Mirrored from the original at:
http://www.sustainable.buz.org/feasta_pages/korten_lecture.html.
Presented by The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability.
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Civilizing Society
by David C. Korten
The FEASTA annual lecture.
Dublin, Ireland - July 4, 2000
A new paper by David Korten based on this lecture
is now available at DKcivilizing.html
It is a substantial privilege to present the annual FEASTA lecture
and to be part of your effort here in Ireland to challenge the
destructive forces of corporate globalization and global
capitalism. And I want to thank my good friend and colleague
Richard Douthwaite from whose work I have learned so much for his
role in arranging this presentation. Since you have already had
lectures from Herman Daly, Richard Douthwaite, and Vandana Shiva,
you are already fully familiar with the limits of corporate
globalization and the ideology of economic growth. So I'm going to
concentrate on sharing some of my most current thinking on
understanding the deeper roots of our crisis and the nature of the
global citizen movement that is emerging to counter the
destructive forces of global capitalism.
The citizen protests in Seattle the end of last year brought the
World Trade Organization meeting to a stand still and focused
world attention on an increasingly visible tension between two
extraordinarily powerful social forces.
One is the force of corporate globalization driven by a once
seemingly invincible alliance between the world's largest
mega-corporations and most powerful governments. In the eyes of
its proponents the integration of national economies into a
seamless global economy is spurring economic growth through the
expansion of trade to bring material prosperity to all the world,
spread democracy, and create the financial resources and new
technologies needed to protect the global environment. But most of
all it is making many of these proponents very rich and powerful,
which may have something to do with their enthusiasm.
The second force is the global democracy movement being advanced
by a planetary citizen alliance known as global civil society.
Before Seattle '99 this force found expression in the national
democracy movements that played a critical role in the breakup of
the Soviet empire and the fall of apartheid in South Africa -- and
in other great progressive social movements of our time, such as
the civil rights, environmental, peace, and women's movements.
The corporate force is centrally planned by a well-organized and
well-funded corporate elite and PR rhetoric not withstanding, the
driving motive is a competitive drive for profits. The citizen
force depends largely on voluntary energy, is self-organizing, and
is grounded in a deep value commitment to democracy, community,
equity, and the web of planetary life. Although it has no
identifiable organizational or institutional form, it is taking on
a striking sense of coherence and acquiring the power to at least
make the corporate elites very nervous. Its impetus comes from the
awakening of millions of people of every nationality, race, and
religious affiliation to the contradictions of corporate
globalization, which contrary to its claims is enriching the few
at the expense of the many, replacing democracy with an elitist
and authoritarian corporate rule, destroying the environment, and
eroding the relationships of trust and caring that are the
essential foundation of a civilized society -- all in the mindless
pursuit of money to further enrich those who already have more
money than they could possibly use.
Let's look more closely at the story of the Seattle WTO protests
that the corporate media pretty much missed. My home is on
Bainbridge Island, a 35 minute ferry ride from Seattle, so Seattle
is rather like my home town. The media portrayed the demonstrators
as anti-trade. In fact the issue that brought 70,000 people from
all around the world to Seattle's streets was democracy. They were
protesting corporate rule -- of which the WTO is a powerful
symbol. The violent response of the police with plastic bullets,
tear gas, and pepper spray dramatically confirmed the
demonstrator's worst fears about the state of democracy in America
and the openness of the WTO process to citizen input.
The Seattle protests also signaled a historic shift in progressive
politics in America from the politics of identity and special
interests to a politics of the whole. It gave expression to a
grand convergence of social movements that is giving birth to the
global democracy movement. Union workers, environmentalists,
members of the faith community, feminists, gays, human rights and
peace activists and many others acknowledged the reality that
either we work together to build true democracy and create a world
that works for every person, for every living being, or we will
have a world that works for no one.
The churches mobilized around the call of Jubilee 2000 -- debt
forgiveness for low income countries -- giving expression to a
growing awareness among people of faith that the call for economic
and social justice is a foundation of Christian teaching. Labor
unions reached out in solidarity with all the world's workers in a
call to guarantee basic rights and living wages for all working
people everywhere in a realization that in a global economy unless
all workers have rights and living wages, none will have them.
Environmentalists and union leaders joined in common alliance out
of a realization that there will be no jobs without a healthy
environment. And that without secure jobs and labor rights the
environment will be destroyed in the struggle for survival.
