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Let's analyze each candidate’s closing statement in the 9/10/2024 US presidential debate to determine which worldview they align with and which soul mood or method they use to arrive at their viewpoint. What's more important in political life; Idealism or Realism?

Candidate #1 Harris

Worldview: Idealism

Candidate #1’s statements reflect a focus on abstract principles, visions, and aspirations for the future, which are characteristic of Idealism. They emphasize shared values, future possibilities, and social justice, which align with the domain of abstract thought and ideals.

• Idealism is reflected in these quotes:
  • “We all have so much more in common than what separates us, and we can chart a new way forward.”
  • “I believe in what we can do together that is about sustaining America's standing in the world.”
  • “I intend to be a president for all Americans and focus on what we can do over the next 10 and 20 years to build back up our country by investing right now in you the American people.”

These statements prioritize universal values and principles of unity, reflecting an idealistic outlook that aims to envision a better future.

Soul Mood (Method): Voluntarism

Candidate #1’s method involves Voluntarism, focusing on will and action. They emphasize proactive efforts to shape the future, create opportunities, and make decisions based on understanding people’s aspirations. They emphasize the will to build an “opportunity economy” and ensure rights and freedoms, which indicates a belief in the power of human will to transform society.

• Voluntarism is seen in these statements:
  • “And a vision of that includes having a plan, understanding the aspirations, the dreams, the hopes, the ambition of the American people.”
  • “I intend to create an opportunity economy, investing in small businesses, in new families.”
  • “I will be a president that will protect our fundamental rights and freedoms.”

This approach underscores a belief in the will to implement change, expressing confidence that action can bring about the idealistic future they envision.

Candidate #2 Trump

Worldview: Realism

Candidate #2’s closing statements reflect a strong Realist worldview, focusing on the present reality of the nation’s decline, objective shortcomings, and practical failures of the current administration. The statements emphasize the current state of the nation and the need to address real-world problems, such as border control, military strength, and the energy crisis.

• Realism is evident in these quotes:
  • “Why hasn't she done it? She's been there for 3 1/2 years.”
  • “We're a failing nation. We're a nation that's in serious decline.”
  • “We're being laughed at all over the world. All over the world, they laugh.”

The focus here is on pragmatic, tangible results, highlighting current failures and what has not been achieved in the real world, reflecting objective reality rather than abstract ideals.

Soul Mood (Method): Empiricism

Trump’s method is grounded in Empiricism, focusing on observable facts and results rather than theoretical promises. The candidate points to what has not been done and critiques the current administration based on evidence of failures in governance, military withdrawal, and energy policy.

• Empiricism is highlighted in these statements:
  • “Why hasn't she done it? She's been there for 3 1/2 years.”
  • “Germany tried that and within one year they were back to building normal energy plants. We're not ready for it.”
  • “I rebuilt our entire military. She gave a lot of it away to the Taliban.”

This approach centers on evidence-based criticism, using past and present empirical facts to argue that the current leadership has failed to achieve meaningful, concrete results. The method contrasts real-world outcomes with the idealized promises of the opponent.

Summary of Worldviews and Methods:

• Candidate #1 appeals to abstract ideals and the will to create a better future through proactive action, presenting a visionary, forward-looking leadership style that seeks unity and improvement through investment and planning.

• Candidate #2 focuses on the objective shortcomings of the current administration, using empirical facts and past results to critique their failures. Their method is rooted in pragmatic realism, underscoring the current state of decline and calling for a return to practicality and strength.

The best-suited worldview for political life is primarily Realism, as political life is concerned with the objective, external world where individuals, institutions, and laws operate. In politics, decisions, power dynamics, and governance all unfold within the concrete, tangible realities of society, making Realism the best fit.

While Realism is the primary outlook governing political life due to its focus on the objective world, elements of Idealism and Rationalism are also frequently at play depending on the specific focus or discourse​​.

THE MONADIST

By listing the thinking and acting characteristics of the Monadism worldview found in The Philosophy Of Freedom, a personality type unfolds.

Monadism: I am a self-conscious and completely self-dependent ego. Truth is not revealed to outer observation so I do not accept anything as truth from the outside world. A being can build up existence in itself, and force concepts outward (Monads are will entities). Reflects on the spiritual element in the world.

Monadism worldview in Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy Of Freedom
1.9 Monadist action: Know The Reason For Action
Freedom is an action of which the reasons are known by reflecting on the motive before we act.

2.9 Monadist pursuit of knowledge: Know Element Of Nature Within
“Desires to know the element of nature within that corresponds to nature without. We can find Nature outside of us only if we have first learnt to know her within us. The Natural within us must be our guide to her.”

3.9 Monadist thinking: Create Before Knowing
“We must resolutely proceed with thinking, in order afterward, by means of observation of what we ourselves have done, gain knowledge of it.”

