JANUARY 2008
MUNJOY HILL OBSERVER
PAGE 15
CULTURAL CREATIVES: True North on the New Political Compass Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation. Within a few short decades, society — its world view, its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions — rearranges itself. And the people born then cannot even imagine a world in which their grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born. We are currently living through such a transformation. PETER DRUCKER, Post-Capitalist Society By Ed Democracy So begins, “The New Political Compass”, by Paul H. Ray, Ph.D., author of, “CULTURAL CREATIVES: How 50 Million People are Changing the World”, (www.culturalcreatives. org ). Paul Ray is helping to build a new conceptual framework for understanding the larger dynamics of our world. Framing is catching fire in the political world because of it’s power for gaining knowledge of how to influence people. The marketing world has always known this. Now, Paul Ray, a sociologist by trade, has begun to publish his research on the social and political dynamics of today’s world. The difference is that, instead of a conceptual framework of the elites, by the elites, and for the elites, Ray is offering one of the people, by the people, and for the people. What or who are Cultural Creatives? Ray goes beyond standard demographics to values and the kind of world people would like to live in. Cultural Creatives are: * growing in numbers from around 5% in the 1960s to over 26% today and growing
* the source of all change and social innovation * demand peace, freedom and justice - social, economic, environmental, and political * feel isolated and disconnected from the rest of the world * desire whole systems, whole truth, whole foods, and whole solutions * are unaware of how many people already share their views * are unaware of how many people might yet come to share their views if only they understood where they come and where they will take us What is culture? We all have some idea of what it means to us and, yet, anthropologists find it nearly impossible to define. Margaret Mead credits Ruth Benedict (Patterns of Culture, 1921) with beginning a popular discussion on the concept of culture. Benedict theorized that any group of people exhibit a culture which is an aggregate, “personality writ large”. That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all. HENRY WARD BEECHER
Common components of culture include: values, attitudes, practices, traditions, arts, beliefs, customs, institutions, inventions, language, and technology. Others say that culture is the social construction of meaning. The truth is constructed with skill and virtue. ARISTOTLE Do not both skill and virtue require that truth or meaning be socially constructed? Anything one person, or a small group constructs, excludes the perspectives of others. No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive. MAHATMA GHANDI Contexts change over time, therefore, cultures of families, neighborhoods, organizations, communities, states, and nations must be continuously reviewed and improved and must be socially constructed (or cultivated) to have meaning. The most important element of navigation is fixing current position. By taking “fixes” as often as possible we can carefully keep track of: * where we have been?
The New Political Compass - www.culturalcreatives.org/Library/docs/NewPoliticalCompassV73.pdf Society for Organizational Learning - www.solonline.org/ Leader to Leader Institute - www.leadertoleader.org Drucker Archives [ONLINE] - www.druckerarchives.net
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* where we are now? * where we are going? Culturally speaking, the current consensus seems to be: * we have been in a culture of, by, and for the corporations * we are now in transition to a new culture * we are going to create a culture of the people, by the people, and for the people Sustainable organizing is the key to navigating our way to a new culture as safely and efficiently as possible. How can WE do better at “working together? ( WE = U + ME + UProcess ) The People-Centered Development Forum ( www.pcdf.org ) maintains a web-archive of “Global Citizen” articles by Donella Meadows – the late leader of the sustainability movement. In her article, “The Cultural Creatives Are Coming”, (www.pcdf.org/meadows/cultcreatives.htm) Meadows cautions us to, “note Ray’s point about ‘no cohesive sense of community.’ In my experience cultural creatives are no better at working together [bold added for emphasis] than any other Western individualists. Maybe, because of our distrust of institutions, we’re worse. Contradance bands and coops are about as much organization as we can stand.” The Change Labs project of the Sustainability Institute ( www.sustainer. org ) is working on communication tools for sustainable organizing. You can see a diagram of their U-Process at www.sustainer.org/services/changelabs.html : I. SENSING - transforming perception II. PRESENCING - transforming self and will III. REALIZING - transforming action
Regrettably, Donella Meadows is no longer with us to help develop the sustainable organizing component of the sustainability movement. Fortunately, the spirit of Meadows’ work continues at the Sustainability Institute in Vermont. FMI: www.can-so.org/chartingdemocracy