Then there were the real heroes of Seattle, the youth who put
their bodies on the line in the face of brutal police violence to
bring the WTO meeting to a stand still. Tired of being manipulated
and lied to by a system that is stealing their future, they spent
months training one another in the principles and methods of
nonviolent direct action, preparing themselves for a highly
decentralized consensus based mode of organizing that modeled the
radically democratic societies they intend to build. They proved
that radical democracy can be highly effective, even under violent
assault by the brutal forces of a police state.
Similar demonstrations against corporate globalization of
comparable or even larger scale have become common place around
the world, with notable examples in Geneva, the U.K. France,
Brazil, India, Thailand, and many others. We are witness to the
emergence of an epic struggle between corporate globalization and
popular democracy. Though it most certainly involves issues of
class, it is more than a class struggle. It is a struggle between
humanity and its institutions -- between life and money -- between
two cultural belief systems that stand in stark and irreconcilable
conflict.
Catholic theologian Thomas Berry traces the underlying problem to
the false premises of an obsolete scientific story that has
diminished our image of ourselves and deprived our lives of
meaning. He makes the case that our survival as a species may
depend as much as anything on discovering a new story that gives
us a reason to live -- a story that helps us ask one of the most
basic of questions: why? It is the story of a living cosmos and
the human search for our place of service to life's epic journey.
The easiest way to demonstrate the significance of Berry's insight
is to recite to you a version of the new story grounded in
discoveries from the cutting edge of contemporary science that
places our current dilemma in its larger context.
This story begins a very, very long time ago -- perhaps as much as
15 billion years ago -- when a new universe flared into being with
a great flash -- dispersing tiny energy particles, the stuff of
creation, across the vastness of space. With the passing of time
these particles self-organized into atoms, which swirled into
great clouds that coalesced into galaxies of countless stars that
grew, died, and were reborn as new stars, star systems, and
planets. The cataclysmic energies unleashed by the births and
deaths of billions of suns converted simple atoms into more
complex atoms and melded atoms into even more complex molecules --
each step opening new possibilities for the growth and evolution
of the whole.
Each stage transcended the stage before in order, definition, and
capacity as the drama of creation unfolded. It seemed that a great
intelligence had embarked on a grand quest to know itself through
the discovery and realization of the possibilities of its being.
More than eleven billion years after the quest began there was an
extraordinary breakthrough on a planet latter to be known as
Earth. Here the cosmos gave birth to the first living beings --
microscopic in size, they were the simplest of single-celled
bacteria. Inconsequential though they seemed, they embodied an
enormous creative potential and with time created the building
blocks of living knowledge that made possible the incredible
accomplishments to follow. They discovered in turn the arts of
fermentation, photosynthesis, and respiration fundamental to all
life. They learned to exchange genetic material through their cell
walls to share their discoveries with one another in a grand
cooperative enterprise that created the planet's first global
communication system -- billions of years before the Internet. And
they transformed and stabilized the chemical composition of the
entire planet's atmosphere. As the fruits of life's learning
multiplied, individual cells evolved to become more complex and
diverse.
In due course individual cells discovered the advantages of
joining with one another in clusters to create complex
multi-celled organisms -- converting the matter of the planet into
the splendid web of living plants and animal with capacities far
beyond those of any individual cell. Those among the new creatures
that found a niche in which they could at once sustain themselves
and contribute to the life of the whole survived. Those that
proved unable to find or create their niche of service expired.
Continuously experimenting, interrelating, creating, building, the
evolving web of life unfolded into a living tapestry of
astonishing variety, beauty, awareness, and capacity for
intelligent choice.
Then, a mere 2.6 million years ago, quite near the end of our 15
billion year story, there came the most extraordinary achievement
of all, the creation of a being with a capacity far beyond that of
any creature that had come before to reflect on its own
consciousness, to experience with awe the beauty and mystery of
creation, to articulate, communicate and share learning, to
reshape the material world to its own ends, and to anticipate and
intentionally chose its own future. It was the living spirit's
most daring experiment and a stunning cooperative achievement.
Each of these creatures, humans they were called, was comprised of
from 30 to 70 trillion individual living, self-regulating,
self-reproducing cells. More than half the dry weight of each
human consisted of the individual micro-organisms required to
metabolize its food and create the vitamins essential to its
survival. All together it took more than a 100 trillion individual
living entities joined in an exquisitely balanced cooperative
union to create each of these extraordinary creatures.
