Articles by Van Wishard

Everyone’s talking about “Globalization.”  It’s a “flat world,” we’re told, a level playing field.  “Outsourcing” of jobs is the big worry.  Why pay an American $150 an hour for work that can be done in India for $25 an hour?  So we end up phoning customer service about a computer problem, and the techies we’re talking with are in the Philippines or India.

What’s happening, and what does it mean?

In the midst of the turbulent global financial and economic crisis, one question predominates: is the world simply passing through what appears to be an extremely dangerous and difficult decade of multiple crises, after which life will return to a more familiar normalcy? Or do these converging crises signal the end of the world, as we’ve known it, and the emergence of a totally new context of human existence? Is the economic/financial crisis a symptom of a deeper change taking place?

One of the most difficult changes to understand in life is a change in a people’s worldview or basic orientation.  Throughout history worldviews have changed and, over time, evolved.  This process results both from outward developments such as availability of new knowledge and inventions, as well as from an inward process, a psychological and spiritual maturation.

Here are some helpful hints for living between the two ages:

Historians frequently divide the past into different periods or "ages." Thus in Western history we speak of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance or the Industrial Age. Each era is defined by certain characteristics. The time between one phase and the next can be both disruptive as well as full of the promise of new possibilities. Today, we are living in just such an "in-between" period, between two ages. The following outline suggests the characteristics of the age we are leaving, as well as the distinctiveness of the age that is emerging.