by Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson
Since the 1960s, 26 percent of adults in the
My experience reading the book was as follows: First, I was
overjoyed to read about people whose values were so closely aligned to my own.
Then, I was flabbergasted to find out how many of those people are out there.
It’s like discovering you have 49,999,999 kindred spirits. Finally, it made me
feel really hopeful about our future and the part I can play in helping it
unfold.
More details from the Cultural Creative website:
“Does
the religious right
have a hammerlock on values in
In this landmark book, sociologist Paul Ray and
psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson draw upon 13 years of survey research studies on over 100,000 Americans,
plus over 100 focus groups and dozens of depth interviews. They tell who the
Cultural Creatives are, and the fascinating story of their emergence over the
last generation.
The Cultural Creatives care
deeply about ecology and saving the planet, about relationships, peace, social
justice, and about self actualization, spirituality and self-expression.
Surprisingly, they are both inner-directed and socially concerned; they're
activists, volunteers and contributors to good causes more than other Americans.
However, because they've been so invisible in American life, Cultural Creatives
themselves are astonished to find out how many share both their values and
their way of life. Once they realize their numbers, their impact on American
life promises to be enormous, shaping a new agenda for the twenty-first
century.
Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson tell how people departed from Modern or
Traditional cultures to weave new ways of life. Three
What makes the appearance of the Cultural Creatives especially timely today is
that our civilization is in the midst of an epochal change, caught between
globalization, accelerating technologies and a deteriorating planetary ecology.
A creative minority can have enormous leverage to carry us into a new
renaissance instead of a disastrous fall. The book ends with a number of maps
for the remarkable journey that our civilization is embarked upon: initiations,
evolutionary models, scenarios, and the elements of a new mythos for our time.
The Cultural Creatives offers a more hopeful future, and prepares us all for a
transition to a new, saner and wiser culture.”
Are you a Cultural Creative? Fill out the on-line questionnaire and find out!
On February 6, 2004 I attended a
talk at Town Hall in Seattle by Paul Ray entitled “The New Political Compass” where he discussed the
political implications of his work on the Cultural Creatives.
A brief article – very worth
reading - about "The New Political Compass" written by Paul Ray in Yes! Magazine.
Paul Ray said the
single most important thing we can do to impact our political arena is to stop
being consumers and start being citizens. He advocated entering into conversation
with other “citizens” as a powerful way to start. A great resource for making conversation
happen is www.conversationcafe.org. They offer support for open, hosted
conversations in cafes and other public places and offer “a simple process that
helps to shift small talk to BIG talk, and to make sense of our world.” I’m
eager to try it.
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