Paul H. Ray's The Cultural Creatives

Reviewed by Phyllis Ehrenfeld

The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
By Paul H. Ray Ph.D., and Sherry Ruth Anderson, Ph.D.
Harmony Books, Crown Publishing Group, Random House, New York.
ISBN 0-609-60467-8
370 pages.

Dear Reader: Perhaps you too are a cultural creative if you answer yes to several of the following sample questions.

1. love nature and are deeply concerned about its destruction.

2. are strongly aware of the problems of the whole planet (global warming, destruction of rain forests, overpopulation, lack of ecological sustainability, exploitation of people in poorer countries), and want to see more action on them, such as limiting economic growth.

3. would pay more taxes or pay more for consumer goods if you knew the money would go to clean up the environment and to stop global warming.

4. give a lot of importance to developing and maintaining your relationships

5. give a lot of importance to helping other people and bringing out their unique gifts.

The thesis of macro-sociologist Paul Ray and psychologist Sherry Anderson is that fundamental changes are taking place in the values and total outlook of a significantly large subgroup in American society, but the people who most exemplify this sea-change do not know that they are not alone. The authors have mined data from thirteen years of consumer surveys for private companies, public opinion polls from non-profit groups, and representative national surveys such as a January 1999 survey sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency, and the President's Council on Sustainable Development.

Ray and Anderson use statistical sampling techniques as well as psychological in-depth interviews to describe the emergence of a substantial new and highly diverse group within the American population. Its membership covers all age groups except the under 20's and the over 70's, and most income groups. This population is surprisingly unified in their feelings about the world they live in and would like to pass on to the next generation.

The Core group in particular is the creative leading edge of the subculture, consisting of about 24 million people, just under half of the Cultural Creatives. This group includes many well educated professionals, including artists, musicians, psychotherapists, writers, environmentalists, feminists, alternative health care providers, and other professionals. This group includes more women than men. They are more interested in psychological and spiritual development than others, though they would all reject the term "new age" as a self description. They are more activist and see themselves on the front line, both in their "green" values, and in social action.

The Core group is the vanguard of a larger population of sympathizers that contribute money and would gladly support action if there was a realistic political expression for their outlook and non-materialistic values. They seek a third way between the extreme position of the culture wars, between urban-industrial Modernism, and the rural small-town Traditionalism that invariably idealizes the past. Struggling to promote this third way, Ray and Anderson describe "hundreds of national organizations, tens of thousands of local organizations, hundreds and thousands of activists, millions of loyal members who give money and read everything, and tens of millions of sympathizers in moral publics, who broadly agree with movement positions."

It is these emerging institutions that may ultimately find expression in the political life of the country. An example of this third way, which is neither left nor right, nor exactly in the middle,is the story of the largest carpet manufacturing company in the world. The owner, determined to eliminate his contribution to environmental damage, switched to natural materials, with the extraordinary result that the effluent from his manufacturing process became cleaner than the water that went into it. Technology, directed by sustainablility goals, can work miracles.

So, dear reader, did you answer yes to the questions at the beginning of this review? If so, perhaps the future is yours. In any case, while waiting, read the book for a more hopeful and refreshing scenario than we are accustomed to hearing. It will give you a detailed and insightful look at the proliferation of a brave new world of American values, unnoticed by observers and pundits of politics and media.

For more information, visit culturalcreatives.org.

Phyllis Ehrenfeld is a playwright, fiction writer, editor and book reviewer. Five of her plays have been seen in the Bergen County, New Jersey area. She holds the Arnold Gingrich Award in Fiction from the New Jersey State Councuil on the Arts. Formerly editor of the American Anorexia Bulimia Association Newsletter, she is cited in Who's Who in America and the Northeast.

Printable copy of this review

More reviews