perhaps more hopeful. I’ve recently watched the 2020 Zoom symposium “Process Thought at a New Threshold” and was intrigued with the conversation about how the Process movement needs to operationalize the “lure” that it seeks to present to the world using techniques that have arisen in the economic realm. (Dare I call it a marketing strategy?) Process thought is not a physical commodity, of course, but it does provide a service that many people yearn for. I embrace the idea of learning how to engage with that yearning in a way that can then begin to transform our world into something like an ecological civilization. In my experience, this work is most effective when it follows a variation of the adage “think globally, act locally.” Not all problems can be addressed at a micro-local level, so considerable attention needs to be paid to the appropriate scale for action. (PS – I’m especially an advocate for regionalism – e.g., the Greater Los Angeles Area, the Greater Bay Area, etc.)

   Thanks for your good work and thanks for considering these thoughts.

   Reply
   1. 

      Matthew David Segall

      August 27, 2022

      Thanks very much for this feedback, Mark. You are right, of course, about politics as mediator between economics and culture. I agree, also, that these words are slippery in their meaning.

      Reply
5. 

   Matthew David Segall

   August 29, 2022

   See also https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/making-everything-our-business-social-legacy-of-rudolf-steiner/

   Reply
6. 

   Eli

   October 10, 2022

   This is rich commentary and worth spending time pondering. One thought I think is also worth pondering: Did not the founders of the US have a certain mind-set? Hamilton and Jefferson disagreed with each other, it is true, but did either of them consider that the nation state would not need to ‘regulate commerce’?

   Of course, certain laws have to be in place to regulate commerce – such as that businesses uphold their contracts and don’t pollute – but is it actually healthy and necessary for the nation state to oversee trade deals? Both Hamilton, I think, and Jefferson, certainly, upheld the necessity for the separation of state and religion, but I don’t think they even considered the separation of economics and the legal sphere.

   So, to me, the beauty of Threefolding is that it brings new ideas to society.

   Of course, an important part of Threefolding is also how land is viewed. It is interesting to think that the Europeans ‘discovered’ a continent where land was not monetized, where land was respected. It seems that the colonizers missed the fact that they had things to learn.

   Reply
7. 

   Carl Schmitt’s ‘Political Theology’: A Process Theological Intervention – Footnotes2Plato

   November 3, 2022

   […] when a fragile parliamentary government lurched from one constitutional crisis to another. (This is the same period during which Rudolf Steiner’s threefolding movement tried, and failed, to …). This edition includes a new preface written in 1934, after Hitler rose to power and Schmitt […]

   Reply
8. 

   Matthew David Segall

   April 2, 2023

   I’m pasting an exchange here that has occurred on Facebook, as I would like to archive it. (Link to Facebook thread: https://www.facebook.com/matthew.david.segall/posts/pfbid0RmgDm1zkVnmhcXaSpFVQz3NXR1sEiG49aY2tiFu4PPkjdjFPD5wdr3k6aApfoF7ml?comment_id=1860722750929753&reply_comment_id=1447997475733842&notif_id=1680321158128409&notif_t=feed_comment&ref=notif)

