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THE CULTURAL CREATIVES
A brand new book titled THE CULTURAL CREATIVES offers important insights into U.S. culture and how we might organize to change our future. It offers entirely original, new perspectives that could help the environmental and social justice movements find new paths, sidestepping the troubles that have stymied them in recent years. Listen up.
THE CULTURAL CREATIVES was written by Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson who have spent more than a decade doing survey research to discover the values that we in the U.S. hold dear. ("Values are the best single predictor of real behavior," they say.) They find that, based on fundamental values, U.S. citizens can now be classified into three major groups: Moderns, Traditionals, and Cultural Creatives. We all recognize Moderns and Traditionals, but most people don't know that the Cultural Creatives exist. Even the Cultural Creatives themselves are not aware of their huge numbers -- 50 million strong, according to Ray and Anderson. Here lie the seeds of a cultural revolution -- one that is already well along.
The Moderns: The Moderns are the dominant subculture of our time. They make the rules we all live by--they control the civil service, the military, the courts, and the media. Some of them operate the multinational corporations. Their ideology is laid out for us every day, in detail, in the NEW YORK TIMES and the WALL STREET JOURNAL, in the other major papers, and on TV. The Moderns' belief in a technological economy is reshaping the face of the globe. The Moderns tend to dismiss other cultures and other ways of life as somehow inferior. In sum, "The simplest way to understand today's Moderns is to see that they are the people who accept the commercialized urban-industrial world as the obvious right way to live. They're not looking for alternatives," say Ray and Anderson. To Moderns, growth is not only good, it is essential. What's most important to moderns is
(a) making lots of money;
(b) climbing the ladder of success with measurable steps toward one's goal;
(c) having lots of choices (as a consumer, or voter or on the job);
(d) being on top of the latest trends, styles and innovations;
(e) supporting economic and technological progress at the national level;
(f) rejecting the values and concerns of native people, rural people, Traditionals, New Agers, and religious mystics.
Moderns represent 48% of the U.S. citizenry (93 million adults) and, in 1995, they had a median family income of $42,500.
The Traditionals: Traditionals represent 24.5% of U.S. citizens (48 million adults). "Many Traditionals are not white bread Republicans but elderly New Deal Democrats, Reagan Democrats, and old-time union people as well as social conservatives in politics...."
Traditionals tend to believe (among other things) that
(a) patriarchs should again dominate family life;
(b) FEMINISM is a swearword;
(c) men need to keep their traditional roles and women need to keep theirs;
(d) family, church, and community are where you belong;
(e) customary and familiar ways of life should be maintained;
(f) it's important to regulate sex -- pornography, teen sex, extramarital sex-- and abortion;
(g) men should be proud to serve in the military;
(h) all the guidance you need for your life can be found in the Bible;
(i) preserving civil liberties is less important than restricting immoral behavior;
(j) freedom to carry arms is essential;
(k) foreigners are not welcome.
Many Traditionals are pro-environment and anti-big business. They are outraged at the destruction of the world they remember, both natural areas and small-town life. Traditionals tend to be older, poorer, and less educated than others in the U.S. At the end of World War II, Traditionals were 50% of the population, but today they are 25%, and their numbers are shrinking as older Traditionals die and are not being replaced by younger ones.
The Cultural Creatives: What Ray and Anderson discovered during a decade of research is that the Moderns and Traditionals have now been joined by a third subculture within the U.S., 50 million strong (26% of all adults) -- a population the size of France, and growing. Ray and Anderson have labeled them "Cultural Creatives." Here is a list of 18 characteristics; if you have 10 or more of them, you're probably a cultural creative:
(a) love nature and are deeply concerned about its destruction;
(b) are strongly aware of the problems of the whole planet and want to see action to curb them, such as limiting economic growth;
(c) would pay more taxes or higher prices if you knew the money would go to clean up the environment and stop global warming;
(d) give a lot of importance to developing and maintaining relationships;
(e) place great importance on helping other people;
(f) volunteer for one or more good causes;
(g) care intensely about psychological or spiritual development;
(h) see spirituality and religion as important in your own life but are also concerned about the role of the religious Right in politics;
(h) want more equality for women at work and want more women leaders in business and politics;
(i) are concerned about violence and the abuse of women and children everywhere on Earth;
(j) want politics and government to emphasize children's education and well being, the rebuilding of neighborhoods and communities, and creation of an ecologically sustainable future;
(k) are unhappy with both left and right in politics and want a new way that is not the mushy middle;
(l) tend to be optimistic about the future and distrust the cynical and pessimistic view offered by the media;
(m) want to be involved in creating a new and better way of life in our country;
(n) are concerned about what big corporations are doing in the name of profit: exploiting poor countries, harming the environment, downsizing;
(o) have your finances and spending under control and are not concerned about overspending;
(p) dislike the modern emphasis on success, on "making it," on wealth and luxury goods;
(q) like people and places that are exotic and foreign, and enjoy experiencing and learning about other ways of life.
