Creating a Wisdom Culture

1
Creating a Wisdom Culture

• Paul H. Ray
• Wisdom University
• Integral Partnerships, LLC
• paulhray_at_aol.com

2
The Era of the Great Divide

• A watershed in history
• As big as the Rocky Mountains
• We cannot go on as before
• More of the same is physically impossible
• Most trends of the past are not sustainable

3
The Era of the Great Divide

• Either We Go Up to a Wisdom Culture and
  Planetary Integration
• As Big as the Industrial Revolution
• Or We Go Down to eco-collapse and end of
  advanced civilization
• Poor chances to restart from zero
• All easy resources are now used up

4
No Longer an Era of Change, But A Change of Eras

• To Change Agents, that means
• New dangers emerging that we have not seen before
• New opportunities emerging we dont know how to
  benefit from
• The recent past is a very poor guide to our new
  future

5
No Longer an Era of Change, But A Change of Eras

• The World is Getting Better and Better,
• And Worse and Worse,
• Faster and Faster

6
No Longer an Era of Change, But A Change of Eras

• Climate Change is Now Obvious, Dangerous and
  Irreversible
• Glaciers melting, sea levels rising 6 metres (20
  feet), ports flooded
• Crop failures, diseases, famines, etc.
• Peak Oil, and energy crises
• Extinctions and population crashes

7
Upsala Glacier, South America1928 vs. Now
8
Finally,Even TIME Magazinegets it
9
No Longer an Era of Change, A Negative Change of
Eras

• Big Downside Economic Risks
• That were at a sub-critical state
• Just before the avalanche of crises
• Each wrinkle of disruption threatens integrity of
  the whole system
• Peak Oil Crisis in fluid fuels, runaway weather
  systems, runaway US debt crisis, Iran nuclear
  weapons crisis

10
No Longer an Era of Change, A Negative Change of
Eras

• 400 known crises over 20 years, each _at_
  Probability of 5 average 1/year
• AND linked crises trigger each other
• Famines gt Genocides
• Weather Disasters gt Depressions
• Peak Oil gt Resource Wars (Iraq, Iran)
• This Eras Crises Come in Bunches They may
  overwhelm our collective capacity to respond

11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
The Culture Wars 50 Years Ago
50TRADITIONALS
50 MODERNS

Secular, materialist

Conservative, pious

The big city

Small town, country

Hip, up to date

Square, out of date

Style efficiency

Character, reliability

Cary Grant

Jimmy Stewart

Lauren
Bacall

June Allyson
14
There are 3 Subcultures Today (as of 2000)

Traditionals
24.5

Moderns
49.4

Cultural
Creatives
26.1
Total
100
If past trends continue this should be 28-30
in 2006which fits all data
15
Cultural Creatives

• Theyre literally creating a whole new culture
  for our time
• 26-30 of adults in United States
• 50-60 million people
• 30-35 in Western Europe
• 80-90 million people

16
Era of Change to Change of Eras A Wisdom Culture

• Cultural Creatives can be the Carrier Population
  for a Wisdom Culture
• The right values and worldview
• Core constituencies of most new social and
  consciousness movements in North America Europe

17

• VALUES
• Love Nature

18

• VALUES Deeply Concerned About Its Destruction

19

• VALUES Relationships Altruism

20

• VALUES
• Womens Issues
• Spirituality

21

• Peace Movement Anti-War

22
Anti-Globalization
23

• VALUES Reject Materialism,Getting and Spending

24

• VALUES Social
• Justice,
• Social
• Responsibility

25
VALUES Spirituality, Personal Growth
26

• VALUES
• Linking the Personal and the Planetary,
• The Elders and Generations to Come

27
The Cultural Creatives Story

• Its about floods of new information world-wide
  over last 40 years
• Planetary environment/ecology
• Health beyond catastrophic medicine
• Organic food vs. environmental-poisons
• Spiritual traditions from everywhere
• Nuclear, infotech, biotech, nanotech - all go
  from promise to threats

