Innumerable tragedies occurring in the world right now make us feel powerless to save anyone—even ourselves. We wonder how so many people are forced to suffer horribly at the hands of others. Every issue, filled with contradictory information, makes workable solutions seem impossible. Even those in positions of power seem unable or unwilling to think of solutions, yet we keep waiting for them to do so.
Are the people in power throughout the world the brightest and best, the most compassionate and humane people? If so, maybe they will save the world. If not, can we find a way to put different people into power? If so, maybe they will save the world.
Maybe not.
What if holding power is not the precise tool of a true revolution? What if each one of us has the right tool, but we don’t even know we have it? We need to find this tool and how to wield it before thinking itself becomes obsolete. We are facing a new world, and this world needs people who understand that they, and everyone else, is worth saving.
Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:
People ask: What is to be the source of a new morality?” And then they answer: “Having power is an indispensable means for achieving something good in the world; therefore, you should strive to gain the power necessary (if you do not already possess it) for doing good.” People would like to have something good to do in the world, and they beautifully advise one another to seek the power to do that good. A second justification for this new ethics is as follows: With the power that you already possess, you can do some good. Therefore, you should always use the power you have for the achievement of good.
But first you must have some good to do; first you must be able to recognize what is good! The advice that people give is the opposite of what spiritual science must spread throughout the new human civilization. For spiritual science has nothing to do with trying to found something on the basis of having power. You can only found something on the basis of power when you are working with a group of people collectively. When one human being stands before another, it is impossible to found anything on the basis of power; it is only possible to found something on the basis of the things that can develop in the human being, so that the other person has some worth.
We all have a worth to discover and to develop within ourselves that will allow us to accomplish something for the sake of humanity; and each of us must simultaneously develop within ourselves a receptivity that allows us to recognize this worth in others.
This is the only possible means of forming a foundation for the morality of the future: to develop our own individual worth, and to become able to recognize that worth in others. To put this another way: all morality will have to be built on real trust!
… Now, in the wake of recent developments in human evolution, it is indeed necessary that as many people as possible find the energy to recognize that in fact a new spiritual revelation is attempting to enter the flow of human evolution and to see how this new revelation must be understood by humankind. For as long as we allow our spiritual lives to be pawns to exterior powers in the world (be they the state or some other external power), our spiritual lives will never be afforded the opportunity to take up the impulse of this spiritual revelation.
We must come to understand that in every human being there is a seed that does not come from our education and upbringing. We must hold the belief that in every human being alive today is something that can be awakened only by spiritual forces and by maintaining the conviction that these spiritual forces exist.
Excerpt from: What is Necessary in These Urgent Times, Lecture 3: Knowledge of the Human Being through Knowledge of the World by Rudolf Steiner. Dornach, January 11, 1920.
Sitting around fretting about whatever our sources have told us is happening does nothing. The other thing that does nothing is blaming others. Neglecting to work on ourselves may seem easier, but it isn’t an option anymore because we can no longer discern what is true or good based on our senses alone. Right? In print, in videos, in photos – what we can see, hear, and feel through these mediums – all this is now easily altered or AI-produced. We can’t trust it; it isn’t reality.
What then is reality? Knowing ourselves. Being able to trust ourselves, being able to trust the person we meet, is critical to living in reality, a reality that accepts the spiritual as fully as it does the material.
We have to honor our capacity to think by actually thinking for ourselves. We have to take ourselves in hand and do the hard work of freeing ourselves from the mindset that the material world is the only reality.
We must work to develop ourselves so that we can tell the truth and do the good and trust others will do the same. If we are successful in breaking through the barrier lying between the material world and the spiritual world, we will find worthy solutions because we will recognize the truth and goodness in them. If we want to do good things, we need to know what they are. Think about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/opinion/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-deepfake-ai.html