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A Presentation for the Public Affairs Council
Washington, D.C.
I see you've had an advanced tutorial this morning on the
basic building blocks of Issue Management. You certainly started
with one of the masters. Chris Nelson is the best. If your
company ever wants an up-to-the second intelligence source
on trade, monetary issues, inside Washington, or global flash
points, they could do no better than to subscribe to the daily
on-line "Nelson Report."
My own work is not so much Issue Management as it is trend
analysis. I'm sure you know many trend analysts, as tracking
social attitudes and trends and how they affect consumer tastes
is big business. My particular focus is somewhat different.
It's looking at the dimension of global change taking place,
and attempting to place that in some context of understanding.
We all know something immense is taking place worldwide today.
It's not just Iraq, or even terrorism. For some time now,
it's been obvious the tectonic plates of life are shifting.
How do we put these mega-changes in some understandable framework
for decision-makers? In a sense, if my particular work has
any single product, it's perspective. Perspective on the full
dimension of global change, and what it might mean for the
next decade or so.
And that's what I've been asked to talk about today.
How are we to make sense of how the world is changing? Jihad
vs. McWorld. Nukes in North Korea. A potential India-Pakistan
nuclear shoot-out. The merger of human and artificial intelligence
creating what the scientists call the "post-human"
era. We seem to have come to the end of the world, as we've
known it. The next three decades increasingly loom as the
most decisive 30-year period in history.
To consider how the global context in which your companies
operate is changing, I want to offer the view of one of the
world's most experienced observers of global events. In 1957
Peter Drucker wrote, "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."
What Drucker is suggesting is that the fundamentals of life
that have anchored nations for centuries are forming some
new configuration. This is the context in which every company
in the world has to plan, produce and be profitable.
With Drucker's comment in mind, I want to be more specific,
and briefly offer five trends that are helping shape the next
two decades. After that, I'll focus more tightly on three
particular trends.
First, due to accelerating technology development, so much
is happening so fast in every part of the world, leaders no
longer have any familiar frame of reference within which to
understand contemporary events. Life has become a passing
blur. Yesterday's crisis has not been resolved, but we can't
think about it any more because we've got to confront today's
crisis. It's an ad hoc world. One result is that political
leaders lack any larger order of purpose and significance,
any pattern of meaning that could give collective human existence
coherence and lasting relevance. In a sense, we have more
information than ever before, but less context of meaning
within which to make decisions.
Second, science is in the process of redefining our understanding
of terms first given us at the dawn of human consciousness:
such terms as "nature," "human," and "life."
Increasingly, scientists are subordinating humans to technology.
Within the next three decades we may have reached the point
where the dominant question will be, "What are humans
for in a world of completely independent, self-replicating
technological capability that can perform most human activities
better than humans?"
Third, for the first time in history, what constitutes a
family is being redefined. This has disruptive implications
for government, education, social cohesion and what we broadly
term "civil society". You possibly saw Business
Week's article on how the redefinition of the family affects
corporate benefits, pensions, compensation and much more.
If not, it's worth reading.
Fourth, also for the first time in history, the Caucasian
race is no longer reproducing itself. No European country
is reproducing its population; nor are Caucasians in North
America reproducing themselves. This has enormous consequences
for management, and most particularly, hiring and training
policies.
Fifth, the ability to create change, as well as the attitude
that change is desirable, is now an accepted policy of all
nations. Throughout history, in all civilizations, continuity
rather than change has been the normal state of affairs. No
society on the planet knows how to live with constant, radical
change. Every nation is, concurrently with all other nations,
in a state of crisis as we try to adjust to an ever-accelerating
pace of change. Thus there is no global center of stability
and order such as Britain provided during the nineteenth century,
and America supplied the second half of the twentieth century.
And so the international climate is likely to continue to
be characterized by conflict and instability.
These are only some of the trends shaping the coming decades.
It's going to be a period of mounting complexity, dislocation
and uncertainty. At the same time we shall realize new possibilities
beyond anything we've yet experienced.
Now, let's focus in more tightly on three other trends.
Globalization. We all have some idea of what globalization
means. Most of the discussion about globalization focuses
on trade, currency relationships, and the need for non-western
nations to adopt free markets and democratic political systems.
