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In the Face of Nothingness by Todd Krake, Class of 2005 In The Younger Generation, Steiner makes a moving case for the decline and loss of the living spirit in our culture, how it's been superseded by a veneration of the disembodied intellect, and how we as a culture have become stranded without recourse to our souls in the face of Nothingness. His entreaties for a return to concrete spirituality intensify with each succeeding chapter, as well as his recurring insistence on behalf of the youth movement that we simply must accept these terms if true human evolution is to occur. In Chapter 6, his eloquence culminates in a cursory exploration of how the spirit might move in the more worthy realms of life, these being individual ethics, community relation and education. It is with regard to the realm of education that I find his ideas most poignant, for Steiner seems to accord education a special significance in relation to what he calls "the world-riddle." I greet this theme in Steiner's lectures with anxious anticipation. As an ambivalent member of the so-called " click culture" (so coined by Dorit), part of me expects some quick and comprehensible answer to the Great Riddle itself from Steiner. "Tell me;' I might say, "exactly what to do to awaken myself and evolve." Like the students attending the lectures at the time Steiner gave them, I also share an undefined yearning for spiritual restoration. What does Steiner say in coming lectures about how to set such a thing in motion? Would I be able to apply that knowledge to my own century's frenzied and diverse cultural life? Would I even be able to apply it to myself? At this sensitive juncture in the lectures, Steiner's intermittent use of words like "soul" and "spirit" are still as nebulous to me as the cut-rate eastern mysticism peddled on every street corner in Berkeley. It's not that I disagree with his ideas; it's simply that I wish to know where he is taking me. I am duly humbled, however, by something he briefly touches on in Chapter 6 which might even be considered an invaluable hint. It happens in the middle of the lecture. After making it perfectly clear that a solution to the "world-riddle" found through means of the intellect would be terribly dissatisfying, he says: "We know that the question of the nature of the universe has resounded from times primeval until today, that the answer to these world questions has resounded from human hearts, but that the questioning will go on resounding endlessly, that human beings must continue on into the distant future to learn to live their answer." Perhaps Steiner won't hold my hand and give me the solution after all. Perhaps I've missed the point in hoping he would. I feel like he's intimating that part of reckoning with the world riddle is constant vigilance, for the seeking after a solution is part of the finding, part of "learning to live" a solution. Steiner, I notice, advocates a unique approach to the growing child. If the riddle of life stands before us, and the solution lies within us and echoes in our very striving, then the question every would-be educator must ask himself is: "What living forces must I release in myself to look rightly upon those who are coming after me?" Teachers, in his view, have a responsibility to live out this cosmic drama unceasingly. Therein lies the most profoundly tantalizing (not to mention shocking) idea I come away with from the reading so far. As one, you see, who has felt a calling to the teaching profession for as long as I can remember, I now ask: what on earth have I gotten myself into? Before I can effectively greet the growing child, I have some inner work to do. Of course, it makes nothing but sense that before I can hope to awaken another to a deep understanding of their true humanity, I must first awaken myself in this way. In other words, I need to show a child that I have some tools at my disposal to model how to properly keep that Nothingness-ever on the horizon-at bay. |
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