These new beings -- these humans -- had such potential to
contribute to the journey of the whole. Yet their freedom to chose
their own destiny carried a risk. Failing to recognize and embrace
their responsibility to the whole they turned their extraordinary
abilities to ends ultimately destructive of the whole of life,
destroying in a mere 100 years much of the living natural capital
it had taken billions of years of evolution to create.
Some attribute this tragedy to a genetic flaw that doomed humans
to the blind pursuit of greed and violence. Yet the vast majority
of humans were generous and caring. More compelling is the
argument that the ideology of what humans called their Scientific
Revolution stripped humans of their sense of meaning, called forth
their greed and violence, and made generosity and caring seem
somehow naive. This ideology taught that matter is the only
reality and that the universe is best thought of as a giant
clockwork set in motion at the beginning of creation and left to
run down as the tension in its spring expires. It further taught
that life is only an accidental outcome of material complexity,
consciousness an illusion. Though such beliefs defied logic,
denied the human experience, stripped life of meaning, and were
contrary to reality they became a foundation of the dominant
Western culture.
Thomas Hobbes, a noted philosopher of the Scientific Revolution,
elaborated on these flawed beliefs to articulate a theory of human
behavior and a moral philosophy that ultimately became the
theoretical and philosophical foundation of humanity's dominant
economic system. He argued that since life has no meaning and
human behavior is determined solely by appetites and aversions,
good is merely that which gives oneself pleasure; evil that which
brings pain. The rational person seeks a life of material
indulgence unburdened by concern for others. These beliefs became
the foundation of a cultural system known as modernism and an
economic system known as capitalism.
Though there was much ado about a conflict between scientists and
theologians, they actually arrived at a mutual accommodation in
many of their core views. In an act revealing of human hubris,
Western theologians had long before created their God in their own
image, an elder male with a white beard who ruled a kingdom called
heaven. This God was so powerful that by the estimate of the
Western religions, he created the cosmos, the earth and all its
living beings in a mere six days -- presumably for the sole
benefit of the humans he created on the sixth day. On the seventh
day, his work thus done, he took a rest.
The main issue on which scientists and theologians were inclined
to consequential differences centered on whether or not God
returned after his vacation to tend to the needs of those humans
he chose to favor. The theologians generally believed that he
returned to keep a book on who by his rules was naughty or nice,
reward the worthy with material abundance, and punish the unworthy
with sickness and poverty. Some noted that by this
characterization God bore a striking resemblance to a mythical
figure human's called Santa Claus.
Those with wealth and power were by definition worthy in God's
eyes and the poor and powerless were unworthy. Thus it was that
Western theology affirmed the righteousness of both materialism
and political oppression and absolved humans of responsibility
either for one another or for the earth. Furthermore, since humans
were the end product of creation, not an instrument of its
continued unfolding it followed that what ever the deficiencies of
the world as any individual might find it, it was to be accepted
as God's will.
Some believed that God would return, in his own good time, to
establish peace and justice for all. Others looked to the
afterlife for perfection and considered their time on Earth as
something akin to a short layover in a cheap hotel on their way to
paradise. Either way it was in the hands of a God who resided
apart in a far place.
No where was the rejection of human responsibility for the lot of
society greater than in the economic system human's called
capitalism. One of capitalism's defining features was a consumer
culture cultivated by saturating the media with an endlessly
repeated message that consumption of whatever product was
advertised would bring meaning and love to the empty and lonely
lives of the otherwise unworthy. When consumption inevitably
failed to substitute for meaning, more consumption was prescribed
as the solution.
Increasingly the creative energies of the species turned to
building institutions dedicated to endlessly increasing
consumption through a process called economic growth. Growth
became such an obsession that no one seemed to care what was
consumed. Nor did they seem to notice that the basic livelihood
needs of the many went unmet while a fortunate few gorged
themselves on luxuries. Indeed, a privileged minority became so
obsessed with the futile attempt to fill their empty lives with
stuff they failed to notice that the growth they so prized was
destroying the life support system of the planet and the social
fabric of the society, and the lives of billions of people.
