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Modern Consciousness (providing understanding)

 

During puberty, the young adolescent rebels against traditional rules in family and society that seem to constrict him like a corset. He fights for his first real independence and under no circumstances wants to fall back into the herd of the masses and the mainstream. In this process, the rapid development in his brain helps him to mature emotionally, build relationships and deal with stress, which, along with the desire to experiment and burgeoning sexuality, are prerequisites for later adult life. During this time, young people also begin to become aware of the view by others (outside view) and they start to feel their own imperfection and vulnerability, but also that of other people and the world: Weltschmerz (literally “world-pain”). However, against these new feelings, the adolescent also wants to be "sensible" and already "grown up" and appear "secure", which can manifest itself in precocious behaviour or youthful recklessness. Some adolescents want to be non-conformist, but there is hardly anything more conformist than the behaviour in adolescent peer groups and subcultures with the same outfit, music styles, language and social label. Those who no longer share the answers and explanations to life goals and contents of subcultural groups usually return to the mainstream. Young people find many solutions in our seemingly complex world in rational knowledge.

 

The goal of socialisation in all westernised cultures is the adoption of a modern, scientific-rational worldview. The understanding of the causal thinking of cause and effect defines what it means to be a "proper adult" who is rationally competent, mentally well-informed, linear as well as formal-operational and independent thinking in today's highly technological and digitally coded world, and at the same time a critical citizen. He considers the external reality of nature and society as something originally existent and separate from himself. One can analyse and investigate it, master and control it, and use and shape it to one's own advantage. The right scientific methods of investigation and procedures lead in the end to the discovery of how things really are, including human nature. Ultimately, the laws of the universe can be found out and proven. This view is based on maximum separation between subject and object, observer and object, thinker and thought. By analysing the parts, the whole can be discovered and known. The visible exists, everything else does not. Enlightenment, industrialisation and modernity created this new type of human being: the self-confident, inquiring and questioning citizen.

 

People in modern consciousness have the drive to achieve or improve something in this world, what they see as good for everyone and is called progress. By searching for the best solutions in science and technology, they intend to contribute to society. They have new ideas, prioritise, find more perfect processes and like to plan strategically and are willing to take risks and fail with trial and error. With their strong cognitive abilities, they can describe "their world", from economics and technology to social and philosophical treatises. With this sometimes brilliant and purely intellectual performance, it is also possible to study theology without ever having a felt, inner connection to a spiritual experience.

 

They love to be the driving force, innovators, initiators, experts and doers - often combined with a clear, pragmatic leadership style. Independent and responsible for their own decisions, progress- and future-oriented, motivated by an evaluation and reward system, progressive and optimistic, the question in the foreground is: What is the most efficient and effective strategy to solve this task? Rationale: time is money and money is THE means to achieve things: wealth, luxury and with it influence and prestige. The fact that saving time (as in Momo by Michael Ende) endangers the loss of the soul is not yet recognised. In the central act of comparison, the "best", "fastest" and "most influential" count. The visionary spirit says that every "problem" can be solved. Everything is feasible! – even cloning a sheep (Dolly) or clearing huge areas of primeval forest, i.e. the ethical "inner compass" is far from mature and often plays a subordinate role.

The belief in technical feasibility – up to hubris (overconfidence) – and the admiration of efficiency are sometimes almost frightening, e.g. when it comes to optimising not only processes and products, e.g. to develop a quantum computer, but to optimise oneself as a human being: Transhumanism and cyborg with body hacking are the keywords here.

 

Modern man is slowly opening up views about himself in the form of feedback and folk psychology. As an achiever, he tends to be self-critical or even over-critical. He is interested in power yoga and marketing psychology, all geared towards efficiency and profit: "How can I optimise everything, including myself? How can I use my knowledge of people and their idiosyncrasies to reach goals even faster, to make even more money?"

