Social Injustice: LEF vs DEI

Rudolf Steiner worked with a heightened sense of spiritual as well social emergency in the wake of the turmoil bred by WWI. In 1917, in answer to a request by a German diplomat, Steiner sketched the first draft of his own “social justice” theory—the Threefold Social Organism. When the window for its practical implementation closed, Steiner—always responding to initiatives from others—turned his attention to other endeavors. Yet Waldorf education, the formation of a Youth Branch, and the founding of the Christian Community all can be understood as movements answering to the urgent call for social renewal. In related yet distinct ways, each reveals Steiner’s firm belief that a vital and cohesive social life depends upon a reawakening of the spiritual capacities of the human being. 
Over the last decade or so, modern “critical social justice theory”—a movement originating outside anthroposophical circles—has exerted a profound influence on Waldorf education. The adding of an eighth foundational principle to the AWSNA “charter” of Waldorf education exhibits the ideological as well as practical force of the movement carried forward under the aegis of the concepts of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Yet while we hear a great deal about DEI, Steiner’s own social theory, one premised upon a different triad of founding principles, has been largely neglected. The two triadic sets of terms, while superficially analagous, are profoundly different in kind. Whereas the ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, as elaborated in the context of Social Threefolding, represent a social theory firmly grounded in Anthroposophy generally and Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom in particular, the concepts of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—as conceived and applied today—represent an anti-anthroposophical counterforce that effectively undercuts the spiritual ground of Waldorf education. The cause of social justice calls for critical review of contemporary trends and renewed attention to Steiner’s own social theory.