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

In this episode, Nathaniel Williams shares from a recent forum that took place at the Goetheanum World Conference on Peacebuilding. Reflecting on forum presentations from Friedrich Glasl on the Logic of War and Logic of Peace and comments from forum members he asks: how can we understand the place of boycotts and non-violent action in a comprehensive imagination of peace? This was an issue that Martin Luther King jr addressed, pointing toward the necessity of a transformation of values for enduring peace. One window into these dimensions of peace work can be understood when one looks at the roles of music and imagination in the civil rights movement.  

References:

Friedrich Glasl. Selbsthilfe in Konflikten: Konzepte, Übungen, praktische Methoden.

Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 2011.

Martin Luther King. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of

Martin Luther King, Jr. HarperCollins, 1990.

William F. Pepper. An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King. Verso, 2003.

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

There is a deep feeling among many young people that economics and financial institutions need to be aligned with human values, justice, and solidarity. Is this possible? In this episode Michael Sandel’s book What Money Can’t Buy sets the context for an exploration of associative economics, a perspective on economics first formulated by Rudolf Steiner a century ago.

References:
“B Lab Global Site.” Accessed August 25, 2023. https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us.

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

Groh, Trauger, and Steven McFadden. Farms of Tomorrow Revisited. SteinerBooks, 1998.

Sandel, Michael J. What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.

Steiner, Rudolf. Renewal of the Social Organism. SteinerBooks, 1985.

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

Steuernagel, Armin. “Armin Steuernagel: Transforming Ownership to Create a Better Economy | Armin Steuernagel | TEDxZurich | TED Talk.”

Stiglitz, Joseph. “There Is No Invisible Hand.” The Guardian, December 20, 2002, sec. Education.

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

Exploring the intersection of consumerism and spirituality, Nathaniel characterizes the new and widespread orientation of encounter and how this orientation can lead to confusion and destruction when we don’t recognize where it is justified. This new sensitivity for the human being brings with it a destructive potential when comes to consumerism. He suggests by seeking self-expression through consumerism a misplaced spiritual orientation is at work, one connected with a wasteful economy, the lack of meaning and lack of connection with the natural world. At the same time through understanding the pictorial nature at work in this new culture we can develop a sensitivity for the inexhaustible dimension of culture, relationships and the spirit. 

References:

Epp, Charles R. The Rights Revolution: Lawyers, Activists, and Supreme Courts in Comparative Perspective. University of Chicago Press, 2020.

McKibben, Bill. The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces from an Active Life. St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2008.

Schumacher, E. F. Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered. HarperCollins, 2010.

Steiner, Rudolf. The Life, Nature and Cultivation of Anthroposophy: Letters to the Members, Volume I, 1924. Anthroposophical Society of Great Britain, 1963.

Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge University Press, 1992.

https://www.adbusters.org/

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 a challenge is introduced concerning the intersection of spirituality and psychedelics, namely integrating experiences that emerge while under the influence of psychedelic substances into normal consciousness and understanding. By comparing a gradual and incremental approach to the spirit with an immediate encounter facilitated through psychedelics some basic contours of the challenge of integration come to light. 

References:

Michael Pollan. How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us

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 two powerful gestures are explored in their connection to spiritual development. The first gesture is present in the urgency and pressure that we feel in connection to everything having to do with our shared lives on the earth; the ecological crisis, economic and social challenges and climate change. The other gesture moves in the opposite direction, into expansion, dispersal and a certain kind of liberation; the digital revolution and physically induced expansion of consciousness. The rising generation finds itself placed into this dramatic moment and the question that it poses: How can one develop spiritually in a way that does not weaken one’s connection to collective life and the earth, and can such a path reveal spiritual life in the greater world? 

References:

Sherry Turkle. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

Michael Pollan. How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence

Ernest Cline. Ready Player One; Random House Publishing Group, 2011.

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 crucial questions that emerge when we think of meditation as a knowledge practice. How is it different from understanding meditation simply from a psychological perspective? What happens when we take a spiritual worldview and contemplative practices such as we find in Buddhism out of context, and interpret them within the Western paradigm of science and faith, without taking the research claims seriously? What is required to consider meditation as a research practice that could lead to results which could expand normal scientific understanding? How is imaginative contemplative practice, a method in the School for Spiritual Science, understood in this context? These are some of the questions that are taken up with reference to Evan Thompson, B. Alan Wallace and Arthur Zajonc.

References:

Rudolf Steiner. A Way of Self-Knowledge

Evan Thompson. Why I Am Not a Buddhist

B. Alan Wallace. Choosing Reality: A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind

Arthur Zajonc. Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love.

———. The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama.

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