Even more perverse was the role of what humans called money -- a
mysterious kind of sacred number that was created out of nothing
by banks by loaning it into existence. Though most humans had
little idea were money came from, they were socially conditioned
to accept it in exchange for things of real value like their
labor, food, land, and shelter. Since money was the ticket that
allowed people to accumulate stuff, those who already had so much
stuff they didn't know what to do with it, turned their attention
to accumulating sacred numbers called money that banks happily
stored for them in computers. As this accumulation served no
evident purpose, its practitioners turned it into a competitive
game in which the winner was the one with the most financial
assets. The top players were called billionaires. A well-known
magazine called Forbes regularly published their current scores
and rankings.
This game became life's purpose for those few who had the means to
play. The most dedicated redesigned human institutions to allow
them to achieve ever more inflated scores. Any human with extra
cash was encouraged to join in by placing it in the hands of
professional gamblers called money managers who traded currencies,
bonds, and corporate shares in a great cyberspace casino called a
financial market. In the course of their play, the money managers
moved trillions of dollars around the world at the speed of light,
trashing the currencies and economies of hapless countries whose
policies displeased them and the share prices of corporations that
produced less than the profits they expected. In the wake of their
moves whole governments fell and hundreds of thousands lost their
jobs.
These corporations were a frightfully perverse sort of legal
entity designed to allow the accumulation of massive financial
power with little or no accountability for the consequences of its
use. Some corporations were served by the labor of hundreds of
thousands of people and received millions of dollars in subsidies
from government. Yet the law stipulated that only shareholders
were entitled to share in its profits. Employees were expected to
leave their personal values at the door when they reported for
work. Workers could be fired without notice or recourse. Whole
communities were abandoned when a corporation found it more
profitable to move its factories elsewhere.
To satisfy the money managers, corporations gave politicians huge
sums of money in return for which the politicians voted
corporations subsidies and special privileges. Tiring of the
inconvenience involved in doing deals with politicians one country
at a time the major players created something called the World
Trade Organization -- or WTO. Here unelected trade representatives
loyal to the corporate interest established international rules
that obliged all countries to extend special rights and privileges
to global corporations. Incredibly, the WTO could require any
country to change its laws to conform to WTO rules, even though
such action might be contrary to the interests and preferences of
its own citizens. Invariably the rules of the WTO gave
corporations ever-greater freedom to roam the world converting the
living wealth of society and planet into money.
They turned the natural living capital of the earth into money by
strip-mining forests, fisheries and mineral deposits, producing
toxic chemicals and dumping hazardous wastes. But it isn't just
natural capital they placed at risk. They also turned human
capital into money by employing workers under substandard working
conditions that left them physically handicapped. They turned the
social capital of society into money when they paid substandard
wages that destroyed workers emotionally, leading to family and
community breakdown and violence. They turned the living trust of
public institutions into money by bribing politicians with
campaign contributions to convert the taxes of working people into
inflated corporate profits through public subsidies, bailouts and
tax exemptions.
Then, as the year 2000 dawned, a remarkable thing happened.
Millions of humans started waking up, as if from a deep trance, to
the beauty, joy, and meaning of life. They began to reject
consumerism and took to the streets by the hundreds of thousands
demanding a restoration of democracy, an end to corporate rule,
and respect for the needs of all people and other living things.
The process of building a new politics and a new consciousness was
set in motion. It was, however, yet a tiny spark of hope in
comparison to the forces of corporate capitalism that were
consuming the Earth.
There are indications that humans may be on the threshold of a new
intellectual and social maturity as new scientific findings
continue to demonstrate the fallacies of the old story and its
underlying belief systems. Yet so far they still resist coming to
terms with the social implications of their scientific
understanding that matter exists only as a continuing dance of
flowing energies, that creation is an ongoing self-organizing
process, that life is fundamentally a cooperative process, and
that earth's successful species are those that learn to meet their
own needs in ways that serve the larger web of life.
Perhaps with time they will come to grasp the deeper philosophical
implications of these findings. For example that the material
world is largely illusion, conscious intelligence is the ground
from which all else is manifest, and humans are an instrument of
creation's continued unfolding -- not its end accomplishment.
Though embodied in ancient human wisdom, human's largely dismiss
these and other truths as superstition. Perhaps their rediscovery
will bring them a renewed sense of life's profound meaning,
inspire a search for their own place in service to life's
incredible journey, and lead them to transform their values and
institutions in ways that unleash potentials within their being
beyond their current imagining.
This story, of course, is our story, the choices are our choices.
The challenge before us is to transform a global society dedicated
to the love of money into a global society dedicated to the love
of life and the continuing exploration of its possibilities.
