This episode explores some of author Marilynne Robinson’s thoughts about the importance of seeing people as spiritual beings and how this relates to the history of civil and political rights in North America, and especially the USA. These thoughts are connected with current tensions within both US universities and society at large, and the role that artistic education plays in being able to experience a deeper, spiritual facet of human beings.

References:

Rachel Feintzeig, (2025) Opinion | Zombies Are Better Than the Alternative. The New York Times, 25 May. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/opinion/last-of-us-finale.html, accessed 4 June 2025.

Marilynne Robinson, (2010) Absence of Mind: Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self. (Yale University Press).

Marilynne Robinson, (2019) Which Way to the City on a Hill? The New York Review of Books. Available at https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/07/18/which-way-city-hill/, accessed 4 June 2025.

Rudolf Steiner(2006) Becoming the Archangel Michael’s Companions: Rudolf Steiner’s Challenge to the Younger Generation (CW 217). (SteinerBooks).

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 challenging experiences that young people can have when they first enter college and university with enthusiasm for existential, heartfelt questions. It is not uncommon for young people to feel that the attitudes and methods they meet in the classroom and their professors cannot reach deep enough into the questions they are most passionate about and driven to explore. This can lead to disappointment and a temptation to turn away from their passions for knowledge, growth and understanding. There are, however, ideas, orientations and contemporary calls for expanding the understanding of science in ways that can accommodate the exploration of deeper questions and riddles that are not only intellectual but matters of the heart. Jeffrey Kripal’s suggestion that a new school of the “Superhumanities” is called for, as well as Hubert Dreyfuss and Charles Taylor’s ideas of Pluralist Robust Realism are introduced as examples.

References:

Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor (2015) Retrieving Realism. (Harvard University Press).

William James (2008) Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy. (Cambridge Scholars Publisher).

Jeffrey Kripal (2022) The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities. (University of Chicago Press).

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.

Currently in the USA there is a “revolution of common sense” underway under the banner of nationalism, competition for natural resources and economic growth without regard for ecological limitations. In the last two episodes Steiner’s notion of aesthetic culture, that embraces not only the arts and humanities but also natural science and economics, was presented as an alternate vision for a revolution of common sense. Some of the most positive developments of the last century, the emergence of the modern environmental movement and social-ecological finance and banking, have recently been shown to be connected with Steiner’s influence in these areas by Dan McKanan. This episode presents two examples of strategies, in modern political thought and philosophy, to navigate tensions between “anaesthetic” and technocratic tendencies in the natural sciences and economy on the one hand, and lived, human experience on the other. What comes to the fore is a gap, one that a true revolution of common sense might fill.

References:

Glazebrook, Trish (2004) Global Technology and the Promise of Control, in David Tabachnick and Toivo Koivukoski (eds), Globalization, Technology, and Philosophy. (SUNY Press, Albany).

Heidegger, Martin (1977) The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays. (New York: Harper Collins).

McKanan, Dan (2017) Eco-Alchemy: Anthroposophy and the History and Future of Environmentalism. (Berkeley, CA: Univ of California Press).

Stallabrass, Julian (2020) Contemporary Art: a Very Short Introduction. (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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.