   Clifford W. Cobb:
   I first want to thank you for doing what is rare in process thought: to venture off the path of pure philosophy into some applications in social theory. However, as I read, I found your three-folding thesis confusing and possibly self-contradictory, although that may be due to my hurried reading. It first seemed that readers are assumed to have a knowledge of Steiner’s term three-folding before reading the article. If that was intended, then I should not have been reading it. At this point, I am still unclear how to distinguish economic, political, and cultural domains, and I also am not sure what a distinction is without a division. (They are different, but not separate. Is that the meaning?) On page 10, Steiner criticizes a system that allows some to receive income without working. He compares unearned dividends to tumors. What is unclear here is whether he would insist on a potlatch to destroy all social surplus, or might it be shared? Does he want a society that cannot generate a surplus (ie., income that exceeds the total value created by labor)? If so, that would necessitate a potlatch. The statements on page 10 are fuzzy enough, he could intend either. On page 11, where you discuss perishable money, the discussion is again vague, as if reference to different uses of money would help. Far more useful would be a discussion of Silvio Gesell’s idea of applying a negative interest rate to currency to prevent hoarding of it. Since I believe there were experiments with this during Steiner’s life, it would be helpful to know if this would be a practical way to achieve his aims. I’m not convinced by Gesell’s idea myself, but at least I know where he stands. By contrast, there seems to be little concreteness to Steiner’s economic ideas. In the cultural sphere, there is more confusion. On the one hand, education is admired for its root meaning (educare = to draw out). But on page 14, he says people will be educated in such a way that they will grow up to be different [from before]. Somehow education now seems to take on the character of inculcation (to grind in with the heel). This seems reminiscent of Lenin’s idea of what would bring about “the new socialist person.” Of course, I realize that Steiner’s educational methods lacked a coercive edge. But that means he cannot know what the outcome will be in terms of the character of future citizens. What frustrates me in general is a habit philosophers have of appealing what is plausible rather than what is known or knowable from historical experience. One may make fun of academic (neoclassical) economics, which is a monumental system built entirely on deductive reasoning. But if critics apply the same methodology, how much of an advance is that? Unfortunately, it seems that Steiner has been influenced by the Historical School of 19th century Germany, which sought to be empirical but could never offer any generalizations that were not pure Geist. This may be unfair since I gave up on the article half-way through.

   My reply:
   Thanks for giving it a go. I see I may need to rethink my introduction as I did not intend to assume prior knowledge. I can also see, though, that the principle block here may have to do not only with the concept, but with a kind of intuition, of what is meant by distinction without division. Another way of getting at this is to contrast duality and polarity. Dualism implies to parts that do not need one another; polarity implies two parts that very much depend upon one another, but without being the same. Triunity is another way of getting at polarity that includes the mediating tension between the two poles as itself another pole. In the threefold vision of society, it is the political sphere that holds the tension between the economic and the cultural. Another way at getting at the distinctions between the three is to think in terms of first, second, and third person pronouns. The Cultural sphere is about the ‘I,’ the individual’s freedom to know, create, love, etc. The Economic sphere is about ‘It,’ humanity’s metabolic transactions with the material Earth. The Political sphere is about ‘Thou,’ our capacity to respect and protect one another’s rights to, first of all, life, and also to free cultural expression and economic dignity.
   Steiner did not intend to do away with profit in the economic sector. He saw profit as a valuable consequence of the division of labor and the development of more efficient technologies of production and distribution. The point is not to eliminate it but to keep it circulating through society, particularly into the cultural domain as gift money for what in a healthy society would be pursued as ends in themselves (rather than *merely* means to more profit), eg, art, religion, science, sport, education more generally, etc.
   Regarding Gesell’s negative interest, I think this is perfectly compatible with Steiner’s proposal. Indeed, Preparata makes this connection explicit in his article on perishable money. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0486613406293226
   As regards education, Steiner’s point is not that education in a threefold order would grind human nature into something more disposed to such a society. No, his point is that under industrial state systems, schools are factories for churning out worker-consumers. It is the state-market controlled educational system that distorts human nature, which would otherwise be disposed to a threefold organization. This is why he insisted that schools be self-managed and not controlled by political or economic interests.
   Perhaps I am mistaken (and Steiner) in seeing the threefold order as an empirical description of trends in actual history, rather than a theoretical imposition. It should be clear that the former is what is intended, at least. If it was not clear in the article then I have not expressed myself clearly. I am not trained in economics, obviously, but it seems to me that no change can come to a system of abstractions (deductive, indeed) that has done such great harm to Earth and humanity from someone who has been trained to think in such terms. In addition to Steiner, I’ve been influenced by other anarchist thinkers like David Graeber, who I felt did a great job showing just how ahistorical many of the premises of classical economics were, eg, Smith’s claims that barter and the logic of exchange preceded money. There was already anthropological evidence in his day which flatly contradicted this myth. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/
   So yes, I think we are in desperate need of outsiders storming the castle of neoclassical economic abstraction so as to remind ourselves of what the very neat and tidy deductive models leave out.

   Reply