He appears very confident, resilient and stable, feels superior at times and will not let anyone tell him anything he does not already know or even understand better. Rational arguments and evidence alone count, data and statistics are the medium to convince others. Knowledge and information are only shared if they bring prestige and economic gain, be it to the organisation (university, company, etc.) or to one's own prestige. Otherwise, detachment and competition prevail. The driving forces are no longer feudal overseers or the threatening finger of God as in traditional consciousness, but competition, market share as well as profit. They create a few winners/successful and many defeated/losers.

 

In the westernised, secularised, areligious and growth-oriented society of performance and prosperity, the free market economy, which in its meaning is oriented towards freedom and unlimited growth as well as prosperity for all people, is omnipresent, i.e. all areas of life are connected to it and everything is subordinated to it. In it, all people strive hopefully for a "better life" in material prosperity.

The idea of growth is the goal of every entrepreneur and every company to establish itself and grow, making a lot of profit that can be reinvested. Ideally, responsible entrepreneurs and their employees can learn a lot and support society in the process. Freedom, as with pubescents, is not infrequently confused with a licence to justify irresponsible behaviour towards people and the environment. Black sheep without a moral "inner compass" exploit legal systems without restraint, unscrupulously exploit nature and people and are intent on their own advantage. They regard speculation (including food) as a game to win (casino capitalism) and rejoice in competition. This ruthless and antisocial behaviour is supported by the "free market economy" and tolerated by the majority of the Western affluent and discarding society.

 

"Those who do not make an effort are worth nothing!" Following this motto, all so-called "economically unproductive" and "the lazy" are rejected or ignored. This means, for example, artists, the disabled, the sick, war-traumatised soldiers, who due to structural violence (aspects of discrimination, poverty, unemployment) easily fall through the cracks of rudimentary or missing social networks.

 

In our Informend, modern and secular society, everything that is somehow invisible, non-physical, metaphysical, supernatural or spiritually-religious, i.e. that cannot (yet) be "explained", is rejected or considered backward and purely a private matter. Yet dealing with the supernatural, be it of a religious or spiritual nature, was present in all cultures (in magical consciousness) and is still present today in indigenous cultures that are close to nature.

In traditional consciousness the world was interpreted by religion, in modern consciousness it is science. The belief in the white-haired "god in heaven" is being replaced by the scientific "gods in white" in their white coats.

 

+   Beneficial are: to do all things responsibly, conscientiously and expediently —o— serious convictions, seriousness, idealism —o  showing different possibilities o— freedom and democracy —o— high valueis placed on life, so that life must be preserved under all circumstances (intensive care medicine)

-    Hindering are: ——o— science per se separates through analysis —o— danger of isolation: time alone in front of the TV —o— deniying all earlier and later realms of consciousness ——o— Intuition is not yet an issue, only the head counts, hence as a defensive reaction: intellectualisation, rationalisation, repression and ignoring the dark sides (for example, unresolved storage of radioactive waste, etc.).

 

Transition Orange à Green (temporally until the 68s)

Slowly but gradually, a first opening and orientation inwards begins. This can be triggered by personal crises at work and/or in private life, for example when a career stalls or parents are overwhelmed with their children. When existential questions are no longer pushed away or covered up with addictions, but are admitted, this can mark the beginning of a serious introspection: "Am I living what I believe in?" – "Is there more than material things in my life?" – "Could less be more after all?"

The painful path begins to question one's own values and to get off the hamster wheel. This means leaving familiar, cherished conventions, saying goodbye to the significant, incessant busy-ness and the countless projects, and step by step coming to rest – in the presence of a moment – from "human doing" to real "human being".

 

In this manner, self-confident people begin to take care of their self-knowledge and work on expanding it through incipient self-reflection. They sense that they are permanently growing in all 5 core capacities: mentally, physically and creatively, but also emotionally and possibly already to some extent spiritually.

After the previous separation of body and mind, a new sense for the connection of both is growing. An essential change is taking place from a predominantly intellectual consciousness to a more organic or embodied consciousness, which already allows rudimentary approaches of psychology as well as systemic thinking with swarm intelligence (integral consciousness).

 

Urban