This year, 100 years after the first “World Power Conference”, the World Goetheanum Association and the Youth Section of the Independent School for Spiritual Science are collaborating on a special event, an intergenerational conversation about global economic cooperation and peace. It is an event for everyone who is interested in working towards a vision of a global economy dedicated to cooperative, associative economics. In this episode Daniel Dunlop, the first World Power Conference of 1924, and the work of Walter Johannes Stein are introduced and how they relate to the upcoming event.

References:
“Working for Freedom and the Common Good” Website: https://www.worldgoetheanum.org/en/wg...
T. H. Meyer. D.N. Dunlop, A Man of Our Time: A Biography. Temple Lodge Publishing, 2014.
Rebecca Wright, Hiroki Shin, and Frank Trentmann. 2013. From World Power Conference to World Energy Council: 90 Years of Energy Cooperation, 1923-2013. London: World Energy Council.
Basel, Perseus-Verlag. 2023. “W.J. Stein: The Earth as a Basis of World Economy.” Perseus Verlag. https://perseus.ch/archive/11950.

Questions of Courage is a project of the Youth Section at the Goetheanum, in collaboration with Goetheanum TV.
To support the Youth Section Global Access Fund, please visit: https://www.goetheanum.org/en/youth-donations

This episode touches on the will, meditation, and the possibility of developing spiritually in a way that undermines our ability of love, responsibility and compassion in life. This is not only relevant for young people who are developing an inner practice, but also for countless others who are navigating existential inner difficulties for reasons related to experiences with psychoactive substances or even excessive media use or video gaming. These young people may feel that their difficulties are essentially spiritual challenges that beg a spiritual point of view and understanding. This episode focuses on the feeling of a need to develop a strengthened self, one of pure will, to counter challenging spiritual experiences, while overlooking the most important balancing power: love and fellowship, awareness of earthly needs of others a will for service. This leads to the picture that developing a strengthened self should always be complimented by cultivating the capacity of compassion and a clear intention of the heart, will and mind to be of service through our lives and work.

References:
Rudolf Steiner. A Way of Self-Knowledge: And the Threshold of the Spiritual World (CW 16–17). SteinerBooks, 1999

Questions of Courage is a project of the Youth Section at the Goetheanum, in collaboration with Goetheanum TV.
To support the Youth Section Global Access Fund, please visit: https://www.goetheanum.org/en/youth-donations

In this episode Nathaniel Williams turns toward Hari Kunzru’s novel Red Pill, published in 2020, as an image of what contemporary human experience. It depicts a journey of a writer who is driven to confront unsettling questions about life, the place of violence and human dignity while society around him is seething. To join with the world, we are given into the jaws of violence, even if it is simply with the decay of our body. To take the world into ourselves, into our consciousness, takes away its reality. Behold, the human being, and a description of contemporary experience. Such an image of the human being was characterized one hundred years ago this month in an introductory course on Anthroposophy given by Rudolf Steiner who suggests, “The human being stands … in double darkness, and the question arises: Where is the other world to which I belong?”.

References from this episode:

- Hari Kunzru. Red Pill. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2020.

- Rudolf Steiner. Anthroposophy and the Inner Life: An Esoteric Introduction. Rudolf Steiner Press, 2015. (Formerly Published as Anthroposophy: an Introduction).

Questions of Courage is a project of the Youth Section at the Goetheanum, in collaboration with Goetheanum TV.
To support the Youth Section Global Access Fund, please visit: https://www.goetheanum.org/en/youth-donations

Thousands of satellites are being launched each year as part of efforts to build out the infrastructure for our digital technologies and networks. The night sky is now crisscrossed by traveling techno-stars visible to the naked eye. The celestial order of the constellations host more and more movement, and light pollution, which has led many astronomers around the world to protest. There is also an acceleration of dynamism in normal perception through our phones and computers, images change, come and go, as do messages and sounds, with tremendous speed. There is so much more to everything. As a part of this movement many experience a static void and a great paradox of our newest “communication technologies” that they easily isolate and separate. In inner work we see a countermovement, where we start with bringing our distracted thoughts to stillness and focus with our will, and then we find a plane of spiritual movement, of warmth and light, imbued with an ethical life. In this episode these two gestures of modernity form the backdrop for an exploration of artistic projects that are being prepared for the Youth Conference at the Goetheanum for February on Digital Technology and Spirituality.

References:

Kerry Brougher and Olivia Mattis. Visual Music: Synaesthesia in Art and Music Since

1900. Thames & Hudson, 2005.

Omer Eilam. “Music - On Earthly and Cosmic Music,” November 24, 2023.

https://dasgoetheanum.com/en/on-earthly-and-cosmic-music/.

Rudolf Steiner. Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts: Anthroposophy as a Path of

Knowledge - The Michael Mystery. Rudolf Steiner Press, 2013.

Veit, Wolfgang, and Jan Stuten. Bewegte Bilder: der Zyklus “Metamorphosen der Furcht” von Jan Stuten : Entwurf zu einer neuen Licht-Spiel-Kunst nach einer Idee von Rudolf Steiner. Urachhaus, 1993.

