[.ca] The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are ... (ISBN 0609808451)

From Amazon.com:
Do you "give a lot of importance to helping other people and bringing out their unique gifts?" Do you "dislike all the emphasis in modern culture on success and 'making it,' on getting and spending, on wealth and luxury goods?" Do you "want to be involved in creating a new and better way of life for our country?" If you answered yes to all three of these questions--and at least seven more of the remaining 15 in Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson's questionnaire--then you are probably a Cultural Creative. Cultural Creative is a term coined by Ray and Anderson to describe people whose values embrace a curiosity and concern for the world, its ecosystem, and its peoples; an awareness of and activism for peace and social justice; and an openness to self-actualization through spirituality, psychotherapy, and holistic practices. Cultural Creatives do not just take the money and run; they don't want to defund the National Endowment for the Arts; and they do want women to get a fairer shake--not only in the United States, but around the globe. On the basis of Ray and Anderson's research, about 50 million Americans are Cultural Creatives, a group that includes people of all races, ages, and classes. This subculture could have enormous social and political clout, the authors argue, if only it had any consciousness of itself as a cohesive unit, a society of fellow travelers. The husband and wife team wrote the book "to hold up a mirror" to the members of this vast but diffuse group, to show them they are not alone and that they can reshape society to make it more authentic, compassionate, and engaged. It is an idealistic call for a new agenda for a new millennium. --I. Crane

If you want life to continue on this planet.....:
Just what is a Cultural Creative? Authors Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson conducted a study for the EPA (1998) to ascertain citizen views about the environment. What they discovered was 50 million CC individuals who are changing the world one step at a time. The authors supply a test the reader can use to determine whether they are a 'Traditional' (25 percent of the population); a 'Modern' (50 percent); or a CC (25 percent). Using their three "types" to explore cultural values, including attitudes towards the environment, the authors have uncovered a lot of good and bad news. Not surprisingly perhaps, all three groups think the environment is very important (good) while disagreeing about many other cultural issues including the best way to deal with the environmental mess that is killing life on this planet (bad). The authors suggest that while most folks are aware of the attitudes and opinions of the 'Modern' and 'Traditional' types because they can be found arguing in newspapers, on tv and in person, the opinions and activities of the Cultural Creative types are more elusive. Ray and Anderson have assembled a huge amount of information and synthesized it into a fairly coherent package. They leave virtually no sociological source untapped as they report on everything from AIDS to Zen. Their book is nicely complemented with survey results and graphs (simple and easy to understand) and plenty of references for further reading. While I don't agree with each and everything these authors say (only 95 percent), I do believe thinking people (especially Moderns..which I used to be) need to read this provocative book. I underlined so many passages and pasted sticky markers on so many pages I don't know where to begin to describe the content, except to say this is not a doom and gloom book that will make you want to swallow rat poison. This book offers examples of a better way to live. It offers HOPE for our planet. To put the CC message in a nutshell..if we want life to continue on this planet we must act and act now. You may not agree with all you read, but you will probably find the authors arguments compelling and may discover you are already a Cultural Creative or on the way to becoming one through the process of self-actualization (yes, they include Maslow, Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Wicca and Catholic nuns).

Not A Member Of Cultural Creatives, Inc.:
I always detest attempts by academics engaged in sociological studies to place people into convenient categories in order to describe them. The real world is simply more complex than the one proposed by Ray and Anderson in their book. According to the authors, there are three major subcultures in the United States: Traditionals, Moderns and the newly emerging hippie dippie "Cultural Creatives." They've got mountains of interviews and completed sociological questionnaires to prove it. The trouble with the author's approach is that it never seems to cross their minds that individuals might share the values of more than one of the subcultures they have invented for their book. I for example find myself in general agreement with Cultural Creatives on the issue of militarism, but I am more in agreement with the secularism of the Moderns. The author's brush aside just criticism of the dopey spirituality of the Creatives but never confront why "New Age" has become a term of derision. It's because this dopey spirituality is being expounded by many a gluttonous urban liberal. I know this because I live in place that is overrun with these kinds of people. The spirituality is icky stuff. I can't stand it. There is no doubt that a social revolution has taken place in the United States over the past 40 - 50 years. Ray and Anderson have the data to prove it, but their interpretation of that data is an invitation to join their cult. The book is a good source of sociological information though. It could have been shortened by trimming down the numerous personal anecdotes and testimonials of personal transformation from individual "cultural creatives" they cite.

