http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/975
50 million of us in USA: CulturalCreatives.org:
Thompson: Murray 3.6.3 rmforall

Subject: [Activist_List] cultural creatives: How 50 Million People Are
Changing the World
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 19:37:26 EST
From: Familywork90@...
Reply-To: Activist_List@yahoogroups.com
From: "Bryan Thompson" <baronvonbryan@...>

Subject: cultural creatives

Hi everyone. I bring you today something that may stir some debate
and good-old-fashioned conversation. This was found on the website of
cultural creatives ( http://culturalcreatives.org/ ).
I've heard of cultural creatives before and another term one sub-group
of them are referred to as-- crunchy conservatives. All crunchy
conservatives (called that because of their love of granola and other
great foods) are cultural creatives, but not all cultural creatives are
crunchy conservatives. I found this very interesting, & thought that we
might share this with you, and spur some debate about whether the group
is as big as the researchers say, and what effects cultural creatives
will have on politics and world affairs. thanks.

P.S. - the book advertised below is my dad's new book. It's well
written and includes an interesting, while fictional, observation on
the errors of the death penalty. If you like good conspiracy thriller
fiction with an angle for social change, you will definitely like this.
Please check it out! Thanks. *Peace* Bryan Thompson

Living Proof - Berkley paperback - March 2003
Government secrets/biological weapons/human subjects
http://www.peterjthompson.net

http://culturalcreatives.org/

While Cultural Creatives are a subculture, they lack one critical
ingredient in their lives: awareness of themselves as a whole people.
We call them the Cultural Creatives precisely because they are
already creating a new culture. If they could see how promising this
creativity is for all of us, if they could know how large their
numbers are, many things might follow. These optimistic, altruistic
millions might be willing to speak more frankly in public settings and
act more directly in shaping a new way of life for our time and the
time ahead. They might lead the way toward an Integral Culture.

When we discovered the great promise of this new group, we set out
to hold up a mirror for them, so they could see themselves fully. We
wrote a popular book that tells their story: what their culture is like,
who they are as individuals and how they live, where they came from,
and what they're creating now. It's called The Cultural Creatives:
How 50 Million People Are Changing the World.

=============== from the CC FAQ page =======

1. Why do you call them the Cultural Creatives? Because they
are literally creating a new culture. Innovation by innovation
they are shaping a new American culture for the 21st century.

2. Aren't they all just... New Age? No the New Agers are only a
tiny postage stamp on the corner of this envelope-- about 5% of
population compared to 26%, and half of the New Agers aren't
Cultural Creatives either. Most Cultural Creatives are very
mainstream and would be offended if you called them New Age.
They're very grounded and practical people.

Baby Boomers? No they're all ages: 18-70. This is not about
generational differences.

Liberals? No there are fewer liberals than conservatives, and
fewer of either than people who don't see themselves as
either left or right. This is about a new kind of politics.

Californians? No they're from all parts of the country, and
they're quite mainstream Americans.

Upper Middle Class? No, they're all income levels from working
class to very affluent.

Whites? No, they're all ethnic groups as well.

Self indulgent, hot tub Yuppies? No. The emergence of the
Cultural Creatives is not about yuppies and self-indulgence,
it's about the people who care, and who are taking steps to
make it practical and real.

3. Why are the Cultural Creatives important: why should I (or
my readers/audience) care?

The sheer size of the CC population, at 50 million people, is
already affecting the way Americans do business and politics.
They're making new kinds of businesses and nonprofits, and
they're also driving the demand for: ecologically sustainable
products and services, and concern for the whole planet; to
insist on authenticity, personally, at work, in business &
politics; bringing women's issues into public life; doing the
news differently, to see the big picture, and first person
stories, and good news too; bringing spirituality into
American life.

If people don't know about the Cultural Creatives, they may
be left behind, wondering where all the changes are coming
from. After all, any time one in four Americans are changing
their minds in fundamental ways, it's worth paying attention
to, because it's going to change your life too.

What the Cultural Creatives value and the kind of new solutions
they're creating, give us reason for optimism about the future.

There are more Cultural Creatives than voted for Clinton in the
last election. If they get it together, they can win.

Cultural Creatives are redefining what success means, away
from success at work and making a lot of money, toward a
more soulful life focused on personal fulfillment, social
conscience, creating a better future for everyone on the planet.

A new industry is appearing: Lifestyles of Health and
Sustainability, and it's $230 Billion in the U.S. this year, and
$540 Billion worldwide. And the Cultural Creatives are their
entire market.

4. If they're so important how come I haven't seen them before?
a) Actually you have seen them: They're the huge populations
who support all the new social movements from the Sixties right
up to the present day: Civil rights, peace, environment, women's,
jobs and social justice, gay lib, alternative health care, new
spiritualities, new psychotherapies, etc.

b) If you look at values, you'll see them. But most of the surveys
you hear about study only opinions that are very transitory,
while values are slow changing and very deep. Values are much
deeper than the demographic categories most surveys use. And
that's why most surveys don't show what we've found.

c) The Cultural Creatives have been invisible to public view: How
can 50 million people be invisible?

1) The national media don't cover the things they care about, or
distort them. So, if you form all your impressions from the mass
media, you'll never guess that they're there, because the media
are really intolerant of world views other than their own.

2) The Cultural Creatives don't talk about what they value in public
or at work. In part this is because they draw their conclusions that
their values aren't shared by very many people, and they don't want
to be embarrassed, put down, or harm their career prospects.