Questions of Courage is a project of the Youth Section at the Goetheanum, in collaboration with Goetheanum TV.
To support the Youth Section Global Access Fund, please visit: https://www.goetheanum.org/en/youth-donations

Recently we have seen how much courage is required to advocate for peace, which is understood as a simple cessation of war and terror. Beyond this we are faced with the grand challenge of peace, of how to imagine a resilient peace, how to become articulate and effective peace workers. One area that people all over the world share as a possible field of collaboration, where we can all work for peace, is the global economy. This episode explores seven interconnected perspectives on the peace potential inherent in the global economy that grows out of an understanding of associative economics.

References:

“Chiemgauer Regiogeld,” December 5, 2023. https://www.chiemgauer.info/.

“GLS Bank - sozial, ökologisch, nachhaltig.” Accessed December 6, 2023. https://www.gls.de/privatkunden/.

Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner. These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs—and Wrecks—America. Simon and Schuster, 2023.

Purpose. “Purpose – We’re Rethinking Ownership to Transform the Economy.” Accessed December 6, 2023. https://purpose-economy.org/en/.

Rudolf Steiner. Rethinking Economics: Lectures and Seminars on World Economics. SteinerBooks, 2013.

Marina Warner. Review of No Freedom to Move, by James Crawford and Sally Hayden. The New York Review of Books, November 23, 2023.

Questions of Courage is a project of the Youth Section at the Goetheanum, in collaboration with Goetheanum TV.
To support the Youth Section Global Access Fund, please visit: https://www.goetheanum.org/en/youth-donations

Social thinking is not simply a nice way of looking at life, an optimistic or positive orientation. Characteristically it involves thinking in an inclusive way, somehow considering the varied interests of everyone in society. Many people cling to the stubborn ideas of naked capitalism, that self-interest leads to social wealth, even while we see that the idea is undermining everything that is valuable and worthwhile. Social thinking involves working with the reality of reciprocity and mutuality. Almost twenty years ago a group of high school students and their economics teacher launched a socially designed regional currency in Germany that has gained admirers around the world over the last two decades. It is a beautiful example of a social orientation to monetary design that stands in contrast to many conversations about crypto currency and tragic stories like the demise of FTX.

References:

Michael Ende. Momo. McSweeney’s McMullens, 2013.

Bernard Lietaer and Jacqui Dunne. Rethinking Money: How New Currencies Turn Scarcity into Prosperity. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2013.

Jon Palmer and Patrick Collinson. “Local Currencies the German Way: The Chiemgauer.” The Guardian, September 23, 2011, sec. Money. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2011/sep/23/local-currencies-german-chiemgauer.

Rudolf Steiner. Economics: The World as One Economy. New Economy Publications, 1993.

Chiemgauer - https://www.chiemgauer.info/

Questions of Courage is a project of the Youth Section at the Goetheanum, in collaboration with Goetheanum TV.
To support the Youth Section Global Access Fund, please visit: https://www.goetheanum.org/en/youth-donations

In this episode excerpts from the Journey of the Peacemaker are described, a journey that led to the founding of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, Confederacy. It is a story of how, within the time span of one life, one biography, a region of war, violence, evil and cannibalism became the first constitutional, and democratically oriented, confederacy of North America. Alongside influences from Europe, the Iroquois were a major influence on the emergence of the constitutional Republic of the USA. It is unique in that it is a constitutional order and culture that emerged out of a positive vision of peace and diplomacy.

Cadwallader Colden. The History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada.

References:

Bruce Elliott Johansen. Forgotten Founders: Benjamin Franklin, the Iroquois, and the Rationale for the American Revolution. Gambit, 1982.

Jacob Needleman. The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders. Penguin, 2003.

Paul A. W. Wallace. White Roots of Peace: The Iroquois Book of Life. Clear Light Publishers, 1994.

Questions of Courage is a project of the Youth Section at the Goetheanum, in collaboration with Goetheanum TV.
To support the Youth Section Global Access Fund, please visit: https://www.goetheanum.org/en/youth-donations

This episode explores current interest in spiritual dimensions in art, and how this appears on the backdrop of social/political critiques of modern art and economic opportunism. Through passages from Mary Caroline Richard’s Centering a spiritual significance is highlighted connected to the decline of conventional art and the challenge of developing an art with new, vital and immanent spiritual qualities.

References:

David Edelstein. “A Rich Satire About Street Art, Or Is It A Hoax?” NPR, April 16, 2010, sec. Movies. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126037446.

Mary Caroline Richards. Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person. Wesleyan University Press, 2012.

Harriet Sherwood, Harriet Sherwood Arts, and culture correspondent. “Danish Artist Who Submitted Empty Frames as Artwork Told to Repay Funding.” The Guardian, September 18, 2023.

Julian Stallabrass. Contemporary Art: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2020.

Questions of Courage is a project of the Youth Section at the Goetheanum, in collaboration with Goetheanum TV.
To support the Youth Section Global Access Fund, please visit: https://www.goetheanum.org/en/youth-donations