But I suggest the essence of globalization is the human instinct
for greater communication between peoples and cultures, and
the subsequent merging of modes of life-including economics-as
well as beliefs. This process began very slowly in the 16th
century with European exploration and colonialization of Africa,
South America and Asia. It picked up speed in the 1840s with
the invention of the telegraph, the first component of what
has become the world's electronic information communication
system. Clearly, in the 20th century globalization moved at
an exponential pace. In its present phase, it means that western
social, cultural and philosophical ideas are gradually seeping
into the fabric of the rest of the world, and a reciprocal
transfer of culture and lifestyles from non-western nations
to the west.
Look at what's happening. Nations are adopting such ideas
as the sanctity of the individual, due process of law, universal
education, the equality of women, human rights, private property,
legal safeguards governing business and finance, concepts
of civil society, and perhaps most importantly, the ability
of people to take charge of their destiny and not simply accept
the hand dealt them in life.
We take these ideas for granted, but for millions of people
such concepts are completely new modes of thought and behavior.
While we Americans believe what works for America will work
for others, we're sometimes unaware that the cultural differences
between the U.S. and the rest of the world represent significant
psychological differences. Take some contrasts between America
and Asia. America prizes individuality, while Asia emphasizes
relationships and community. Americans see humans dominating
nature, while Asians see humans as part of nature. In the
U.S. there is a division between mind and heart, while in
Asia mind and heart are unified.
I mention this to illustrate the deep psychological trauma
nations are experiencing as they confront the effects of globalization.
We Americans, raised on the instinct of change, say, "Great.
Let tradition go. Embrace the new." But much of the world
says, "Wait a minute. Traditions are our connection to
the past. If we jettison them, we'll endanger our social cohesion
and psychic stability." Many thoughtful Muslims clearly
fear that the western model of globalization, based on secular,
scientific rationalism, will eventually bring about the destruction
of Islam.
What we Americans fail to appreciate is that the pace of
globalization is driven by the increase in the pace of technology
development in America. The faster computers we produce, the
faster other nations must change their established patterns
of living. No nation today can develop without adjusting to
the global economic system anchored in American information
technology. Just look at global financial flows and how they
operate. Thus all nations struggle as they try to adjust to
the new global system. It's a psychological as well as structural
crisis.
One aspect of globalization is the onslaught of the largest
migration in world history. For those of you whose companies
have plants in China, your companies may be facing an enormous
social upheaval in the coming years. For in China alone, there
are one hundred million people on the move from the countryside
to the cities. This is causing urban problems of a magnitude
never before experienced.
In the West, migration is changing the face of Europe. The
European Union needs 180 million immigrants in the next three
decades simply to keep its population at 1995 levels, as well
as to keep the current ratio of retirees to workers. In Brussels,
over fifty percent of the babies born are Muslim. In Germany,
the death rate has exceeded the birth rate for decades, so
they now have to fly in planeloads of technicians from India
just to maintain their high tech structure. In England, there
are now more practicing Muslims than Anglicans. In Russia,
the population has dropped three million in the past decade.
In general, demographers suggest that present patterns point
to a decline of the western European population of 20 million
in the next two decades.
As migration increases, the historic legends that are the
basis of national identities tend to wane. As one British
historian put it, "A white majority that invented the
national mythologies underpinning modern European culture
lives in an almost perpetual state of fear that it and its
way of life are about to disappear." In Italy, the Archbishop
of Bologna recently warned that Italy is in danger of "losing
its identity" due to the immigration from North Africa
and central Europe. The Catholic Church is facing the distinct
probability of Islam becoming the largest European religion.
The fear of such demographic shifts and their potential consequences
is the subtext for everything else happening in Europe today.
It's far more traumatic than adjusting to increased economic
integration or to the euro.
In the coming years, the face of nations will be very different
from today. Traditional images of what it means to be French,
German, Italian or English are going to change just as radically
as the image of what it means to be American has changed in
recent decades.
At the end of the day, for globalization to succeed, if we're
going to build a global age, it's got to be built on more
than free markets and the Internet. It's got to be built on
some common view of life far more inclusive than "my
nation," "my race" or "my religion".
