Now is the Time

By: Leslie Loy

December 01, 2011

Category: Society-Threefolding

An Invitation for Human-to-Human Engagement about Social Renewal

“It is no great wonder that presently many people are still able to imagine nothing but a state of anarchy as a result of such a free form of human relations in the social order’s spiritual-cultural branch.  Those who think so simply do not know what powers of man’s innermost nature are hindered from expanding when man is forced to develop in the pattern into which the state and economic system mold him.  Such powers, deep within human nature, cannot be developed by institutions, but only through what one being calls forth in perfect freedom from another being.” — “Cultivation of the Spirit and the Economic Life,” Rudolf Steiner in The Renewal of the Social Organism, Anthroposophic Press, 1985.

On Tuesday morning, November 15th, I awoke to discover that as I lay comfortably sleeping in my bed my friends and colleagues who were actively involved with the Occupy Movement had had a more adventurous night. In NYC, Mayor Bloomberg had ordered a sanitation clean-up in Zuccotti Park and at the same time had asked a judge to ban tents, tarps and sleeping bags from being used by protestors in the public area. The media has called the clean-up what it was: a raid. Protestors were removed or asked to vacate the premises while watching their personal items taken away (which they were able to collect later). Similar scenarios took place in cities all across the country where Occupiers have been holding the space and asking for human-to-human dialogue and engagement.

What struck me in all of this was how steadfast for the last two months the Occupiers have been, how they have been creating participatory processes that are trying to get at every area of social discord. They are actively seeking to engage dialogue about the Universal Truths that unite all human beings, and to reengage society. Simply put, the people are asking for social renewal that grows out of human-to-human communication.

In this lies an incredible kernel of possibility—wherein, I have often wondered, lies our General Section work, as students of Anthroposophy, to engage in addressing what has ultimately been our Universal Failure to invite renewal into the General Society and Culture? I am awakened to the possibility that we have an opportunity to share a picture of social threefolding—as Occupy the Future has been actively doing in New York and elsewhere around the world—that gives a comprehensive picture of actively, and freely, interfacing with conversations around economics, politics and culture—and of depicting society as a living organism. 

Are we prepared, I wonder, to embrace this moment and to initiate a systemically-derived exchange about what a living, free social organism looks like with the Movement? Are we prepared to share in the conversation of social renewal and a healthy social life where every human being is seen as a mirror of the whole, and to co-create a whole that is renewed and vitally flowing? The initial Universal Truths that the Occupy Movement stands for are clearly articulated in its Declaration of Intention, drafted on September 29: 

“[O]ur system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.”

An invitation has been made to engage humanly, to share in a reimagination of our social structure, freely, with those who are committed to a renewed society, and a healthier world. I invite groups into conversation in their local communities with the Occupy Movement to begin a real, substantive exploration of applied social renewal, of social threefolding. Go and actively seek local Occupiers. Host a space. Invite participants from the public in dialogue and ask each to share their values, their work—and do so yourself. Now is the time to bring together those questing for these Universal Truths and to co-discover what cooperation “based entirely on the free intercourse and free association of individuality with individuality” really looks like.

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