ATELIER FOR THE SOCIAL QUEST
A SELF-ORGANISED STUDY COURSE
DEVELOPING SOCIAL ART ATELIERS
Shaping the Social Threefold
THE SOCIAL QUEST
Atelier for the Social Quest is a self-directed course made up of four study modules - Nature, Society, Self and Economics. All course-work is founded on the insights of Rudolf Steiner regarding the threefold social order. The course is best done in a group setting - an "atelier" - but it can be worked with solo. Atelier for the Social Quest is a social art studio, shaped and managed by the participants themselves. The work is not assessed - what can grow out of it depends on individual and group initiative. The aim is to cultivate a living, imaginative form of thinking, so important for the future of education and social life as a whole.
The journey of Atelier for the Social Quest begins with the study of natural phenomena – plants, animals, colours and the human form. The natural scientific insights of the poet J. W. Goethe in the 19th century were developed further by Rudolf Steiner in the twentieth century. Their work forms the basis of this study. In this holistic science the scientific and artistic are inseparable.
The artistic observer learns how to read the language of nature and the social organism. This is the possibility of an exact imaginative thinking. Goethe, in his natural scientific studies, interpreted this language in terms of these primary elements - the archetypal phenomenon, polarity, metamorphosis, intensification.
". . . a spiritual contemplation of nature will provide means for the kind of training in thought which, among other things, makes it possible to comprehend the social organism".
Rudolf Steiner, The Renewal of the Social Organism
A NEW FORM OF UNIVERSITY
A central part of the mission of Atelier for the Social Quest is supporting the coming into being of a new form of university. Its significance will not be that it introduces new faculties or a set of new philosophies. It will be groundbreaking because it will move beyond the kind of intellectuality which has been the hallmark of university education since medieval times. This university will cultivate an exact imaginative intelligence in every faculty, in every dimension of its teaching and research.
This will be a phenomenological university, grounded in Goethe's holistic science. For a study of the origin and necessity of this phenomenological university, click here:
Two main features of the new university are:
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an orientation course in goethean science and art, for all students in all years of study,
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the form and function of the new university will be an expression of the threefold social life.
There will need to be tutors who are highly experienced in Goethe's way of science and the threefold social outlook; hence an important training role for Atelier for the Social Quest.
A newsletter is being produced to help prepare for this university. To go on the mailing list and to view past issues, click here:
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND LIVING, IMAGINATIVE THINKING
We live in the age of smart cities, 5G satellites and AI, set up for communication, to transmit, to harvest and process information.
The digital reality of modern society is the all-pervading expression of a particular kind of logical mentality. We call it a mineral thinking because it can be developed artificially through the silicon chip and electromagnetic processes. The danger is that this thinking will overshadow all other powers of human intelligence. A purely logical kind of thinking cannot think life.
The living beings of nature and the human social organism cannot be properly or adequately understood in this way. If human social life is confined to the logical structures of a mineral intelligence, then people are in a sense enslaved by this inteligence and are not able to realise themselves in freedom. How do we develop an exact form of imagination, a living social thinking?
This is the inspiring question of Atelier for the Social Quest.