The challenge both for corporations and for nations in the
next decades is to see the world whole, and act in accord
with that awareness. Frankly, I think corporate leadership
is doing a much better job of understanding that than is political
leadership. But to be legitimate, globalization must validate
itself in terms of equitable benefits for all nations, and
sensitivity to other nations' need for social and political
stability.
The second trend shaping the coming decades is a new stage
of technology development that is without precedent in the
history of science and technology.
At least since Francis Bacon in the seventeenth century we
have viewed the purpose of science and technology as being
to improve the human condition. As Bacon put it, the "true
and lawful end of the sciences is that human life be enriched
by new discoveries and powers."
Indeed it has. Take America. During the last century, the
real GDP, in constant dollars, increased by $48 trillion,
much of this wealth built on the marvels of technology. A
few years ago, I had a quadruple heart by-pass performed with
the most modern medical technology. So believe me, I'm a fan
of what technology can do.
But along with technological wonders, uncertainties arise.
The question today is whether we're creating certain technologies
not to improve the human condition, but for purposes that
appear to be to replace human meaning and significance altogether.
Let me explain.
For at least the past thirty years, psychologists have known
that overwhelming people with more technological change than
they can process clearly leads to various forms of emotional
and mental instability. But what we're confronted with now
is not simply acceleration in the pace of change; it's the
acceleration of acceleration itself. In other words, technological
change growing not at a constant rate, but an exponential
rate.
It's estimated that the rate of technological change doubles
every decade-20% one decade, 40% the next decade, 80% the
third decade, and so on; that at today's rate of change, we'll
experience one hundred calendar years of technological change
in the next twenty-five years; and that due to the nature
of exponential growth, the 21st century as a whole will experience
nearly one thousand times more technological change than did
the 20th century.
But it's not only the rate of change that challenges us;
it's also the character of change. British Telecom's futures
research unit predicts that eventually "a combination
of man and computer search will be able to identify the genes
needed to produce a people of any chosen characteristics."
Someone, somewhere, they say, "will produce an elite
race of people, smart, agile and disease resistant."
Ray Kurzweil, one of the world's foremost authorities on artificial
intelligence, predicts, "When machines are derived from
human intelligence but are a million times more capable, there
won't be a clear distinction between human and machine intelligence-there's
going to be a merger." Another tech visionary tells us
that the wiring of human and artificial minds into one planetary
soul will ultimately mean "the disappearance of the self
altogether, right into the collective organism of the mind."
No socialist or communist could have had a greater vision
of the collectivized society. Thus arrives what some scientific
intellectuals call the "post-human" or "post-species"
age. For the tech visionaries, it's the next step in evolution.
If this sounds like science fiction, it's not. It's what
some of America's most accomplished scientists are working
to achieve.
And so we've come to dismiss the counsel of the scientific
father of our age. Said Einstein in a speech at Cal Tech,
"Concern for man himself and his fate must form the chief
interest of all technical endeavors."
Will all these technological visions come to pass? One wonders.
Project forward the predicted million-fold increase in the
speed of computers and the resulting ratcheting up of the
pace of life over the next couple of decades, and one ends
up asking, "how much more of this can the human metabolism
take?" As it is, multiplying social pathologies already
indicate human resistance to such change. While stress is
still a major issue, the deeper issue your companies now face
is individual psychological integrity. Thirty years ago, major
corporations didn't have to think much about the mental health
of their employees. Now, I suspect, mental and emotional health
is the fastest growing component of health insurance for many
of your companies. To help relieve the mounting pressures,
some of your companies provide employees with special rooms
for relaxing, meditation, prayer, taking naps or simply listening
to music.
Other indicators tell of further psychic disturbances caused
by too rapid a pace of change. Loneliness has reached epidemic
proportions. ADD-attention deficit disorder-is skyrocketing
for adults. The suicide rate among women has increased 200%
in the past two decades. Books are now written for eight year-old
children advising them how to recognize the symptoms of stress,
and how to deal with it in their own lives. Character controlling
drugs are now given to three year-olds. Thus the University
of Louisville concludes in a study on health that our very
mode of life has now become our principle cause of emotional
and mental instability.
Some people are already searching for the wisest way to approach
such potential challenges as the new technologies present.
