|
|
A Presentation for the Congressional
Institute
Washington, D.C.
Good evening. I'm going to ask your indulgence as I forego
customary introductory remarks, and jump to the essence of
what I've been invited to discuss.
The question I have been wrestling with for some time now
is this: Do we comprehend-at a foundational level-what is
happening to America and the world? Are we simply passing
through what appears to be an extremely dangerous and difficult
period 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? Is it reasonable
to suggest that the next three decades will be the most decisive
30-year period in history?
|
|
|
 |
As Americans, we've increasingly struggled to understand
this question ever since 1991. The end of the Cold War deprived
us of a somewhat simplistic catch phrase for defining the
world. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the search was
on for new definitions, and we've gone through a series of
slogans such as New World Order, The End of History, The Clash
of Civilizations, Globalization, and now the latest vogue,
The American Empire. All these phrases contain an element
of truth. In my view, however, none encapsulates the totality
of what's happening to America and the world. And I suggest-at
a minimum-such an understanding is relevant in order to establish
the broadest possible context within which to understand and
prosecute the war on terrorism.
So I would begin by offering the view of one of the world's
most experienced observers of world events. For over sixty
years, Peter Drucker has studied how the world has been changing.
And this is what he sees: "No one born after the turn
of the 20th century has ever known anything but a world uprooting
its foundations, overturning its values and toppling its idols."
If Drucker is accurate, what we're in the midst of is a world
where, yes, there's been enormous economic, technical and
social gains in the past century. But at the same time, the
societal arrangements, the philosophical and cultural underpinnings,
and the spiritual moorings that had anchored nations for centuries,
have been in a transition of epochal proportions. The tectonic
plates undergirding civilized life as we've known it are shifting,
and it's affecting everything-politics, family life, education,
economics and finance, international relations, our culture,
as well as the very basis of psychological stability.
Within this context, I want to comment on three trends that,
in my view, are part of the driving force of this shift.
First, globalization. Mention the word, and we think of the
WTO, the IMF, multinational corporations, NGOs and all the
other elements of global economics and finance. But globalization
is far more than the emergence of a world economic system,
or the adoption of free markets and less authoritarian political
structures.
In my view, the essence of globalization is the shrinking
of the globe through technology, and the subsequent merging
of modes of life-including economics-as well as beliefs. Just
think of various aspects of American life being adopted by
other nations, which, in a country such as India, are profoundly
affecting the foundations of Hinduism. This basic process
has been under way for at least the past two centuries, and
both Adam Smith and Karl Marx commented on it.
Another feature of globalization is the expansion of our
worldview and, ultimately, a widening of individual identity.
This widening of identity is a process America has experienced
once before-two centuries ago when peoples' sense of identity
could no longer be limited to the specific state in which
they lived, but was forced to expand to a wider area called
America. Daniel Boorstin suggests this process of widening
identity took ninety years, and it wasn't until after the
Civil War that a distinctly American personality emerged.
Obviously, the expansion of identity taking place today is
on a wider basis, and the factors involved are far more complicated.
One final word about globalization and identity. In my view,
one of the psychological factors behind the fanaticism of
a small minority of the Muslim world is the belief that globalization
ultimately means the end of Islam. That is a challenge to
the very core of individual identity. And we must recognize
that this view is not limited to the fanatics; it's widely
shared by moderate Muslims who realize the benefits of globalization.
In this sense, the central challenge for all nations is how
to expand identity to include the globe as a whole, yet stay
rooted in the uniqueness of their own history and culture.
A second trend shifting the tectonic plates of life is the
radically changed global information environment. Historians
often note how the printing press changed the information
environment of 16th century Europe. That was nothing compared
to what's happening today. Philip Tobias, the world-famous
anthropologist, suggests the Internet is "the most significant
social development since the invention of language."
Much has been written on this, but I would offer two observations.
First, the electronic information system-TV, Internet, and
now cell phones that connect to the Internet-this system doesn't
simply transmit information. It also transmits psychic states
of mind. It's an emotional transmission belt. Nothing quite
illustrates this as does the visceral rage that characterized
the worldwide 2003 anti-U.S. demonstrations over Iraq. Whatever
the legitimate conviction involved, to a major extent those
protests were an outbreak of a psychic contagion. The fury
of a few immediately becomes globalized, and reaction to Abu
Ghraib is but another example
A second effect of our electronic information system is
that parents have lost control of the information environment
in which their children are raised. Control of that environment
has been a prime responsibility of parenthood. Loss of that
control is a major factor contributing to what Neil Postman
calls "the end of childhood" as a distinct category
of growth to adulthood. The concept of childhood as a separate
period of life, with its unique problems and needs, is an
18th century development, first fully articulated by Rousseau.
Prior to that, children were treated simply as small adults.
Postman suggests that the availability of all images-good
or bad-through TV, that access to all information through
the computer and Internet, and that a subsequent blurring
of a clear sense of time and place, are ending childhood as
a distinctive period of growth. Postman's views are worth
study, as he was possibly America's foremost authority on
the human and social effects of technology.
