World Economy

Greetings all,

My book group started to read a new book as we had finished a few weeks ago, Steiner's Toward Social Renewal. We are reading the 14 lecture book World Economy. We started it last week and made it through the first lecture. I read the book about 8 years ago but I really enjoyed it and it made sense to me in a way I couldn't explain.

In TSR, Steiner mentioned in the last chapter how Germany needs to change its thinking instead of expecting reality to conform to their ideas. This was pre WWII Germany. Because Germany didn't want to change their ideas, things got really messed up in the first World War. Steiner wasn't around for WWII.

As well in the first lecture of World Economy, he talks about the same idea of Germany needing to change its idea so as to understand reality.

When I was reading these sections, I felt like I am 1850-1920 Germany! I felt last year my whole life fell apart and that if I wanted my life to get better I had to let go of some of my ideas instead of expecting reality to conform to my thinking. Steiner thought at the time Germany needed to change in order to solve their problems and they didn't seem ready at the time and it created alot of chaos and disorder with WWI.

I know it's not easy to realize that maybe you have to be the one to change your ideas but that's what I felt I had to do. It's not easy and it's painful and a blow to the ego. Reality is not easy to escape but we all in some way have these beliefs that don't correspond to reality and we all know in the end, reality will win, not what we ignorantly cling to in our minds.

In the World Economy lecture he compares how Germany turned into an agrarian society into an industrial one versus England. He said Germany was very analytical about this process and there was a lot of public discussion whereas in England, it was an instinctual process for them and they just became industrialized. Their thinking was mobile whereas Germany was not as mobile in their thinking and that was why Germany was so analytical and discussing so thoroughly this process.

I feel I am behaving the same way as Germany and am consciously trying to evolve by over analyzing things. I think it's more of a hindrance than a good thing. I'd rather evolve instinctively and just do it and I feel I am a mobile thinker to some degree but feel I have to work on it more.

Since I'm in a different place in my life now, I wonder what I'll extract again from this book. Steiner started to talk about the concept of Capital and someone in my group said something about things getting wild. This triggered an image of Girls Gone Wild and then I thought of Capital Gone Wild. I am wondering if I could make a joke of this. It was one of these jokes you had to be there to get!