Prologue - Revolution or Renaissance: Making the Transition from an Economic Age to a Cultural Age

There is mounting evidence to confirm that humanity has arrived at a crucial turning point in history.

One evidence of this is the environmental crisis, and with it, growing shortages of strategic natural resources such as wood, water, coal, gas, electricity, fish, oil, and especially arable land. Another evidence is the rapidly-escalating gap between rich and poor countries and rich and poor people. Still other evidences are: alarming levels of pollution, poverty, famine and unemployment; the spread of infectious diseases; increased violence and terrorism; the division of the world into two unequal parts; the threat of biological, chemical and nuclear warfare; and failure to achieve "development with a human face." It does not take a great leap in imagination to visualize the kind of world that could result if solutions to these problems are not found.

Standing behind these problems is an even more dangerous and potentially life-threatening problem. With the world's population at six billion and growing rapidly, and with the carrying capacity of the earth severely limited, the entire global eco-system could collapse if ways are not discovered to prevent it.

It is for reasons such as these that more and more people throughout the world are coming to the conclusion that a major transformation is needed in the human condition to set things right.

Can this transformation be achieved in peaceful ways? Or will it be necessary to resort to a great deal of violence?

In the past, transformations in the human condition have come about in both peaceful and violent ways.2 There have been times when transformations in the human condition have been achieved by peaceful means, largely through general evolution or a renaissance. In the twentieth century, for example, substantial improvements were made in living standards and people's lives - primarily in the western world - through evolution. This occurred as a result of phenomenal advances in commerce, business, industry, science, technology, communications and agriculture. Moreover, a renaissance occurred in Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and fanned out to encompass the whole of Europe and other parts of the world in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that swept away one established order and introduced another through peaceful means. It was predicated on major advances in the arts and sciences, incredible bursts of creativity and imagination, and new ways of looking at the world, acting in the world, and valuing things in the world.

In contrast, the revolutions that occurred in France in the eighteenth century and Russia and China in the twentieth century were not achieved without a great deal of violence. Also predicated on sweeping away one established order and introducing another, they stand as vivid testimony to what can happen when political and military leaders, governments and countries are forced to the conclusion that transformations in the human condition can only be achieved through bloodshed, brutality and oppression.

What makes the encounter with developments such as these so pertinent to the present situation is the fact that once again we have arrived at a crucial turning point in history. Can the changes that are needed in the human condition be achieved through a renaissance or general evolution? Or will it be necessary to resort to a great deal of violence and revolution?

What is bringing this situation to a head is the conflict that is raging throughout the world at present over glaring inequalities in income and wealth, globalization, free trade, capitalism, the profit motive, the division of the world into two unequal parts, and fundamental differences in religion, cultures and civilizations. As the terrorist attacks in the United States and Spain, hostilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East, and the reactions to globalization and free trade in Seattle, Quebec City, Gothenberg, Genoa, Cancun and elsewhere in the world demonstrate - and demonstrate convincingly - the world is divided into opposing camps. On the one hand, there are those who believe the transformation that is needed in the human condition can come about through peaceful means, largely through acquiescence to the present world system and allowing the forces of globalization, free trade, capitalism, corporatism and technological development to run their course. On the other hand, there are those who believe the transformation that is needed in the human condition can only be achieved through conflict, confrontation, and revolution.

The evidence seems to be mounting on the side of the latter group. The protests are getting more frequent, the barricades are getting higher, the security measures are getting tighter, violence and terrorism are more commonplace, and the rhetoric is getting more high-pitched.

It is impossible to understand the reasons for the present situation without examining the economic age that underlies the current world system and has given rise to it. For violence, terrorism, globalization, free trade, capitalism, corporatism, profit maximization, inequalities in income and wealth, and the division of the world into two unequal parts are deeply imbedded in the economic age we are living in at present. It is an age that has made economics and economies in general - and products, profits, technology, specialization, consumption, competition, economic growth, the marketplace, capitalism and materialism in particular - the centrepiece of society and principal preoccupation of municipal, regional, national and international development.

Many may question the contention that the present age is an economic age, preferring to call it an information age, a technological age, a scientific age, a communications age, a capitalistic age, or a materialistic age.

While information, technology, science, communications, capitalism and materialism have played a powerful role in shaping the age we are living in at present, it is economics - more than any other factor or set of factors - that plays the dominant role in the world and has done so for more than two centuries. It is the magnetic force around which all other forces have galvanized and coalesced, thereby shaping the entire way the world is visualized, understood, and dealt with today.

There is a logical reason for this. Economics and economies in general - and economic growth and development in particular - are seen as the principal means for increasing material and monetary wealth and making improvements in society. This has produced an economic age that draws heavily on information, science, technology, communications, capitalism and materialism but incorporates these and other factors in its gargantuan grasp.

How did the economic age originate? How has it evolved over the last two centuries? What worldview underlies it? What model of development drives it? What forces dominate it? How does it function throughout the world? These are the tough questions that must be asked - and answered - if justice is to be done to the economic age.

In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to delve deeply into the domain of economics. This makes it possible to examine the theories, ideas, policies and practices that have been - and are - most instrumental in shaping the economic age and giving it its form, content and character.3 These theories, ideas, practices and policies have been developed by countless individuals, institutions, countries and governments throughout the world - especially the western world - as well as by such well-known economists as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Robert Malthus, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, John Kenneth Galbraith, Milton Friedman, and many others.

