Organic Thinking as a Prerequisite for Discussions on Race with a Special Emphasis on India-Britain

Racism is emotionally charged, due to its being present at the nexus of power, prejudice and morality. While this emotion is certainly grounded in a desire to value the core of humanity, the reasoning process that accompanies emotion does not always have a clear grounding. In this presentation, I will be examining the differentiations in the reasoning process, including the processes of defining, stereotyping and categorizing strengths and weaknesses, thinking about moral actions of individuals and groups, as well as moral judgment. With the help of examples drawn from both mathematics and botany, I will show the critical importance of a systematic development of organic thinking which forms a prerequisite especially for deciding on the crucial question of whether Steiner’s work is a ‘spiritualization of prejudices’. Drawing on the history of relations between the races in the Indian subcontinent (beginning with the British conquest of India up to the relation between Annie Besant and Krishnamurthi), both successes and failures in the reasoning process will be highlighted through the study of specific events, such that the need for organic thinking will be shown to be a critical part of a genuine evaluation of this relationship. The continued repercussions of the failures in the reasoning process echoing into the 21st century will be described, showing how the historic experience can shed light on the approach to race relations today.