Cultural Creatives are not defined by particular demographic characteristics -- they are accountants and social workers, waitresses and computer programmers, hair stylists and lawyers and chiropractors and truck drivers, photographers and gardeners. The large majority of them are very mainstream in their religious beliefs. They are no more liberal or conservative than the U.S. mainstream, though they tend to reject "left-right" labels. Really, their one distinguishing demographic characteristic is that 60% of them are women, and most Cultural Creatives tend to hold values and beliefs that women have traditionally held about issues of caring, family life, children, education, relationships, and responsibility. In their personal lives, they seek authenticity -- meaning they want their actions to be consistent with what they believe and say. They are also intent on finding wholeness, integration, and community. Cultural Creatives are quite clear that they do not want to live in an alienated, disconnected world. Their approach to health is preventive and holistic, though they do not reject modern medicine. In their work, they may try to go beyond earning a living to having "right livelihood" or a vocation.
Ray and Anderson summarize the forces that have given rise to Cultural Creatives: "In the twenty-first century, a new era is taking hold. The biggest challenges are to preserve and sustain life on the planet and find a new way past the overwhelming spiritual and psychological emptiness of modern life. Though these issues have been building for a century, only now can the Western world bring itself to publicly consider them. The Cultural Creatives are responding to these overwhelming challenges by creating a new culture." New businesses, new management styles, new technologies, new forms of social organization (for example, leasing products, such as carpets and refrigerators, to consumers instead of selling them, to make sure they are recycled), and new decision-making techniques (the precautionary principle, for example) -- the Cultural Creatives are constructing a new world in our midst, largely ignored by the media.
By different paths, fifty million Cultural Creatives emerged from (or were influenced by) social movements of the '60s and '70s. Ray and Anderson describe 20 such movements that have spawned Cultural Creatives who, in turn, have begun to put a positive spin on movements that have been mainly oppositional. "Slowly a lesson has been drifting in on one movement organization after another. At some point, opposing something bad ceases to be enough, and they must stand for positive values, or produce a service that is important to their constituency," Ray and Anderson note.
Ray and Anderson see this shift occurring in the environmental movement, and we see it too. "Cultural Creatives are urging the environmental movement into a new phase. Having educated us through protests and information, some are moving beyond that now, to develop new kinds of businesses, technologies, and cooperative ventures." To put labels on these innovations, they are the Natural Step,[2] clean production,[3] and zero waste.[4] Together, they are beginning to rebuild the industrial infrastructrure of the Western world. There's a long way to go, but it's a start.
A major impediment to further innovation is the fact that Cultural Creatives all think there are very few of them when in fact there are very many of them. Therefore, "They do not know that they have the potential to shape the life of twenty-first century America," say Ray and Anderson. "Like an audience in a theater, Cultural Creatives all look in the same direction. They read the same books and share the same values and come to similar conclusions--but rarely do they turn toward one another. They have not yet formed a sense of 'us' as a collective identity; nor do they have a collective image of themselves."
Again and again, Ray and Anderson stress that the Cultural Creatives are hampered by their own lack of self-awareness. They don't yet see themselves in their diverse totality, and so they fail to recognize their own potential for creating a new world. "Since they are part of a subculture that cannot yet see itself, these millions of Cultural Creatives do not know what a potential they carry for our common future." Until we recognize each other's existence, we cannot work together.
This is a rich, thought-provoking book. If you are interested in influencing our future, you will definitely benefit from reading it.
--Peter Montague
WEST NILE VIRUS--PART 2
by Rachel Massey*
As we saw two weeks ago, West Nile virus (WNV) appeared in the U.S. for the first time in 1999.** WNV was previously unknown in the Western Hemisphere, but it has now spread to seven states, most recently North Carolina.[1] Carried by mosquitoes that can infect humans, this virus often produces no symptoms at all but can sometimes lead to serious illness. In some cities, public health authorities have responded by spraying entire neighborhoods with pesticides intended to kill mosquitoes. These mass pesticide sprayings pose threats to human health and do not necessarily reduce populations of disease-bearing mosquitoes.