To help us better understand the nature of this challenge, I want
to establish a framework that may help us understand the ideal of
a civil society and the larger possibilities of the global
democracy movement. This framework divides society into three
primary spheres of collective life: polity, economy, and culture.
* Polity is the sphere in which rules are formalized
and enforced regarding the rights and obligations
that govern relationships among members of the
society. It holds the threat power inherent in its
monopoly over police and military power.
* Economy is the sphere that organizes the production
and exchange of valued goods and services. It holds
the exclusionary power inherent in the ability to
control access to the means of living, as well as
to material luxuries.
* Culture is the sphere in which the society defines
the values, symbols, and beliefs that are its
sources of meaning and identity. It holds the
normative power to determine what is valued and to
legitimate institutions and the uses of the power
resources of polity and economy. Though cultural
power may seem weak compared to the powers of
coercion and exclusion, it is ultimately the
decisive power in any society, as it is the
foundation on which all else rests, including the
powers vested in the formal institutions of the
polity and the economy.
To complete our framework setting, let's turn to the question:
What is the meaning of the term "civil society"? Is it simply
another term for the institutions of the nongovernmental,
nonprofit sector as implied by its customary use? Or is it
something more? Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato, in their classic
study of Civil Society and Political Theory trace the idea of a
civil society back to ancient Greece and Aristotle's concept of a
politike koinonia or political community, later translated into
Latin as Societas civilis, or a civil society. For Aristotle the
civil society is an ethical-political community of free and equal
citizens who by mutual consent agree to live under a system of law
that expresses the norms and values they share. The law thus
becomes a codification of the values and practices of the shared
culture and is largely self-enforcing. The requirement for
coercive intervention by the state to maintain order is minimized
because the necessary coherence of society is achieved primarily
through self-organizing processes that maximize the freedom of the
individual in return for voluntary self-restraint that flows from
a sense of shared values and civic responsibility.
The common contemporary practice of treating civil society as
synonymous with all the varied organizations that are both
nongovernmental and nonprofit -- essentially the residual
institutional space not occupied by the institutions of government
and business -- captures nothing of the more profound idealism
embodied in the classical Aristotelian concept of a civil society.
I think it also significant that our use of the term civil society
is most often evoked by groups and individuals engaged in a
struggle to reclaim social spaces for democratic engagement by
free and equal citizens.
This suggests we might properly use the term civil society in two
ways. The first is to refer to a society that has achieved the
ideal of democratic civility. The second, is to refer to those
elements of a society that are actively engaged in expanding the
social spaces in which the practice of democratic civility is both
practiced and valued as a step toward the creation of a civil
society in the larger sense.
Now let's put the pieces of this puzzle together to see more
clearly how the ideal of a civil society contrasts with the
existing global capitalist economy. This schematic representation
of a civil society, which is adapted from a book on Shaping
Globalization by my Philippine colleague Nicanor Perlas,
incorporates the underlying premise of the cosmic story I shared
with you earlier that all being is a manifestation of a spiritual
energy or intelligence. I realize that there will surely be some
among you who find this premise in conflict with your own belief
system. I honor that and ask only that you consider with me the
ways in which our views of society and human possibilities may
ultimately depend on our spiritual beliefs. One of the tragedies
of our time is that we rarely discuss such issues with one
another, even in private, and thus rarely subject our deepest
beliefs to critical examination.
As a Hobbesian denial of the existence of spirit leads logically
to a rejection of individual responsibility for anything other
than one's personal material gratification, a recognition of the
spiritual foundation of all existence leads naturally to a
profound and freely embraced sense of responsibility for the whole
and the mindful personal engagement individual in community,
political, and economic life that is the necessary foundation of a
truly civil society.
An authentic culture is the product of the active community life
of individuals who are in contact with the spiritual energy that
expresses itself through them. The shared values, symbols, and
beliefs of an authentic culture are in turn the foundation on
which the civil society's more formalized institutions of polity
and economy are built. The life affirming values of an authentic
culture lead naturally to the creation of an authentically
democratic polity based on a deep commitment to openness, active
participation in political discourse, and to one person, one
voice, one vote equality and the kind of consensus based decision
making that our youth were practicing in the streets of Seattle
and in other equally sophisticated protest actions around the
world. They also lead naturally to the creation of an authentic
market economy comprised of local enterprises that provide
productive and satisfying livelihoods for all, and vest in each
individual a share in the ownership of the productive assets on
which their livelihood depends. Such a society would be radically
self-organizing and predominantly cooperative in the manner of all
healthy living systems, and would maximize the opportunity for
each individual to develop and express their full creative
potential in service to the life of the whole.