I'm sure you know of Bill Joy, cofounder and former chief
scientist of Sun Microsystems, and described by the Economist
magazine as "the Edison of the Internet." He suggests
that we've reached the point where we must "limit development
of technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit
of certain kinds of knowledge." His concerns are based
on the unknown potential of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics,
driven by computers capable of infinite speeds, and the possible
uncontrollable self-replication of these technologies. Joy
acknowledges the pursuit of knowledge as one of the primary
human goals since earliest times. But, he says, "If open
access to, and unlimited development of, knowledge henceforth
puts us all in clear danger of extinction, then common sense
demands that we reexamine even these basic, long-held beliefs."
Joy well knows he's pushing against the wind, but he clearly
thinks it's worth it.
But there's a deeper question.
Ultimately, technology deals with extension of human capability.
It does not address the question of the meaning and purpose
of human society. Thus, in my view, the great need in the
coming two decades is not so much for more mind-blowing technology,
as it is to explore the depths of the human personality; to
discover what deeper meaning can be given to human existence
as we enter a radically changed environment of technological
possibility.
To consider the third trend, I want to quote Adlai Stevenson,
who had the unfortunate luck of twice being the democratic
presidential candidate chosen to oppose Dwight Eisenhower.
In a 1954 speech at Columbia University, Stevenson asked,
"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?"
A decade later, Joseph Campbell, perhaps the world's foremost
authority on the symbolic and psychological meaning of myths,
noted in a New York speech, "The world is passing through
perhaps the greatest spiritual metamorphosis in the history
of the human race."
Stevenson and Campbell-two of the most thoughtful Americans
of the mid-20th century-comparing the condition of America
and the western world to that of Rome during the end of the
ancient world and the emergence of Christianity and feudal
Europe. I want to explore the ramifications of their remarks
a bit, for this issue has become a dominant driving force
not only in America's spiritual life, but also in our culture,
our politics, and international affairs.
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What actually happened when the Greco-Roman world was transformed
into early Christianity? The history books tell a certain
amount-the corruption of Rome, the severe decline in population,
the neglect and even collapse of the Roman aqueducts, roads
and farms.
Those were the outer manifestations, but what happened to
the inner life of the people? We get some sense from the Roman
poet Lucretius who summed up the temper of the times when
he wrote of "aching hearts in every home, racked incessantly
by pangs the mind was powerless to assuage." There was
a loss of collective meaning; a disappearance of what had
represented life's highest value. The God-image that had informed
the inner life and culture of the Greco-Roman world for a
thousand years lost its compelling force, especially for the
leadership class. This led to a breakdown of the historic
psychic structures that had been the source and container
of Greco-Roman morals and beliefs. A collapse of the ethical
and social guidelines underlying civilized order took place.
The history books speak of the "decline" of Rome.
But at its heart, it was a long-term-at least four or five
centuries-psychological shift of the prevailing God-image
of the Greco-Roman period, to a new spiritual dispensation.
A new God-image emerged for a new phase of psychological maturity
and human experience. From Ireland to Italy, Europe went through
a prolonged period of the transformation of underlying principles
and symbols.
What Stevenson and Campbell-and others-have suggested is
that America and the West have been experiencing a similar
long-term spiritual and psychological reorientation. This
is what Drucker was referring to when he talked about a world
uprooting its foundations, overturning its values and toppling
its idols. What they are suggesting is that America and Europe
have come to the end of the Christian era, and the beginning
of some new spiritual expression.
When we speak of the end of the Christian eon, what we're
suggesting is 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 literature, theater, science,
technology, education, cinema 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.
Thus America is in the midst of the greatest spiritual change
and search in our history. To get an idea of this search,
walk into any bookstore and look at the section on religion,
spirituality, Buddhism, Nostradamus, yoga, channeling, angels,
miracles, Eastern philosophy, addiction, psychic health, mysticism,
or finding meaning in life. I suggest that understanding this
search is essential for issue management, for the spiritual
search has, in its fundamentalist expression, become one of
the most potent forces in domestic politics, as well as in
international affairs. Nothing illustrates this better than
the fact that over 50% of the fundamentalists supporting the
administration's position on Israel believes Israel must control
all of Palestine in order to fulfill the Biblical conditions
for Christ's return to earth.
