Building on our series of salons on responses to uncertainty, Russell Berman (Stanford University/Hoover Institution) described how the Bildungsbürgertum, the carriers of culture in 19th century Germany, can inform our response to the uncertainty laden within Silicon Valley’s rising intellectual class.
Berman discussed the trends behind the declining cultural authority of universities, the character that animated German Romanticism, and how that character illumines the tradeoffs between self transformation and world transformation.
We further explored in our discussion the dreams that animate Silicon Valley’s intellectual culture, its relationship with stagnation, and the dangers that come with an increasing concentration of political power among the tech elite. This salon brought together multiple big players in Silicon Valley’s burgeoning intellectual scene and helped the attendees consider the state of Silicon Valley’s intellectual culture while exercising it at the same time.
