Where the Membrane is

Einstein said that ‘one cannot solve a problem with the same logic that created it’. One could then also say to this that if one has false logic, inappropriate concepts, this ‘logic’ would yield problems, confusion, inefficiencies, the stick in the spoke. If we relate this to our social order of today, we have to say that Society has many problems that we don’t seem to have the right concepts for, or that we are using the same concepts to generate more of the same. There is clearly no solution for the health of the social organism in either.

In the search for the correct logic, or concepts, that will yield a healthier social order, we have been given the Threefold Social Order concepts.  In working further from the basic concepts given by Dr Steiner, we must find the smaller – detailed linking steppingstones – that are the correct and required concepts that will lead to a change for the better.

The aim of this article is to link the Economy sphere and the Liberty sphere correctly by, in a sense, seeing them as separate conceptually. Let’s build this up briefly again.

Minerals, Plants and Animals constitute Nature.  While Humankind lives materially within Nature, the moment we are present, something more than Nature happens. Economy happens, the legal justice system or Equality sphere happens, and Humankind themselves search for learning and understanding in their freedom to be something more than just Nature.  This third element above we refer to as the Liberty Sphere.

Tracking back a little, we can see that the evolutionary trend is from mineral, to living mineral in the form of plants, to the living mineral with sense organs and sympathy or antipathy responses in animals, and then to humankind where we all have the freedom of association, choice, being conscious of the conceptual world and which ones we want to own ourselves. The trend is therefore towards something spiritual from the dead material.

Humankind is able to choose the logic they want and not just watch logic delivering the same thing. Concepts, like those brought by the Green movement, is changing things in the social order.  IT concepts are doing the same.  The Green movement has impacted on waste segregation and management while also impacting the laws in this regard.  IT has made meetings of people around the world possible remotely while it has also encouraged communication via smartphones rather than face to face.  It has facilitated vast capacities to process, store data and share information.

Now, picking up from the three spheres that emerge wherever humanity is present, we see that there is little or no conceptual application of these realities and their interrelationships in modern social thinking.  We can therefore say with certainty that the social order will not change unless we wish to understand and apply consciously chosen concepts to it.  This capacity is not a physical ‘animal’ capacity in us, but rather spiritual realities that work in us, that complete us.

Within the vacuum of social order thinking and concepts, we can see the following has emerged.  The artists, healthcare and curative people, teachers, clerics of all origins, yoga and Eurythmy practitioners and more are, – and this is a generalisation but probably a good one – anti-Government and anti-business, and yet it is these very people who they have educated and ‘healed’ and ‘balanced’ and ‘prepared’ that are doing both business and Government.  Is the Liberty sphere conscious of their own fouled concept here?  How can they dislike activities coming from the very people that they have nurtured?  Where then is the missing link?  Looking at the issue from where business is, could it be that business is blind to the fact that business only happens where there are people and not in nature?  Business is not Nature, but rather the outcome of what human beings think, feel, and do?  Our thoughts are where everything in business starts.  Businesses chase their goals without recognising this simple fact.  From the other side again, Liberty people are busy feeling good about how they can support other people as individuals to understand themselves in relation to the meaning of life but are themselves blind to the reality that it is exactly what they are investigating that is behind business also.  They seem unable to show this to business.  As a consequence, business cannot improve and neither can our understanding of life itself.  These two need to meet in order to strengthen each other. This means, business is people, people are thinking spiritual beings whose thoughts are the source of everything we do within the realm of nature, like dam walls, roads, farms, and furniture.  Business needs to be made aware of the significance of this reality in the economic realm.  In order for this to happen, people in the Liberty sphere need to get much better at understanding humankind as a bigger concept than just a physical one and then be able to show how this bigger reality of the human being pours out into business and is the source of success or failure.  In business there is no other source to solving business problems than the very essence of the human being.  The Liberty sphere have a challenge set before them in this.

One cannot solve a problem with the same concepts/logic that created it.  Simply changing logic is a gambling game.  Finding the right concepts to apply is what counts.  In the social order, we need the right concepts.  One founding one has been highlighted here.  It highlights where the Liberty and the Economy spheres meet each other, where the membrane is that separates them, but also where their individual contribution to the social order can be enhanced.  The Liberty sphere needs to be able to apply their knowledge and experience to showing people in business that the force behind their businesses are sourced from the consciousness of people.  When business picks this up, they will be much more interested in the artist in each of us and will invest in good Liberty sphere progression.