The question remains, given all we've discussed thus far,
how do we respond to such a historic moment? In my view, we
must respond on at least two levels. The first is the level
of our collective life, and here we're already undertaking
the most sweeping redefinition of life in our history. All
our institutions are being redefined and restructured. Corporations
are redefining their mission, structure and modus operandi.
In education, countless new experiments are underway, from
vouchers to charter schools to home schooling. The legal system
is assisted by the increasing use of alternative dispute resolution
(ADR). Functions formerly executed by local governments are
now undertaken by civic and charitable organizations. Numerous
steps have been taken to redress the severe environmental
imbalance we've created. It's estimated that well over fifty
percent of all adult Americans donate a portion of their time
to non-profit social efforts. Perhaps most importantly, we're
gradually integrating a global perspective into the fabric
of our education, culture, and international relations. Take
West Point, for example. All the cadets at West Point learn
a foreign language such as Chinese, Arabic or Russian, and
they take a year's course in a foreign culture. So on one
level, we're already at grips with some of the manifestations
of the reorientation that engulfs us.
Against the background of the three trends I mentioned, perhaps
this is a modest start, but at least it's a start. Clearly,
there's another level of effort to move to. As Bill Joy suggests,
such efforts must include a decision whether or not to continue
research and development of technologies that could, in Joy's
words, "bring the world to the edge of extinction."
Obviously, such an examination must be done in a global context
if it's to be valid.
But there's another question of how we respond. The psychological
and spiritual change taking place in America and the world
is not taking place out in the ether somewhere. It's taking
place in all of us-in the depths of our collective soul, whether
we're aware of it or not. So I suggest that understanding
how these changes affect us both collectively and individually
is essential for Issue Management, as well as for each of
us personally.
For example, it's becoming clear that the more information
a person or company amasses, the more important context and
meaning become. We live in two worlds-the world of abstract
data and the world of human meaning. Meaning requires reflection
and time-consuming thought. Thus numerous companies are training
managers in the exercise of reflection or various forms of
inner awareness. Managers need an inward center of reflection
from which to make considered decisions.
For a deeper understanding of the human-technical relationship,
I suggest considering the whole discipline of Media Ecology.
In recent years, Media Ecology has grown into a wide-ranging
consideration how rapid change and technology affect both
our social arrangements and us as individuals. "Google"
Media Ecology and you'll gain indispensable insights for Issue
Management.
Critical to the question of how we respond is the need to
ask ourselves, "What is my highest value in life?"
Each of us must know the answer to that question, and for
a vital reason. As a result of this transition, Europe and
America no longer have the original collective myth that provided
Western civilization with its highest significance. Once such
conviction has eroded, culture becomes degraded and a nation's
youth lack any sense of meaning to life beyond entertainment
and the consumer ethic. For one of the functions of a true
culture is to transmit to each new generation the collective
wisdom and highest meaning life and experience have provided.
At this point, I think for America, perhaps technology has
become the new American myth. We talk about the high virtues
of life, but we live by the power of technology and its possibilities.
But technology is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Technology alone cannot create the greatness of character
and meaning needed for a new phase of a nation's journey.
To sum up, as we look towards the coming decades, we cannot
escape the fact that some great phase of the human experience
is dying, while some new stage seeks to take shape. We daily
watch and experience the trauma of this historic shift in
world events, in our institutions, in our mounting emotional
health issues, and in the ethos of destruction that has become
such a cultural motif. At the deepest level, what we're experiencing
is a sign of the collective soul passing through the throes
of a reorientation, a death and rebirth. We shouldn't be surprised,
as it's happened before in history, and now it's our turn
to be part of such a critical moment. It's a process of disintegration
of old beliefs and structures, and the birth of some fresh
understanding and perspective struggling to come into existence.
Like all births, it's painful. But the great challenge to
each of us and to America is to find our unique way to be
a creative part of this new integration seeking to shape a
new time of human history.
These, I suggest, are some of the broader currents that will
carry us through the next two decades, and will form the inner
substance of the daily challenges Issue Management will confront.
Sometimes when I give a talk such as this, I'm asked what
I expect people to do with such information. My response is
simply: reflect, understand, assimilate and apply.
Thank you.
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