Almost every day you can hear that there is a lack of education everywhere today. Children who can no longer read properly, young people who cannot find an apprenticeship due to lack of skills, or adults whose only purpose in life is to zap through 100 channels night after night.

It almost seems as if the things that are at the core of our society and Culture (especially the medium of books and the ability to read meaningfully) are disappearing more and more from our lives and at the same time being replaced by trivialities.

Tragically, this also means that Knowledge of our past is dwindling, knowledge of all the works of art, thoughts and achievements which are the essence of several centuries of our history and which basically make us the people we are today.

This is a strange development, because today we would have more opportunities than ever before to change this. On the one hand, we have more free time and leisure than any generation before us, and on the other hand, with the Internet we have a wonderful tool to find all the works from our history, to deal with them and make them a part of our lives.

But unfortunately we spend most of our time with pointless videos and meaningless chats.

It seems to me that there are two main reasons for this.

On the one hand, there are hardly any places on the net where you can concentrate on the works of our culture in peace and without the usual distractions.

And on the other hand, today there is usually a lack of basic knowledge. A knowledge of our history, of the great figures and their work, and of the thought constructs behind them.

And that’s why almost every preoccupation with these themes will ultimately remain unsatisfactory.

I want to do something about it now. I want to create a place where, independently of the rest of the network, you can grow on the works of our culture.

No new Wikipedia, no online library or video archive, where you end up alone again, overwhelmed by the amount of things there are to know.

But a place where you are taken by the hand to get to know this world.

The project is now fully planned and will consist of three parts in its first version.

On a blog, authors from various fields (historians, musicians, Germanists, …) will publish articles, both general articles (such as the history of the revolutions, the Viennese Classicism or Impressionism) and articles that go into more detail.

The aim is that interested people can inform themselves comprehensively and then (with the help of some authors) acquire a kind of basic cultural education.

The second part of the project consists of a platform. This means that lecturers from various fields will offer online courses or podcasts on their special fields.

The first courses are already being planned. For example, a pianist will deal with Mozart’s works directly at the piano, play individual parts of them, explain them and talk about their role in the overall work, as well as about the background of the composition or its intellectual history. In the end, this will help you to understand the piece in its entirety, even without previous musical knowledge.

As a third part of the platform there will be a social network, a place where teachers, musicians, writers, historians etc. can network directly with visitors and interested people, in an independent place where it is all about education and culture.

It is very important to me personally to get young people and children excited about our culture again.
Therefore, there will also be a separate section on the platform (with separate articles and videos), which is tailored to children and young people.

The project has been planned in the meantime, I have already negotiated with programmers and web designers and we could basically start immediately. What is still missing now is just the financing.

That’s where you come in: If you like the project, if you think it makes sense and you want to be a part of it, then support me with a donation:

Der Beitrag The online platform erschien zuerst auf Der Leiermann.