The End Is Near

So where could contemporary zeitgeist and the Holy Spirit come ‘to play’ for example?
As a zeitgeist researcher, I am interested in society’s desires, in where we are heading next. Secularised individuals have issues as well. To be able to offer them something that is not connected to zeitgeist but has eternal value instead is a big opportunity. The statement “God loves you just like you are” has no competition. Especially in times of self-optimisation and hyper-individualisation.  It is important to preserve “that which exists in altitude”, as the Catholics say. And with that I mean the message itself.

But we are getting entirely different signals at the moment, are we not?
Today we are more convinced by the idea that the end is near. Believing that artificial intelligence is stealing all our jobs for example.

How? Is that a vision which sees AI as an opportunity?
At first, we understand this new development as an estrangement from us, but it could mean a renewed way of approaching ourselves on the long run.

And you can see signs of that already?
Yes, let us take a look at the current high-end developer in that area for example, they are not only thinking about efficiency enhancement anymore. They are really determined to create a copy of a human being. And if you want to create a copy of something you have to pay really close attention to the original. From a historical point of view, we have the chance to rethink being human right now, in the meaning of what is human and less, what human should be.

Has it been about an ideal until now?
Poets, thinkers, religion, political ideas, pedagogics, yes even ideas about love have all came up with possible ideals of being human in our culture and we more or less strive after those. Within attempts of creating a technological copy of us human beings the pure essence of our human thinking and being becomes the focus of research. That is a new chance for malleability. I do not want to diminish the danger and risks that come with the abuse of these possibilities, but that is not the focus of my thinking right now.

Kirstine Fratz discovered a fondness for thinking of things that no one else had thought of before, when she was just a teenager. As a zeitgeist researcher, cultural scientist and ethnologist, she decodes trends, desires and promises about happiness. She mainly concerns herself with the dynamic behind zeitgeist, the power it has about us, the question of why we are following it, what it promises us and what it does not. Her research focuses on how zeitgeist influences our thinking, acting and feelings, how it changes believes, which we considered to be stable, and how it pushes our complex world into yet another direction again and again.  She has spent more than ten years working in different disciplines and for different projects and companies. She advises luxurious beauty brands, teaches at schools, lectures to politicians, at the Austrian conference of bishops, to the Swiss Free Church, writes (‘Das Buch vom Zeitgeist. Und wie er uns vorantreibt’) and works in the human brand agency ‘Finally New Goals’ with players, coaches and decision makers in European professional football.