{"id":59704,"date":"2024-08-30T13:38:21","date_gmt":"2024-08-30T11:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/?p=59704"},"modified":"2024-08-30T19:14:31","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T17:14:31","slug":"feeling-self-knowledge-counteracting-the-alienation-of-human-beings-from-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/feeling-self-knowledge-counteracting-the-alienation-of-human-beings-from-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Feeling Self-Knowledge: Counteracting the Alienation of Human Beings from the World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Geniuses and people needing support have one thing in common: the unconditionality with which they deal with conditions. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For some, the unconditional\u2014the absolute\u2014has such a powerful effect on the conditions of existence, that the conditional becomes transparent to the invisible that shapes and determines the visible. For others, the conditions of existence are so narrow and specific that they need support and accompaniment in order to maintain their existence at all, and\u2014precisely, by way of this special arrangement\u2014they bring forth the essential, not least in those who accompany them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over two hundred years ago, when Novalis called for the world and human beings to be romanticized, he saw this as the only way to find the unconditioned, instead of always just the thing. And every line collected among his various fragments mirrors his deep love for the development and education of what is purely human, the aim of which is a self-understanding that learns to understand others: \u201cThe highest task of development [Bildung<\/em>] is to seize one\u2019s transcendental Self, to simultaneously be the \u2018I\u2019 of one\u2019s \u2018I.\u2019 All the less alienating is the lack of perfect feeling and understanding for others. Without a perfect self-understanding, one will never learn to truly understand others.\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, not quite one year ago, when Victoria \u00d6ttl was invited to closely observe what emerged within her while writing out the verses of Steiner\u2019s Soul Calendar, she made an ingenious discovery. On October 10, 2023, she wrote: \u201cThe \u2018I\u2019 is present in every verse. Even when the word \u2018I\u2019 is not in the verse, the \u2018I\u2019 is inwardly present everywhere. I was already struck by this in the last verses, so I thought to myself that I had to observe how it further develops throughout all the verses.\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the late eighteenth century in Europe, the world had become so alien to the \u2018I\u2019 that the \u2018I\u2019 was able to posit itself and designated everything else as non-\u2018I\u2019 as the world (Fichte). In the early twenty-first century, the alienation between human beings and the world has become life-threatening. Today, we are increasingly witnessing a human-made death of nature, and we know that it urgently needs our understanding and, indeed, our loving support. This assistance certainly does not come from looking at numbers and figures but rather from romanticizing them. \u201cThe world must be romanticized. This yields again its original meaning. . . . By giving a higher sense to the ordinary, a mysterious semblance to the everyday, the dignity of the unknown to the known, and the appearance of the infinite to the finite\u2014I romanticize it.\u201d<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an aesthetic method, all romanticization aims to transform the world; it begins with the individual human being in one\u2019s own soul. With this in mind, Rudolf Steiner focused his attention in his first great verse epic<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> entirely on the relationship between the human soul and nature, or more precisely, on the relationship between the soul\u2019s rhythm of perception and thought, largely emancipated from space and time, and the natural events that take place entirely according to the rhythm of the seasons. Nature, herself, does not yet undergo any change as a result; however, the poeticized intuition and perception of nature enables the soul to recognize itself in the picture of the course of the year, not as a system or machine, but as a living, feeling being in its own right. This feeling awakens only gradually and initially appears\u2014like all feeling self-knowledge\u2014as a questioning that is increasingly aware of its ignorance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victoria \u00d6ttl depicts this awakening in her life and her work with the fifty-two verses at the threshold between summer and fall: \u201cTo be honest, I don\u2019t exactly know how the soul-being should become aware of herself. Does this have anything to do with creating? Is it that the soul-being creates itself and becomes aware of itself in creation?\u201d<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And a little later, shortly before the ingenious discovery that the \u2018I\u2019 is everywhere: \u201cDoes that mean me there, as a being? The soul belongs, in some way, to Being, I believe. I am the Being that observes itself, yes?\u201d<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steiner\u2019s verse epic dedicated to the relationship between soul and nature is directed at a feeling self-knowledge and thereby evokes it, just as an \u2018I\u2019 first becomes an \u2018I\u2019 when it is addressed as a \u2018Thou.\u2019<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> This feeling self-knowledge opens up access to an \u2018I\u2019 that does not want to dominate but gives meaning, cognizes affiliations, and, ultimately, perceives how everything is connected with everything, yielding again its \u201coriginal meaning.\u201d This perception is emergence and creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feeling self-knowledge steps into the place of alienation between human beings and the world\u2014especially where people in need of assistance, accompaniment, and works of genius come together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Translation <\/strong>Joshua Kelberman
Image <\/strong>Panel #26, Victoria \u00d6ttl (writing), Hannes Weigert (concept\/colour), acrylic on hardboard, 50 \u00d7 70 cm. The Painting Studio, 2021-22<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Geniuses and people needing support have one thing in common: the unconditionality with which they deal with conditions.  For some, the unconditional\u2014the absolute\u2014has such a powerful effect on the conditions of existence, that the conditional becomes transparent to the invisible that shapes and determines the visible. For others, the conditions of existence are so narrow and specific that they need support and accompaniment in order to maintain their existence at all, and\u2014precisely, by way of this special arrangement\u2014they bring forth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9170,"featured_media":59087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8788,8845],"tags":[11532,8798,11544],"class_list":["post-59704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay-en","category-social","tag-ausgabe-27-28-2024-en","tag-deepening","tag-english-issue-35-2024"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9170"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}