The contrast between a civil society so defined and our
contemporary capitalist society is stark indeed. In the capitalist
society denial of the spirit results in a self-aggrandizing
materialism that looks to money as the defining value. Global
financial markets that value life only for its liquidation price
become the ruling institution. The control of productive resources
becomes consolidated in global mega-corporations answerable only
to the managers of huge investment funds who in turn are
answerable only for the financial returns produced on their
portfolios. The wages of working people are suppressed to increase
the returns to those who already command vast financial holdings.
Economic affairs are centrally planned by the heads of
corporations that command internal economies larger than those of
most states. Through ownership of mass media, influence over
school curricula, commercialization of the arts, and mass
advertising corporations dominate the processes of cultural
regeneration -- reinforcing the values of materialism and
consumerism that strengthen corporate legitimacy, lead us to
accept corporate logos as the sources of our identity and meaning,
and alienate us all from our sense of connection to both our inner
spirit and to the web of planetary and community life.
Similarly, the concentration of financial power in the corporate
ruled economy, combine with media control to allow corporate
dominate of the institutions of polity. The result is a one dollar
one vote democracy that concentrates control over the rule making
system in the hands of a wealthy elite and a persistent bias
toward the passage of laws that favor yet further concentration of
financial wealth at the expense of life. The excluded majority
become increasingly alienated from political participation -- lose
interest even in voting, and by default yield even more power to
big money.
As dependence on money for access to the necessities of life and
the sources of identity increases, individual attention comes to
center on making money at the expense of spiritual and community
life. Spiritually impoverished and dependent on corporations for
money and what it will buy, individuals face enormous pressure to
embrace the values of the corporate culture. Ideals of equity are
out the window and individual freedom becomes largely illusory as
the majority of people find themselves deeper in debt and giving
ever more of their life energies over to the imperatives of the
money machine. Those for whom the corporate system finds no use
are simply discarded like so much trash.
Because it is destructive of life and spirit, the capitalist
economy must be considered a social pathology. Even its apparent
capacity to create vast wealth is largely illusory, because though
it is producing ever more sophisticated gadgets and diversions, it
is destroying the life support systems of the planet and the
social fabric of society. It is therefore destroying our most
important wealth. Its institutions function as cancers that forget
they are part of a larger whole and seek their own unlimited
growth without regard to the consequences.
It is a powerful testimony to the reality and power of humanity's
spiritual nature that millions of people all around the world are
waking up from the cultural trance into which they have been
lulled by capitalism's relentless siren song of material
indulgence. Their resistence is not confined to street protests.
They are also engaged proactively in creating civil alternatives,
protecting nature, democratizing the polity, rebuilding local
market economies, and applying the values of civility in their own
organizations. The resulting enclaves of civility are both
expanding and melding. We call it globalizing civil society, but
we could as well call it the civilizing of global society. Either
way it is an extraordinary and increasingly powerful
self-organizing, bottom-up process of cultural and institutional
transformation only partially understood even by its leaders.
One key to understanding the nature and significance of what is
happening is to realize that though it has its political
dimension, what is becoming manifest is predominantly a cultural
movement that draws its increasingly powerful energy from a deep,
yet still largely unrecognized global-scale culture shift toward
the values of an authentic or integral culture. This values shift
is creating the cultural foundations of a truly civil society.
Paul Ray, a values researcher tracing cultural change in the
United States provides a compelling framework for documenting and
understanding this shift, which of course is happening not only in
the United States, but as well all around the world. Ray
identifies three major cultural groupings.
* The Modernists -- who are still the largest
cultural group in America -- actively prize
materialism and the drive to acquire money and
property. They tend to spend beyond their means,
take a cynical view of idealism and caring
relations, and value winners. Their numbers are
relatively stable.
* The Traditionals want to return to traditional ways
of life and traditional gender roles. They tend
toward religious conservatism and fundamentalism.
They also believe in helping others, volunteering,
creating and maintaining caring relationships, and
working to create a better society. Their numbers
are in rapid decline.
