A fourth myth cultivated by "PLANS Inc."
 
"... as regards ... what is independent of our bodily makeup we are all individually made; each one of us is his or her own self, an individual. With the exception of the far less important differences that show up as racial or national differences ... but which are (if you have a sense for this you cannot help noticing it) mere trifles by comparison with differences in individual gifts and skills: with the exception of these we are all equal as human beings ..."

Rudolf Steiner, founder of Waldorf education, in Education as a Force for Social Change (in GA 192), Hudson 1997, lecture of 23 April 1919.
A fourth myth cultivated by PLANS is:
"Rudolf Steiner was a racist" and "Anthroposophy and Waldorf education are racist".
For some comments on the three parts of this myth, see
- here for the myth "Steiner was a racist",
- here for the myth "Anthroposophy is racist", and
- here for the myth "Waldorf education is racist".

For an overview summary with detailed comments of this myth, cultivated and spread widely by PLANS, see here.

These pages show that Steiner considered the concept "race" in its proper sense only to be applicable to man during the time before the end of the last glacial ages, that after that "race" as a concept started to lose its validity, and that "race" as a concept will cease entirely to exist as we know it in a number of thousand years.

Steiner's comments also show that he considered the breakdown of the tribal principle and the beginning of intermarriage between people of different ethnic backgrounds to have been a natural and important step in the development of humanity.

Steiner also considered it to be one of the central tasks of anthroposophy to work especially in support of overcoming all that relates to 'racial character', and to support what is individual in each of us as human beings, independent of our "race", gender and other temporal, external characteristics we happen to have.

In 1935, the Nazi authorities prohibited and dissolved the Anthroposophical Society in Germany, and prohibited the Waldorf schools from taking on new pupils, motivating this with:

"The methods of teaching developed by its founder, Steiner, and followed in the anthroposophical schools still existing today follow an individualistic and human-oriented education, which has nothing in common with the principles of National Socialistic education.

"As a result of this opposition to the National Socialist idea of Volk (Voelkische Gedanke), the continued activity of the Anthroposophical Society imposes the danger of injuring the National Socialist State. The organization is therefore to be dissolved on account of its subversive character and the danger it poses to the public."

See also our comments on the next myth cultivated by PLANS, that Steiner, anthroposophy and Waldorf are anti-Semitic.

Go to the overview of myths, cultivated by "PLANS Inc."

Go to the next myth.