Institute for Social Renewal - Threefold Society

Cultural life is an educational chamber and repository of a people's aspirations, capacities, and ethical values. A society's cultural life encompasses its activities and achievements in the fields of scientific research, artistic creativity, and religious/spiritual striving. These, in turn, all can be seen as a part of personal development and education in its broadest sense.

Just as every individual is dependent on the vibrancy of cultural life for his or her proper development, so too are the other major sectors of society--the political/legal and the economic. The vibrancy of the cultural life, in turn, is dependent on the degree to which every individual can freely develop his or her capacities to the fullest extent. Consequently, all human and earthly evolution, prosperity, and well-being are dependent on the full development of human potential.

As earthly beings we are bequeathed capacities and traits from our genetic lineage, and these qualities are influenced by our surrounding environment, such as our families, communities, and schools. However, as spiritual beings, endowed with a soul, we bring something entirely original into life beyond our heredity and environmental influences. Each person and each rising generation has these unique capacities to develop, and tasks to fulfill in life, and these should not be shaped by what the economic, political, and cultural interests of previous generations need to perpetuate their favored perspectives and arrangements. In this sense, every generation is potentially a new nation, a new economy, and a new rejuvenating creative ethical force wanting to be born. A democratic State benefits from the ethics and character of its citizens that are developed in cultural life. However, citizens and their representatives must not use the coercive powers or financial resources of the State to promote or impose a particular religious, scientific, or artistic viewpoint.

It falls primarily to those involved in the field of education to sense what wants to unfold in the rising generation of children in terms of capacities and intentions. This requires that the basis for education, and cultural life in general, now and in the future, must be individual freedom.

Therefore, the Institute for Social Renewal is dedicated to educating the public about Rudolf Steiner's desire to implement the principle of freedom from government control and corporate influence in the following cultural activities as essential components of a modern democratic society:

· The development of educational goals, standards, and assessments by independent schools.
· Parental school choice.
· Individual choice regarding the obligatory financial support of elementary and secondary education.
· Medical decisions.
· Nutritional preferences.
· Religious and scientific views and practices.