* The third group -- Ray calls them the Cultural
Creatives -- is a product of the reaction against
modernism's lack of authenticity. Its members are
distinguished by the embrace of the values of an
integral culture that honors life in all its
dimensions, both in their inner spiritual
experience and in their outward commitment to
family, community, the environment,
internationalism and feminism. They have a
well-developed social consciousness and are
generally optimistic about the possibilities of
humankind. They are interested in alternative
health-care practices, personal growth and
spiritual development, and they are careful,
thoughtful consumers. Most significant in terms of
our present discussion, as Ray documents in his
forthcoming book, The Cultural Creatives, most
Cultural Creatives are activists. The typical
Cultural Creative is likely to be involved in
several groups working for social change.
Furthermore, most social change initiatives in the
United States, including those involved in the
Seattle protests, are headed by Cultural Creatives.
Cultural Creatives are the vanguard of the global
democracy movement -- and their numbers are growing
fast. Now 50 million in number in America alone,
they are 26% of the adult American population. As
recently as the early 60s they were less than 5%.
Politically and socially active, the Cultural Creatives are
crafting a new ecological and spiritual world view, a new
literature of social concerns and a new problem agenda for
humanity. At the same time they are pioneering psychological
development techniques, restoring the centrality of spiritual
practice to daily living, and elevating the importance of the
feminine -- all building blocks of a civil society.
Yet Cultural Creatives remain invisible to the corporate media,
which is dominated by modernist values. And their values are
unrepresented by a political system that is still defined by the
struggles between moderns and traditionals. Unaware of their own
numbers and potential power, most Cultural Creatives feel
culturally isolated, out of step with the mainstream, and
politically disempowered. To actualize their true potential as a
force for change, they must first become visible to one another
and to the larger society. For this reason, perhaps the most
important consequence of the Seattle WTO protests was the message
it sent to Cultural Creatives everywhere in the world that they
are not alone in their discomfort with the cultural, economic and
political forces of modernism and corporate globalization and
their belief in the possibility of creating a better world for all
-- even in America, the world center of materialism and corporate
arrogance. Most cultural creatives I know found it to be a
powerfully energizing moment.
A variety of international surveys reveal that the patterns
identified in America by Ray are part of a generalized global
trend toward an embrace of the values of an authentic or integral
culture. The pattern includes a loss of confidence in hierarchical
institutions -- including those of government, business, and
religion -- and a growing trust in their inner sense of the
appropriate. Interest in economic gain is decreasing, while desire
for meaningful work and interest in discovering personal meaning
and purpose in life is increasing.
Beyond the struggle to resist the destruction being wrought by the
global corporate juggernaut, the civilizing citizen movements are
awakening to two critical priorities. One is to articulate and
demonstrate alternatives to corporate globalization in order to
counter the fatalistic modernist mantra that "There is no
alternative." The second is to recognize that the movement's
greatest strength is cultural power and to devote serious
attention to helping Cultural Creatives recognize that they are
part of a large and increasingly powerful cultural group, find one
another, and strengthen the alliances that are linking them into a
global mega-movement. The greater the visibility of this new
cultural formation the greater its power and the more rapidly
disaffected moderns and traditionals will be drawn to its ranks.
A great deal of my own energy is going into an organization called
The Positive Futures Network, publisher of YES! A Journal of
Positive Futures, which is working on both of these agendas by
telling the stories of those who are working for the deep changes
required to create a world that works for all and by providing
people with the information resources they need to connect with
one another and to link the movement's many elements. It just
happens that I've brought some sample copies of YES!, along with
subscription forms for those who are interested. Or check it out
on the web.
Overall, the goal of claiming the cultural mainstream may be more
nearly within the reach of the civil society movements than even
the most optimistic of us may imagine. Once this happens,
transformation of the institutions of polity and economy to
complete the civilizing of society will follow.
I believe we live at one of the most critical and exciting moments
in all of human history. The ability to chose is one of the
defining characteristics of life. As a species we find ourselves
confronted with a profound choice -- to take the step to a new
level of understanding and function in service to the whole of
life or to risk our own extinction. We face both the necessity and
the opportunity to reinvent human society. I find the creative
possibilities incredibly exciting. Though the optimistic thrust of
my comments may suggest I consider the outcome to be foreordained,
that is far from the actual case. I am in fact only presenting
what I consider to be possibilities to sharpen our understanding
of the options. The great struggle between humanity and its
institutions -- between a culture of life and a culture of money
-- is far from resolved. But let us hope that Aristotle's dream of
a truly civil society -- a dream shared by countless millions
throughout human history -- is an idea whose time has finally
come. It's in our hands.