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http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10486
This excerpt is from the first chapter of Paul Ray and Sherry
Anderson's book, "The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People
Are Changing the World."
Imagine a country the size of France suddenly sprouting in the
middle of the United States. It is immensely rich in culture, with
new ways of life, values and worldviews. It has its own heroes and
its own vision for the future. Think how curious we all would be,
how interested to discover who these people are and where they
have come from.....
This new country and its people are the subject of this book. We
report thirteen years of survey research on more than 100,000
Americans, hundreds of focus groups and about sixty in-depth
interviews ....
Since the 1960s, 26 percent of the adults in the U.S. – 50 million
people – have made a comprehensive shift in their worldview,
values, and way of life – their culture, in short. These creative,
optimistic millions are at the leading edge of several kinds of
cultural change, deeply affecting not only their own lives but our
larger society as well. We call them the Cultural Creatives because,
innovation by innovation, they are shaping a new kind of
American culture for the 21st century.
http://www.ross-jackson.com/copy_of_books/the2.htm
The active supporters of local community values, who are not
yet a single movement, have
a much less
confrontational strategy than the early environmental NGOs like
Greenpeace
and Earth First! For example, groups
like the Global Ecovillage Network, Global Action
Plan, the Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka, and the Voluntary
Simplicity movement in
the United States, whose
members are quietly building an alternative culture through
personal action rather than protest. Apparently they have a
surprising number of "closet"
supporters on the
sidelines, as an interesting study by American sociologist Paul H. Ray
suggests.
Ray’s study, carried out in the United States in 1996,
indicates that something very
significant is
underway below the radar screens of the media. His method was to measure
changes in social values and how they change over time.
He identifies three major groups,
which he calls
"Heartlanders" (29%), "Moderns" (47%) and "Cultural Creatives" (24%). He
describes them roughly as follows.
The Heartlanders are conservative, the religious right,
provincial, characterized by rather
rigid,
dogmatic belief systems. They tend to reflect traditional small town values and
attend
the local church, and prefer TV to
reading.
The Moderns are the dominant group - materialistic,
egoistic, orientated towards
consumption and
success and the newest technologies. Their world view is rational
"Newtonian".
The Cultural Creatives tend to value community, the
environment, human values, are
global in outlook,
read extensively, watch less TV, are anti-authoritarian and reflect a
"new consciousness" that is evolving. Sixty percent are
women.
The most interesting aspect of Ray’s study is that the
latter group, which represents to a
great degree
what I have called "local community values", is the fastest growing group.
It
was hardly measurable in the mid 1970’s, when
it was less than 4%. Ray points out that
we are
observing here an almost explosive shift compared to known historical value
shifts,
which tend to happen rather slowly. The
process to date, says Ray, has been unconscious,
and may well accelerate when it becomes conscious.
A second interesting aspect of the phenomenon is that the
Cultural Creatives have not yet
found each other.
The tend to feel isolated, and as yet have no common periodical,
political
representation, or common identity.
This is due mostly to the fact that the media and the
political process is controlled and dominated by the Moderns.
However, that is now
beginning to change with the
Internet, where the Cultural Creatives are finding one
another. I strongly suspect that the phenomenon Ray has observed
is also present in
Europe and elsewhere. I would
guess that the percentage of Cultural Creatives in
Denmark is even higher than in the USA.
In relation to Ray’s terminology, it is clear that
ecovillagers are part of the Cultural
Creatives,
comprising one of the front lines on this historical shift in values which is
still in
its early days. A confrontation with the
Moderns, who are clearly supportive of commercial
globalization, is inevitable sooner or later, in what may well be
the major political conflict
of the early 21st
century — a conflict of value systems as the consequences of
globalization
become clearer.
http://www.lightparty.com/Spirituality/Culture.html
VALUES OF THE CULTURAL CREATIVES The distinctive values,
commitments, and beliefs of the Cultural
Creatives -
the most conspicuous representatives of the emerging Integral Culture - may be
summarized as follows:
ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY, BEYOND ENVIRONMENTALISM: Any aspect
of ecology and sustainability you
can name, Cultural
Creatives are emphatically for it - and we are leading the way. They demonstrate
awareness of a
large range of issues, and their values
include wanting to rebuild neighborhoods and communities, achieving
ecological sustainability, supporting limits to growth, seeing
nature as sacred, wanting voluntary simplicity, and
being willing to pay for cleaning up the environment and stopping global
warming.
GLOBALISM: Among the top values of Cultural Creatives are
xenophilism (love of foreigners, the exotic, and travel
to foreign places), and ecological sustainability, which includes
concern for planetary stewardship and global ecology,
and concern for population problems.
FEMINISM, WOMEN'S ISSUES, RELATIONSHIPS, FAMILY: The fact that
women make up 60 percent of the
Cultural Creatives is a
key to understanding this subculture. Much of the focus on women's issues in
politics comes
from them, including concerns about
violence and abuse of women and children, the desire to rebuild
neighborhoods
and communities, the desire to create
caring relationships, and concerns about family.
ALTRUISM, SELF-ACTUALIZATION, ALTERNATIVE HEALTH CARE,
SPIRITUALITY, AND SPIRITUAL
PSYCHOLOGY: Cultural
Creatives hold a complex of highly correlated beliefs and values centered on the
inner life.
This represents a new sense of the sacred
that sees a unity between personal growth psychology, the spiritual, and
service to others. It also includes a stronger trend toward
holistic health and alternative health care.
WELL-DEVELOPED SOCIAL CONSCIENCE AND SOCIAL OPTIMISM: Contrary
to what some social critics have
argues, an emphasis on
the personal does not exclude a social conscience or political concern. Cultural
Creatives are
as engaged in the world as they are in
personal and spiritual issues. Rebuilding and healing society are related
to
healing oneself, physically and spiritually. With
that goes a guarded social optimism.
(Excerpt from New Age Journal, January/February 1997
edition)
http://www.LightParty.com/index.shtml
Political party in USA formed to reflect the values above.
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