“The creative potential of each individual” > The video series ‘We Want to Shape the World’ calls attention to new approaches

Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland, 28 March 2022

So many crises – and yet, there are those who develop and implement new ideas. Gerald Häfner, head of Social Sciences at the Goetheanum, introduces individuals who are working on building “tomorrow‘s world.”

“We live in a system that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing,” says Gerard Häfner, head of Social Sciences at the Goetheanum. Continuing as before is out of the question, he thinks, for where that leads is apparent in the current problems: climate, pandemic, war, and poverty. “Nothing is more essential right now than ideas for tomorrow‘s world.” Gerard Häfner introduces people who are working on building that world.

There is, for instance, a small town in the Black Forest, Germany, where people felt uncomfortable with the idea of using electricity generated by nuclear power. At the initiative of Ursula Sladek, her husband and other supporters, the citizens have taken over the electricity grid from the energy company and are now producing their own electricity ecologically. Schönau Energy is today one of the big ecological energy providers in Germany.

Recognizing and making use of the creative potential of each individual is what Joseph Beuys expressed when he said that “Everyone is an artist,” a statement with which he distanced himself from an elitist understanding of art. And relating art to politics meant that it also became democratic. Gerard Häfner is convinced that today we need “this formative force of each individual person, this joy to think the future, and this will to co-shape it through one‘s own actions more than anything else.” Johannes Stüttgen, a master student and close co-worker of Joseph Beuys‘, is working with this approach.

In dealing with Sars-CoV-2, Harald Matthes recommends a holistic, integrative and differentiated approach rather than compulsory vaccination for all. The professor of Integrative and Anthroposophic Medicine at the Charité in Berlin, Germany, speaks from his experience as head physician of Havelhöhe Community Hospital in Berlin, which has a Covid ward, a vaccination centre and thorough experience with treating Covid patients.

(2123 characters/SJ; English by Margot M. Saar)

Contact person Gerald Häfner