28
The Cultural Creatives Story

• Its about womens values and concerns going
  public for the first time in recorded history
• Its about the role of the new social movements
  and consciousness movements in educating the
  Western world over the past 40 years

29
Origins ALL the new social movements of past 40
years

• Civil Rights, Social Justice
• Peace (1960 to 1990, and Now, again)
• Womens (to Eco-Fem, Fem-Spiritual)
• Environmental, becoming Ecology
• Planetary Anti-globalization, Hunger
• Personal growth New spirituality
• Alternative Health Care
• Organic Food Natural Everything

30
(No Transcript)
31
From an Era of Change, To a Positive Change of
Eras

• Solar Economy Is Now Feasible
• Solar firms aim at new price target as low as
  1/Installed Watt, .02/kWh
• Very large scale solar production cheaper than
  coal,
• produce hydrogen from water
• Big solar farms
• China and India develop with less CO2

32
From an Era of Change, To a Positive Change of
Eras

• Green and Alternative Claims and Stances Will Get
  Taken Up FOR SURVIVAL by most of society
• Surging Demand for Green and Socially Responsible
  Strategies
• Going Green Synergies Subsidies
• Big Business and Big Finance Will finally get on
  board

33
From an Era of Change, To a Positive Change of
Eras

• Household Transformation
• Living Outwardly Simpler, but Inwardly Richer
  Lives
• Making a Virtue of Necessity
• Personal Transformation
• Spiritual Growth Over Your Entire Life Cycle
  Initiations of Birth, Youth, Middle Age, Elders,
  Death
• Access to the whole planets spiritual riches

34
A Positive Change of Eras

• Beyond Incremental Change
• It is NOT gradual in these times
• Need for Resilient Communities
• Buffer against supply disruption
• Buffer against collapse of government services
• Buffer against hunger, cold, weather
• Buffer against lawlessness

35
A Positive Change of Eras

• Beyond Incremental Change
• It is NOT gradual in these times
• Need for New Social Inventions
• But NOT top-down elite-driven ones to only
  benefit big money and power
• Bottom up, bubbling from the people who are most
  affected
• Massive parallel social invention

36
When Its A Change of Eras

• Work to Create the New Era,
• Dont just react to crises.
• The wise community strategist
• Sees the hand writing on the wall
• Opens an exploratory process for new
  opportunities
• Declares a big enough dream for the emerging world

37
A Change of Eras Means You Must Choose New
Visions and Strategies

• And thats why we have the Citizens Wisdom
  Culture Design Charette
• Collectively, in the field of the group, we can
  see what no one of us can see The shape of the
  Emerging New Planetary Civilization

38
(No Transcript)
39
A Time for New Visions and Strategies

• Build FOR the emerging culture, and emerging
  planet
• i.e., FOR the road ahead,
• NOT for your familiar past, and habitual
  practices
• i.e., NOT steering your car by using the rear
  view mirror

40
A Time for New Visions and Strategies

• Today is like when ancient tribes needed to move
  to a new territory
• Costly, big effort, major life changes
• So, theres big resistance to change
• It takes a major vision of possibility to get
  people to move
• It often needs wise leadership

41
A Time for New Visions and Strategies

• Wisdom says
• Make your costly new move to grasp new
  opportunities when you have a big surplus (for us
  all this decade)
• Dont wait until you are nearly starving and you
  have to go to new territory in survival mode.

42
A Time for New Visions and Strategies

• Wisdom says
• Make your risky move to the new territory in
  good company.
• Make it an altruistic and visionary game, and
  more good people will come with you (not just the
  greedy opportunists)

43
Name the New Goal and New Vision for All to See

• CREATING A WISDOM CIVILIZATION
• A Culture That Supports Sustainability
• Beyond Nationalism, Planetary Integration
• One Humanity, One Planet
• Alliance of Civil Society and Business
• Re-inventing Community
• WORK WITH CONVERGING TRENDS

44
Name the New Goal and New Vision for All to See

• CREATING A WISDOM CIVILIZATION
• The future is a design problem
• In well-designed systems we dont have to fix
  messes that should not have been made in the
  first place