I was once at a dinner given for Alvin Toffler, and I asked
him about this. I asked what he sees as the consequences of
all knowledge, philosophies, ideologies, religions, and all
political and social viewpoints being available at the mere
press of a computer button. He replied simply, "It's
the end of truth."
What Toffler was talking about is the fragmenting effect
of information technology. He wasn't saying truth doesn't
exist, but that fragmentation makes it ever more difficult
to have some central operating set of convictions around which
nations can cohere. Fragmentation raises the question of whose
truth are we talking about? Are we talking about the truth
of some forty-six million American fundamentalists who, according
to Time magazine believe the world will literally come to
an end in their lifetime? Or the postmodernists who believe
there's no realty; that life is but a social construct? Or
those scientists who assert we've reached the end of the Homo
sapiens epoch and are entering the "Post-human"
era?
The problem becomes clear. The Founders held certain truths
to be "self-evident." But the fragmenting effect
of information technology means it's less and less clear exactly
what truths are self-evident, or at least accepted as self-evident
by the body politic.
Such a situation could become a serious threat to U.S. security,
a subject addressed in the 1999 Hart-Rudman commission's report
on national security in the 21st century. (See the United
States Commission on National Security/21st Century.) After
discussion of conventional security threats, the report turns
to threats posed by accelerating technology. Due to rapid
technological change, the report says, "Americans are
now, and increasingly will become, less secure than they believe
themselves to be." The reason, the report suggests, is
that "we may not recognize many of the threats in our
future…they may consist of the unraveling of the fabric
of national identity itself…democracy may be hollowed
out from the inside."
The third trend I see shifting the tectonic plates of life
is a long-term spiritual and psychological reorientation.
Such a subject is so vast that it's only possible to offer
one thought.
In 1954, Adlai Stevenson asked in a speech at Columbia University,
"Are America's problems but surface symptoms of something
even deeper, of a moral and human crisis in the Western world
which might even be compared to the fourth, fifth and sixth-century
crisis where the Roman Empire was transformed into feudalism
and primitive Christianity? Are Americans," Stevenson
queried, "passing through one of the great crises of
history when man must make another mighty choice?" President
Eisenhower, who shared Stevenson's view, put it more succinctly.
I visited Ike in 1962 in Palm Springs. As we talked about
the changes reshaping America, he said-and with considerable
conviction, "We're living through the final stages of
the Roman Empire." He said it twice.
Two years later, Joseph Campbell, possibly the world's foremost
authority on the symbolic and psychological meaning of myths,
noted in a New York speech that every one of the world's "great
spiritual traditions is in profound disorder." The world,
he concluded, "is passing through perhaps the greatest
spiritual metamorphosis in the history of the human race."
|
What We Do
Services from World
Trends Research
|
|
|
|
- Corporate Briefings
- Conference Keynote Speaker
- Educational Seminars
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In my opinion, the evidence illustrating Stevenson, Eisenhower
and Campbell's views is everywhere. Walk into any bookstore
and look at the section on religion. Books on "End Times,"
Buddhism, Nostradamus, yoga, New Age spirituality, mysticism,
Eastern philosophy, crystals, psychological health, finding
the meaning in life, addiction, miracles, self-help cures,
and much more. I believe the global phenomenon of fundamentalism-whether
Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist or Shinto-is another
sign of the spiritual transition taking place.
This reorientation has long been evident in the fact that,
while there are millions of Christians in America, the spiritual
impulse that gave highest value and meaning to Western civilization
is no longer the inner dynamic of the collective western psyche.
It's no longer the informing force in the soul of America
and Europe's "creative minority" who give us our
education, science, technology, literature, cinema, theater
and music. In this sense, the character of our culture is
the best indication of what is bubbling up from the depths
of the western soul. For culture is to a nation what dreams
are to an individual-an indication of what's going on in the
depths of the inner life.
Finally, it's extremely difficult to assess the spiritual
upheaval taking place today without including a look at the
psychological dimension of spiritual experience. And I say
that because the spiritual reorientation isn't taking place
out in the ether somewhere. It's taking place in the depths
of each of us as individuals.
Some Americans sensed the beginnings of this spiritual shift
over a century ago. Wrote James Russell Lowell in 1870: "Truth
is eternal, but her effluence, with endless change, is fitted
to the hour; her mirror is turned forward to reflect the promise
of the future, not the past." Lowell then noted, "He
who would win the name of truly great must understand his
own age, and the next, and make the present ready to fulfill
its prophecy, and with the future merge gently and peacefully
as wave with wave."
Unfortunately, merging with the future seems neither gentle
nor peaceful at this point. Nonetheless, merge with the future
we shall, for it's hurtling toward us at mach speed.
Thank you.
^BACK TO TOP |
BACK TO BOOKS & SPEECHES
|