4.9 Monadist perception: Only Perceive What My Organization Transmits
“Nothing can any longer be found of what exists outside of me and originally stimulated my sense-organs. The external object, on its way to the brain, and through the brain to the soul, has been entirely lost. What we perceive is something we produce.”

5.9 Monadist knowing: Principle Of Unity Is Ideal Element
“All attempts to discover any other principle of unity in the world than this internally coherent ideal content, which we gain for ourselves by the conceptual analysis of our percepts, are bound to fail.”

6.9 Monadist individual representation of reality: Individual Point Of View
“Each one of us has his special standpoint from which he looks out on the world. His concepts link themselves to his percepts. He has his own special way of forming general concepts.”

7.9 Monadist cognition: Monism
Reality is sum of perceptions and laws of nature. “Monism replaces forces by ideal relations which are supplied by thinking. These relations are the laws of nature. A law of nature is nothing but the conceptual expression for the connection of certain percepts.”

8.9 Monadist personality: Personality Expressed In Will
“Willing Personality: The individual relation of our self to what is objective.”

9.9 monadist idea to act: Individual Element
Expression of ideals in individual way. “The individual element in me is not my organism with its instincts and feelings, but rather the unified world of ideas which reveals itself through this organism. An act the grounds for which lie in the ideal part of my individual nature is free.”

10.9 Monadist moral authority: Stage Of The Free Spirit
“Monism looks upon man as a developing being, and asks whether, in the course of this development, he can reach the stage of the free spirit.”

11.9 Monadist purpose: Formative Principle In Nature
“The structure of every natural object, be it plant, animal, or man, is not determined and conditioned by an idea of it floating in midair, but by the formative principle of the more inclusive whole of Nature which unfolds and organizes itself in a purposive manner.”

12.9 Monadist moral idea: Moral Self-determination
“The life of moral self-determination is the continuation of organic life. The characterizing of an action, whether it is a free one, he must leave to the immediate observation of the action.”

13.9 Monadist value of life: Strength Of Will
Will For Pleasure (intensity of desire) “The question is not at all whether there is a surplus of pleasure or of pain, but whether the will is strong enough to overcome the pain.”

14.9 Monadist individuality: Emancipation Of Knowing
“If we are to understand a free individuality we must take over into our own spirit those concepts by which he determines himself, in their pure form (without mixing our own conceptual content with them).”

THE PSYCHIST

By listing the thinking and acting characteristics of the Psychism worldview found in The Philosophy Of Freedom, a personality type unfolds.

Psychism: Ideas are bound up with a being capable of having ideas. Ideas are connected with beings.

Psychism (mental make-up, psyche, psychology) worldview in Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy Of Freedom
1.7 Psychist action: Strongest Motive Works On Me
“If a motive works on me, and I am compelled to follow it because it proves to be the 'strongest' of its kind, then the thought of freedom ceases to make any sense.”

2.7 Psychist pursuit of knowledge: Polarity Of Consciousness
Desires to resolve polarity of consciousness. “We meet with the fundamental opposition first in our own consciousness. It is we ourselves who break away from the bosom of Nature and contrast ourselves as self with the world.”

3.7 Psychist thinking: My Content Of Thought
“I think, therefore I am. I qualify my existence by the determinate and self-sustaining content of my thinking activity.”

4.7 Psychist perception: My Mental Picture
“When the tree disappears from my field of vision, an after-effect of this process remains within myself, a picture of the tree. My self has become enriched; to its content a new element has been added. This element I call my mental picture of the tree.”

5.7 Psychist knowing: Self Definition Through Thinking
“Self-perception is to be distinguished from self-determination, by thinking. Through thinking, I integrate the percepts of myself into the world process.”

6.7 Psychist individual representation of reality: Two-Fold Nature: Thinking And Feeling
“Thinking and feeling correspond to the twofold nature of our being. It is only because with self-knowledge we experience self-feeling and with the perception of objects pleasure and pain, that we live as individuals who have a special value in themselves.”

7.7 Psychist cognition: Ideal Entities
“The tulip I see is real today; in a year it will have vanished into nothingness. What persists is the species 'tulip'. Naive Realism is compelled to acknowledge the existence of something ideal by the side of percepts. It must include within itself entities which cannot be perceived by the senses.”

8.7 Psychist personality: Philosopher Of Feeling
“The Philosopher Of Feeling makes a universal principle out of something that has significance only within one's own personality.”

9.7 Psychist idea to act: Ethical Individualism
“In some, ideas bubble up like a spring, others acquire them with much labor. The situations in which men live, and which are the scenes of their actions, are no less widely different. The conduct of a man will depend, therefore, on the manner in which his faculty of intuition reacts to a given situation.”

10.7 Psychist moral authority: Realization Of The Free Spirit
“According to the monistic view man acts in part unfreely, in part freely. He finds himself to be unfree in the world of his perceptions, but brings the free spirit to realization in himself.”

11.7 Psychist purpose: My Purpose
“Life has no other purpose or function than the one which man gives to it. If the question be asked: What is man's purpose in life? Monism has but one answer: The purpose which he gives to himself.”

