Cultura, natureza, antropoceno e parsifal

Abstract

The relationships between culture and nature are both complicated andlong discussed in the Western thought tradition. They can be and have beentreated in terms of dialectics, but they find new specificities and greate mergence in the contemporary concept of Anthropocene. This textasks if it is possible to find symbols forthe culture-nature dialectics in Parsifal’s myth, aiming to invite the Waldorf movement to think about a transforming environmental education suitable to its own context. Thus the concepts of culture, nature and Anthropocene are presented and discussed. From Parsifal the images of castle and forest are selected as an answer to his presented problem:c astle is a symbol of culture, forest of nature; and Munsalvaeche Castle is identified as a balance between culture and nature, highlighting the human being centrality in this relationship. Finally, a critique of modern Western culture is presented, focusing on the accumulation of surplus production and highlighting its disastrous socio-environmental consequences. The key to the necessary cultural change is identifiedin education: “what happens inside the school is reflected in the external culture” states Steiner in GA311. Thereby each school is inserted in the culture of overproduction and accumulation, but it is a space for its sublation and metamorphosis.