07.29.08
Cultural Creatives
I thought this was something my readers might find interesting. I certainly did. I am in Florida, visiting my parents for a few days and on the plane I was reading my new issue of WIE (What Is Enlightenment) magazine. (I know, the title is a little bit arrogant but there is some interesting stuff in it.) Anyway, one of the first few articles in this issue was devoted to the work of two researchers - Paul Ray and Jim Garrison. It seems Paul Ray was the first person to coin the term “cultural creatives” in his 2000 book, The Cultural Creatives:How 50 Million People Are Changing the World.
So what is a cultural creative? According to a website related to the work of Garrison and Ray: Cultural Creatives are essentially comprised of people who have participated in the social and consciousness movements that have emerged since World War II: the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, the women’s movement, the jobs and social justice movements, the peace movement, the organic food and alternative health care movements, the new spirituality and self growth movements, etc. Integral to the emergence of the Cultural Creatives is the emergence of women’s issues in the public domain.
Two thirds of Cultural Creatives are women, and in many ways the new value system the Cultural Creatives represent is inextricably related with the fact that this is the first time in history that women’s values have been widely and publicly articulated. They are spiritually motivated and committed to personal growth but are not dogmatically religious. They embrace technology and economic development but only within a deep affirmation of the environment and community. They tend to view the world from the perspective of holistic systems. They are the people paying attention to world events and global trends.
What characterizes the Cultural Creatives is that they are both inner-directed and socially concerned. Cultural Creatives thus have spiritual and psychological depth as well as the maturity needed for a new culture. They are also intensely entrepreneurial and creative. For example, Cultural Creatives are the founders and leaders of most of the green and socially responsible businesses. They are involved in many of the most socially active NGOs and non profit organizations. http://d8406.u24.sustainablehosting.com/content/view/179/135/ (They said it better than I could paraphrase it so I figured it was easier to just copy it. I don’t have all that much time to complete this post. My parents are waiting for me for breakfast.)
Anyway, I figure just about anyone reading my blog is most likely a cultural creative and that is why I decided I should share this info here.
Apparently since the year 2000, this group has been growing rapidly and is now verging on the point of becoming critical mass. Ray and Garrison are working to unite this group into one contingent because they would like to see this group “usher in a new stage of human cultural development.” (WIE August-October, 2008) The movement is being compared to the Renaissance, where a widespread intellectual and cultural transformation swept throughout Europe from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, resulting in lasting changes to the overall society. It seems Garrison and Ray believe a similar leap is now possible through the strength of today’s cultural creatives, if only we could recognize the wave and feed it’s fires.
Currently the cultural creatives have yet to recognize themselves as a unified movement. They are, shall we say scattered, and fail to recognize the potential strength their values could have on society if they were only to unite. Getting them to unite would require that they begin to recognize the commonalitites among them and this is the purpose of Garrison and Ray’s work. They are apparently developing a documentary film, writing a book and planning an international conference on this topic for November of 2009 in Washington, DC. (I have already put this event on my calendar - after all it is being held in my backyard.)
The WIE article has lots of tie-ins to political concepts on which I shall avoid comment. But the reason I wanted to pull the cultural creative concept into this blog is because to speak in extremely broad generalities, the spiritual stance of the cultural creative is similar to the post-conventional believers whose are described as being the “Rationals” and the “Mystics”, the Stage Threes and Stage Fours - those of “non-traditional spirituality.”
Anyway, think about attending that conference in DC in November 2009. I will see you there!