I'm convinced:
I found this book very encouraging. In the corporate-owned mass media, there's a persistent theme that the sixties were a temporary aberration: for a few years, people wore tie-dyed T-shirts, smoked pot, held nude encounter groups, marched for peace, and joined exotic religions; but it was all just a fad, and now everything is back to normal again. The authors point out that, on the contrary, while the big issues of the sixties aren't getting the media attention they used to, in fact they have had a profound effect on society: comparison of survey results from the 1950's and the 1990's shows that there's been an immense shift in public opinion about such subjects as racial equality, women's rights, alternative medicine, and ecology. Also, all the old hippies and radicals haven't died off or dropped out of politics; they're still working for the same "causes," but most of them have transferred their activism to more local, specific arenas. The authors make an important point that I think mainstream politics often misses: The people they label "cultural creatives" belong to a wide variety of political parties, organizations, and religions, and are passionate about issues rather than politics; so a political strategy that attempts to draw this diverse but active group into supporting a single party or platform (e.g., "If you believe in X, then you should vote for these Democratic candidates") won't succeed. The book is several years old, and the political/social landscape in the U.S. has changed since 2000. But (based on my own experience) I feel that the authors' conclusions about who the Cultural Creatives are and how they got that way are valid. On the other hand, I think they missed a few things: (1) They discuss the role of institutes such as Esalen in the human consciousness movement, but don't mention other media: magazines such as Utne Reader, radio programs like New Dimensions, many PBS radio and TV stations, alternative newspapers, etc. In areas of the country where someone who holds non-mainstream opinions can often feel isolated, these media played (and continue to play) a major role. (2) The Internet has been a major factor in global connectivity for at least 20 years, but the authors give it only about a page of rather vague discussion. While using the Internet for direct political action is a relatively new phenomenon (MoveOn.org, one of the most visible groups, was founded in 1998 in response to the Clinton impeachment), issues-oriented web sites and mailing lists, ranging across the political spectrum, have been around for much longer. I also think the authors underestimated the general effects of the Internet on human relationships: as an acquaintance of mine in Europe once put it, if you have 'Net buddies in another country, you're far less likely to drop a bomb on it. I think the book is persuasively argued and the authors draw reasonable conclusions from the (very extensive) statistical data. I found some of the lengthy discussions about Traditionals and Moderns rather tedious, but in general this is an exciting and important book that deserves to be widely read.

Fascinating read, but not perfect.:
This is a fascinating book that I couldn't put down when I first got it. Anderson and Ray write in a style that is both intellectually stimulating and easy for lay audiences to understand. As a "cultural creative" myself, the book had a helpful, optimistic tone. But the book is far from perfect. As some other reviewers have astutely pointed out, the authors fail to take into consideration that people might overlap more than one of the three groups outlined in the book. What happens when a "modern" couple from Omaha decide they want to move back to "traditional" Grandpa's farm in the country to raise their kids? Anderson and Ray don't give fair treatment to cross-over between the groups. This is unfortunate, and gives an incomplete picture of the United States. Next, as someone who took a good amount of sociology in college, I was disappointed with the book's treatment of how one becomes a modern, traditional, or creative. More individual case studies, instead of a macro-level analysis would have been helpful.

A New Paradigm for a New Era:
I'm grateful a friend loaned this book to me. The authors' research identifies a core population that is committed to a series of interrelated movements-- ecology, human rights, glbt rights, access to health care, etc. This group, comprising 50 million, illuminates the deficiencies of the left/right political dichotomy and offers a paradigm to transcend that model.