Qustions and Social Will

- Impressions From the Lectures of Dennis Klocek, by  Vivien Carrady

What are the implications for our social will in a world in which technology ever more intimately mediates and defines what it means to be human?  Klocek describes technology as "magic will"; i.e., as an artificial substitute for our will. Human striving is jeopardized when the will is implicated in technology: "I push a button and it happens!"  Our growing need for speed and convenience bears deleteriously on our capacity to ask more than a simplified minimum of ourselves and others.  We are urged to ask what kind of attention we want from the world around us, or owe to it in return?  How are we to thrive as human beings and create cultural advancement in an increasingly 'wired' world?  What are the implications of this magical will, and how are we to delegate digital technologies in our lives? 

Klocek reminds us that social problems can only be resolved by the heart, by the heart-forces of imagination.  These we train in Anthroposophical practices such as meditation and eurythmy.  Such practices cultivate a deep and abiding enthusiasm for the sprit , required, above all, to awaken and assimilate the social will.  Only by training our imagination, can we foster social and cultural renewal; can we transcend the "clever manipulations of innovation", and thereby infuse technology with the freedom Klocek attributes to the "I Being".

To train one's heart requires developing a capacity for ambiguity; for not having an answer.  Klocek envisions a future of increasing ambiguity wherein this tolerance for unknowing will be required of us for extended periods of time.  It is the foundation of imaginative cognition, and of the higher truths imbedded in paradox.  Whereas "lesser truths" yield answers and opinions, "higher truths" yield cosmic wisdom.  We learn to think "without thoughts"; to create "living imaginations of the soul", allowing them to awaken in others.  

Indeed, "if one wonders enough", Klocek assures us, "the world becomes wonderful".  The objects around us -  including our myriad digital devices - are filled with social goodness and service.