April provided excellent weather to stay inside and read. For instance some articles about climatic change in a German scientific journal (Forschung & Lehre 2/07). The texts are written in a sober style which I found good to read. I remember hearing some of this some twenty years ago in a physics lecture. One writer compares the task ahead of us with tiding the Augean Stables or rather that the Augean Stables are a perfume shop compared with what lies ahead of us.
I think there is a social aspect in all of this as well. It has something to do with the rapid technological development over the past 100 to 150 years and that humans - morally and emotionally - are barely able to keep pace. "The problem is not the atom bomb, but the heart of the people" Einstein said.
In a dialogue with F Mennekes Beuys states:
"[…] The only thing that is worth elevating is the human soul. I now mean “soul” in the extensive way[...] not only emotional life, but also the powers of realization, the capability of thought, intuition, inspiration, I-consciousness, and the power of the will. All these are phenomena which have been seriously damaged in our day.* They must be saved. Consequently, everything else is saved anyway. Without these very thoughts it makes no sense so to say, to try and grow better potatoes."
Beuys on Christ. A Position in Dialogue / Friedhelm Mennekes - Joseph Beuys (1984)
*Ralph Turner calls it "anaesthetised society" when writing about Julie Cook's work.
I think there is a social aspect in all of this as well. It has something to do with the rapid technological development over the past 100 to 150 years and that humans - morally and emotionally - are barely able to keep pace. "The problem is not the atom bomb, but the heart of the people" Einstein said.
In a dialogue with F Mennekes Beuys states:
"[…] The only thing that is worth elevating is the human soul. I now mean “soul” in the extensive way[...] not only emotional life, but also the powers of realization, the capability of thought, intuition, inspiration, I-consciousness, and the power of the will. All these are phenomena which have been seriously damaged in our day.* They must be saved. Consequently, everything else is saved anyway. Without these very thoughts it makes no sense so to say, to try and grow better potatoes."
Beuys on Christ. A Position in Dialogue / Friedhelm Mennekes - Joseph Beuys (1984)
*Ralph Turner calls it "anaesthetised society" when writing about Julie Cook's work.