While the origins, evolution and functioning of the economic age makes for fascinating reading in its own right, this is not the real reason for delving deeply into the domain of economics. The real reason has to do with determining whether the economic age is capable of producing the changes that are needed in the human condition and world system to address the difficult, demanding and debilitating problems that have loomed up on the global horizon in recent years.

In order to ascertain this, it is necessary to subject the economic age to vigorous evaluation. One the one hand, this means examining the numerous strengths of the economic age - strengths that many people and countries in the world enjoy today. On the other hand, it means analyzing the many shortcomings of the economic age - shortcomings that many people and countries are compelled to endure every day. If, as John McHale contended, people survive, uniquely, by their capacity to "act in the present on the basis of past experience considered in terms of future consequences,"4 then it only makes sense to assess the economic age in order to determine whether it is capable of delivering the changes that are needed in the human condition and world system to set things right.

When this process is completed and the balance sheet is composed on the economic age, the overriding conclusion that emerges is that the economic age is not capable of delivering the changes that are needed in the human condition and world system to address the difficult, demanding and debilitating problems that have loomed up on the global horizon and set things right. In fact, the longer the economic age is perpetuated, the more dangerous the consequences will be, particularly in terms of further degeneration of the natural environment, consumption of the world's scarce renewable and non-renewable resources at an alarming rate, multiplication of consumer demands and expectations that are impossible to fulfil, greater inequalities in income and wealth between rich and poor countries and rich and poor people, failure to achieve "development with a human face," and the potential collapse of the entire global eco-system.

This makes it imperative to ask what type of age is capable of addressing these problems and producing the changes that are needed to deal with them.

Needless to say, there are many different views and opinions on what type of age this should be. For some, it should be a totally different kind of economic age - one based on knowledge, information, ideas, services and "the global economy" rather than machines, industry, products, and municipal, regional and national economies. For others, it should be an environmental age, one capable of conserving resources, controlling pollution, reducing global warming, protecting the biosphere, and radically changing people's attitudes towards nature, the natural environment, and other species. For still others, it should be a technological or communications age, one capable of capitalizing on the computer revolution, the shift from verbal to visual literacy, global networking, the Internet, electronic highways, cyberspace, and mind-boggling changes in satellite communications. And for still others, it should be a political, social, scientific, artistic or spiritual age, one based on preventing terrorism, providing safety and security, promoting democracy, reducing the production of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, conquering outer space, capitalizing on major advances in science, biotechnology and genetics, creating new social and legal structures, fashioning new moral and ethical codes, and evolving new aesthetic and religious values.

While all these views and opinions have a legitimate claim to the type of age that is most needed in the future, many signs point in the direction of a "cultural age." Most prominent among these signs are: the holistic transformation that is taking place in the world today; the environmental movement; the encounter with human needs; the struggle for equality; the necessity of identity; the quest for quality of life; the focus on creativity; and the rise of culture as a crucial force in the world.

What makes a cultural age so compelling is the fact that it possesses the potential to bring about a transformation in the human condition and world system in peaceful rather than violent ways - through a renaissance rather than a revolution. Its potential to achieve this is based on taking a comprehensive and egalitarian rather than partial and partisan approach to the world system, instituting the safeguards and precautions that are essential to ensure that culture, cultures and civilizations are dealt with in constructive rather than destructive terms, and focusing on "ends" as well as "means." This makes it possible to place the priority on the whole rather than a part of the whole - as is the case with the economic age - as well as achieve balanced, harmonious and equitable relationships between the parts and the whole - economics and all other activities in society.

The main consequence of this is that a much higher priority would be placed on culture and cultures in general, and holism, people, caring, sharing, altruism, equality, conservation, cooperation, spiritualism and environmentalism in particular, in the overall scheme of things. This would make it possible to reduce the demands human beings are making on the natural environment, nature and other species, as well as realize more equitable distributions of wealth, income, resources and opportunities for all people and countries throughout the world. It would also place humanity in a much stronger position to make sensible and sustainable decisions about future courses in planetary civilization.

It is to a cultural age, then, that attention is directed in the second part of the book. Whereas part one is largely descriptive, factual and explanatory in nature - primarily because we are living in an economic age at present and have been for more than two centuries - part two is much more exploratory, analytical and prospective in nature. Its purpose is to sketch out a general portrait of a cultural age and put enough flesh on it so that it can stand alongside other portraits of the future age and act as a guide to human development and decision-making in the years and decades ahead.

In order to sketch out this portrait, it is necessary to delve deeply into the realm of culture in the second part of the book. On the one hand, this means examining the theories, ideas, insights and works of many cultural scholars and practitioners, since it is on their theories, ideas, insights and works that the foundations for a cultural age would be established.5 On the other hand, it means building up an understanding of the way a cultural age would function in fact, especially as it relates to the mechanics, priorities and flourishing of such an age.

What stands out most clearly when this portrait is completed is how different a cultural age might be from an economic age. Not only would it be based on different theoretical, practical, historical and philosophical foundations, but also it would flow from different principles, priorities, policies and practices. This is essential if humanity is to come to grips with the life-threatening problems of the present and cross over the threshold to a more exhilarating future.