Are you a cultural creative? : Part 2

The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
By Paul H. Ray, Ph.D., Sherry Ruth Anderson, Ph.D.

(Page 2 of 2)

Since the 1960s, 26 percent of the adults in the United States - 50 million people - have made a comprehensive shift in their worldview, values, and way of life - their culture, in short. These creative, optimistic millions are at the leading edge of several kinds of cultural change, deeply affecting not only their own lives but our larger society as well. We call them the Cultural Creatives because, innovation by innovation, they are shaping a new kind of American culture for the twenty-first century.

One useful way to view the idea of "culture" is as a large repertoire of solutions for the problems and passions that people consider important in each time period. So these are the people who are creating many of the surprising new cultural solutions required for the time ahead. In the chapters that follow, we tell their stories and the story of how they are changing our world.

A Long-Anticipated Moment

When we say that a quarter of all Americans have taken on a whole new worldview, we are pointing to a major development in our civilization. Changing a worldview literally means changing what you think is real. Some closely related changes contribute to and follow from changes in worldview: changes in values, your fundamental life priorities; changes in lifestyle, the way you spend your time and money; and changes in livelihood, how you make that money in the first place.

As recently as the early 1960s, less than 5 percent of the population was engaged in making these momentous changes - too few to measure in surveys. In just over a generation, that proportion grew steadily to 26 percent. That may not sound like much in this age of nanoseconds, but on the timescale of whole civilizations where major developments are measured in centuries, it is shockingly quick. And it's not only the speed of this emergence that is stunning. Its extent is catching even the most alert observers by surprise. Officials of the European Union, hearing of the numbers of Cultural Creatives in the United States, launched a related survey in each of their fifteen countries in September 1997. To their amazement, the evidence suggested that there are at least as many Cultural Creatives across Europe as we reported in the United States.

Visionaries and futurists have been predicting a change of this magnitude for well over two decades. Our research suggests that this long-anticipated cultural moment may have arrived. The evidence is not only in the numbers from our survey questionnaires but in the everyday lives of the people behind those numbers. The sheer size of the Cultural Creative population is already affecting the way Americans do business and politics. They are the drivers of the demand that we go beyond environmental regulation to real ecological sustainability, to change our entire way of life accordingly. They demand authenticity - at home, in the stores, at work, and in politics. They support women's issues in many areas of life. They insist on seeing the big picture in news stories and ads. This is already influencing the marketplace and public life. Because Cultural Creatives are not yet aware of themselves as a collective body, they do not recognize how powerful their voices could be. And if the rest of us are blind to the paradoxical gifts that their awakening brings, then we may well be left wondering where all the changes are coming from.

This book aims to sharpen our collective awareness with an in-depth look into who the Cultural Creatives are and what their emergence means for them and for all of us. Whether you are a Cultural Creative or share an office, a home, or a bed with one, or whether you simply want to create new projects or do business with Cultural Creatives, you'll discover what differences their presence will make in your life.

© 2001 by Paul H. Ray, Ph.D., Sherry Ruth Anderson, Ph.D.

About the Author

Paul H. Ray, Ph.D., was educated at Yale and the University of Michigan. Currently he is executive vice president of American LIVES, Inc., a market research and opinion polling firm doing research on the lifestyles and values of Americans.

Sherry Ruth Anderson, Ph.D., was educated at Goucher College and the University of Toronto, where she was an associate professor and head of psychological research at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry. She is the author of numerous articles in psychology and coauthor of the bestselling Feminine Face of God. The authors are married and live in Northern California.