3) Most Cultural Creatives got to where they are in life almost
alone. You probably didn't arrive at the values you've got now with
your whole high school graduating class.

5. So what are all these creative solutions you're talking about, and
why do you think that can make a difference? How can the Cultural
Creatives make a difference with all that big money sloshing around?
We're at a tipping point in history, a time when a creative minority
can get the leverage to really make a difference. Part of the reason
is that these activists and schoolteachers, and artists, and spiritual
people, and scientists are following the normal American pattern for
success. They are turning their grass roots social movements and
their projects and ideas into new institutions.

Many of the most respectable institutions of today started as
controversial grass roots movements. Citizen involvement turns into
a huge variety of civic associations like: lobbying groups, political
parties, unions, civic clubs, think tanks, institutes, foundations,
charities, unions, clinics, and churches. This is what we Americans
do, and we're better at it than almost any other country in the
world. And that's what's happening now with the Cultural Creatives.

6. Well, what kinds of things are they doing? In between the pure
profit making business and the begging-for-money charity there's a
whole rainbow spectrum of new kinds of organizations and social
experiments.

Take a yoga center for example: is it a business, a spiritual place,
an education center, a health and exercise place, or a way of life?
The answer is Yes to all the above. We're crossing categories all
the time.

We interviewed a sculptor named Vijali Hamilton who travels around
the world creating something she calls the World Wheel. In each
community she creates an environmental sculpture and she does
community building. She asks the people to go deep into who they
are and how they connect to the rest of the world, and from their
answers they create apiece of theatre, and music, and a
community ritual. Is this art, community building, entertainment,
spirituality, ecology? Again, Yes, to all the above.

6. Why have the social and consciousness movements made such a
difference? Or, I don't see how all those movements from the
Sixties could make such a difference today-- that stuff is forty
years old, it's history. Or, Why do you relate the Cultural Creatives
to all those movements?

The reason why this makes such a difference is that all these
movements have been doing something new in history. They have
been trying to change our minds about what is important and how
the world works.

There's a lot more to the movements than just the people on the
ramparts, or just the obvious meditators on their cushions, there's
also a huge culturally circle around those active people who are
reframing how we see the world every day. You have to see what a
whole movement is: there's the most active people at the center,
but around them like a target, there's a huge population of less
involved people who give the money, read the literature, keep track
of what's happening, and really believe in it. There may be a few
thousand activists, and hundreds of thousands giving money, but
tens of millions who are changing their minds and their lives.

We have evidence that a typical CC cares intensely about, and is
often involved in, half a dozen of these new social and consciousness
movements, while the rest of the country care about none, or maybe
one or two. When you're involved in several movements who do
reframing, it changes your whole world view. That's where the
Cultural Creatives came from. And that's where a lot of our new
direction is coming from.

What's more, there's an enormous overlap of all the movements,
and the Cultural Creatives are right at the center of all of it. They
are the common constituency of all the movements.

It's exactly the opposite of what many pundits have claimed: it really
isn't true that if you're dealing with your own personal growth you've
dropped out of social life. Or if you're an activist, you don't have
time for an inner life. In reality, the more people are involved in
ecology issues the more they are involved in spirituality and personal
growth on the one hand, and social justice issues on the other hand.

7. Why does all of this make such a difference? Or, Isn't it all just
politics? So what? What difference could all this make?

What makes Cultural Creatives different than most Americans is
that when you're involved in several movements you've been exposed
to their reframing a lot of times, because that's what these
movements do.

Reframing is a big deal. It lets us look at our old problems from a
new angle of vision. And it gives a new way of explaining them, and a
new way to state our moral concerns. For example: What was Martin
Luther King, Jr. saying, "The Blacks gotta get theirs?" No, he said,
It's about freedom, and justice, and what the Constitution means,
and who are we as a people? What did Rachel Carson say, Keep
pollution out of your back yard? No, she said that this is about the
death of Nature. What did Betty Friedan say, The women need more
pay? No, she said This is about who we are as human beings. What
did the alternative health care movement say, Chiropractors gotta
get insurance coverage? No, they said, This is about real health and
wellness, not just medical care for catastrophic illnesses.

The Cultural Creatives are the ones who have been really paying
attention, applying those reframings in their own lives.

Reframing means you start to question the unspoken assumptions
of the social codes all around you. It's not okay to let big business
destroy the environment. It's not okay to have nuclear power. It's
not okay to let the foreign policy elite send our young people off to
wars without involving the citizens. It's not okay to put down, or
harm, people who are different than you are. And so on.

If you are exposed to half a dozen big reframes, two things happen:
the content changes your whole world view, and you get
comfortable with the process of questioning the unspoken
assumptions of the old culture. That's where the Cultural Creatives
came from. And that's where a lot of our new direction is coming
from.

All those people who have questioned the unspoken assumptions had
to rely on their own direct experience. How else could you take off
the old culture's eyeglasses? This has an incredible potential
potential for opening up creativity in our lives. It gives us some
comfort in going into the unknown. And that is where our whole
society is going anyway at this time in history.

This is a part of the personal life changes that so many Cultural
Creatives have gone through. So often they said to us that they had
to live more authentic lives after opening up questions they really
cared about, and having to live through the experiences they've had.
The Black Freedom Movement called it "walking your talk" and this
need for authenticity was picked up by every social and consciousness
movement since then.

This emphasis on authenticity is at the center of who the Cultural
Creatives are today, and is one of the key values they've brought
into American life.
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/959
aspartame review: methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid toxicity:
Murray 3.6.3 rmforall

Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall@...
1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505 USA 505-986-9103

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