12.7 Psychist moral idea: My Moral Ideas
“While it is quite true that the moral ideas of the individual have perceptibly grown out of those of his ancestors, it is also true that the individual is morally barren, unless he has moral ideas of his own.”

13.7 Psychist value of life: Hopelessness Of Egotism
Pursuit Of Pleasure leads to the hopelessness of egotism. “If the quantity of pain in a person's life became at any time so great that no hope of future pleasure could help him to get over the pain, then the bankruptcy of life's business would inevitably follow.”

14.7 Psychist individuality: My Concrete Aims
“It is not possible to determine from the general characteristics of man what concrete aims the individual may choose to set himself.”

THE PNEUMATIST

By listing the thinking and acting characteristics of the Pneumatism worldview in The Philosophy Of Freedom, a personality type unfolds. The Pneumatist accepts the Spirit of the world, a doctrine of the Spirit. To act freely is to be spontaneous. She feels united with the rhythms of Nature, for the world is Spirit. By going within she enters the realm of pure thought, the place of universal concepts and universal thinking. Moral action is to act out of love, while moral order issues from a higher power. She accepts supernatural influences upon the creation and to guide human beings. We can only know someone when we discover their individual Spirit. 

Pneumatism: Interested in the spirit in the world and the expression of individual spirit.

Pneumatism worldview in Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy Of Freedom
1.8 Pneumatist spirit in action: Spontaneous Will
“Our will is the cause of our movement, but the willing itself is “unconditioned”; it is an absolute beginning (a first cause and not a link in a chain of events).”

2.8 Pneumatist spirit in the pursuit of knowledge: Feeling Impulse
“Desires to feel we belong to nature. We feel we are in her and belong to her. It can be only her own life which pulses also in us.”

3.8 Pneumatist spirit in thinking: Realm Of Pure Thought
“When we reflect upon thinking itself we enter the realm of thought and add to the number of objects of observation. We then add nothing to our thought that is foreign to it, and therefore have no need to justify any such addition.”

4.8 Pneumatist spirit in perception: World Is Spirit
“For Berkeley nothing is real except God and human spirits. What we call the "world" exists only in spirits. This theory is confronted by the now predominant Kantian which instead of spirits speaks of unknowable things-in-themselves.”

5.8 Pneumatist spirit in knowing: Universal Concept
“The concept of the triangle grasped by me is the same as that grasped by my neighbor. The single, unitary concept of the triangle does not become many by being thought by many thinkers. In so far as we think, we are the All-One Being which pervades everything.”

6.8 Pneumatist spirit in individual representation of reality: Universal Thinking
“The farther we ascend into the universal nature of thought, the more the character of unique personality becomes lost in us. There are those whose concepts come before us as devoid of any trace of individual coloring as if they had not been produced by a being of flesh and blood at all. True individuality belongs to him whose feelings reach up to the farthest possible extent into the region of the ideal.”

7.8 Pneumatist spirit in cognition: Imperceptible Reality
“Metaphysical Realism constructs, beside the perceptible reality, an imperceptible one which it conceives on the analogy of the former.”

8.8 Pneumatist spirit in personality: Mystic
“Wants to raise feeling, which is individual, into a universal principle.”

9.8 Pneumatist spirit in idea to act: Love For The Objective
“I do not ask whether my action is good or bad; I perform it because I am in love with it.”

10.8 Pneumatist spirit in moral authority: Moral Laws From A Higher Power
“The moral commandments, which the merely inference-drawing metaphysician has to regard as flowing from a higher power, are, for the believer in monism, the thoughts of men; the moral world order is the free work of man.”

11.8 Pneumatist spirit in world purpose: Spiritual World Order
“Ideas are realized purposefully only by human beings. Consequently, it is illegitimate to speak of history or a moral world-order as the embodiment of ideas.”

12.8 Pneumatist spirit in moral idea: Supernatural Influence
“Just as Monism has no use for supernatural creative ideas in explaining living organisms, it cannot admit any continuous supernatural influence upon moral life (divine government of the world from the outside), nor an influence through a particular act of revelation at a particular moment in history (giving of the ten commandments), or through God's appearance on the earth (divinity of Christ). Moral processes are, for Monism, natural products like everything else that exists, and their causes must be looked for in nature, i.e., in man, because man is the bearer of morality.”

13.8 Pneumatist spirit in the value of life: “Value” Of Pleasure (satisfaction of needs)
“This amount of enjoyment would have the greatest conceivable value when no need remained unsatisfied, and when along with the enjoyment a certain amount of pain did not have to be taken into the bargain at the same time.”

14.8 Pneumatist spirit in individuality: Individual Views And Action
“And every science that concerns itself with abstract thoughts and generic concepts is only a preparation for that knowledge which is afforded us when a human individuality communicates to us his way of viewing the world, and for that other knowledge which we gain from the content of his willing.”