Experiences with another mosquito-borne virus, eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), indicate that pesticide sprays do not necessarily achieve the desired effect. For example, a 1997 study looked at trends in populations of CULISETA MELANURA, the mosquito primarily responsible for transmitting EEE among birds. Over a period of eleven years, Cicero Swamp in central New York state was sprayed fifteen times with one insecticide and once with another. Instead of declining, the population of CS. MELANURA grew fifteen-fold during this period. The study suggests that the pesticides may have altered the ecological balance of the swamp, killing organisms whose presence would ordinarily help limit the CS. MELANURA population.[2] In general, spraying can kill fish and other natural mosquito predators, and repeated spraying can produce pesticide-resistant mosquitoes.
Pesticides meant to kill flying insects are often applied as an ultra-low volume (ULV) spray. ULV spray equipment creates tiny pesticide droplets that can remain aloft for long periods and, due to their light weight, readily drift away from the target area. Scientists have estimated that less than 0.0001% of ULV pesticide sprays actually reach the target insects.[4,pgs.18,22] So for every droplet that reaches a mosquito, hundreds of thousands more droplets circulate pointlessly in the environment.
Effective mosquito control uses knowledge of mosquito ecology to minimize opportunities for human exposure. One important tactic is reducing mosquito breeding habitats. CULEX PIPIENS, also known as the northern house mosquito, has been the principal though not the only mosquito species transmitting WNV in the U.S. in 1999 and 2000. CX. PIPIENS breeds readily in standing water found in places like wading pools, birdbaths, puddles, ditches, and standing surface water from septic systems.[5] I ts typical flight range is a quarter to a half mile.[6] This means that a mosquito that bites you on your front porch may well have hatched in your back yard -- and that you and your neighbors can have a direct effect on local mosquito populations.
On a community level, guidelines for effective mosquito control include:
** Do not use "adulticides," or pesticides meant to kill adult mosquitoes.
** Focus on controlling mosquitoes in their immature forms: eggs, larvae, or pupae. Stock ponds and other bodies of water with mosquito-eating fish, and keep waterways clean so that fish and other mosquito predators can survive. In some cases, it is appropriate to use bacterial larvicides or mechanical controls such as vegetable-based oils that smother mosquito eggs floating on the surface of the water.[3] Mechanical control of adults may be an option as well. Traps exist that may attract and kill mosquitoes over areas of up to an acre. (See, for example, www.mosquitomagnet.com.)
** On a municipal or county level, set up a system for citizens to report standing water near their homes.
** Establish monitoring programs to pinpoint where mosquito-borne diseases are occurring. Monitoring can rely both on trapping mosquitoes and on "sentinel birds," such as chickens, tested regularly for signs of infection.
** Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of all mosquito control measures.
** Make sure the public knows what people can do at home to minimize mosquito exposure and eliminate breeding sites. Public health education is a good investment of resources and will pay off better than quick-fix expenditures on chemical sprays. ^Here are some steps individuals can take around their homes:
** Get rid of any unnecessary items on your property that can hold stagnant water, such as old tires.
** Empty water from buckets, toys, and containers, and store them in places where they will not collect rain.
** Drill holes in the bottoms of recycling bins and any other containers that must be kept outdoors.
** Drain the water from bird baths, fountains, wading pools, plant pots and drip trays twice a week.
** Check for other ways water may be collecting around your house, such as puddles beneath air conditioners.
** Clean out your gutters and fix gutters that sag or do not drain completely. Check for areas of standing water on flat roofs.
** If you have a swimming pool, outdoor sauna, or hot tub, make sure rainwater does not collect on the cover.
** Clear vegetation and trash from any drains, culverts, ponds or streams on your property so that water drains properly.
** Keep grass cut short and trim shrubs to minimize hiding places for adult mosquitoes.
** Eliminate standing water in your basement.
** To minimize the likelihood of being bitten inside your house, make sure window and door screens fit properly and replace outdoor lights with yellow "bug lights."
** To avoid being bitten outdoors, wear hats, long sleeves and long pants in the evenings, when mosquitoes are most active.
Insect repellents can help, but some of them are dangerous. Products containing the pesticide DEET should be avoided. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acknowledges fourteen cases in which individuals reported seizures associated with exposure to DEET. Twelve were children, three of whom died.[9, pgs. 22-23] DEET can also interact with other chemicals to produce severe toxic effects on the nervous system, and may have played a role in Gulf War Syndrome (see REHW #498 ). Based on existing information about DEET's health effects, EPA determined in September 1998 that the labels on some DEET-containing products were misleading. Under EPA's new requirements, it is illegal to label DEET-containing products as designed for children or "safe for kids." However, EPA chose to allow a grace period of more than four years during which products with old labels can be sold [9, pg. 41], so stores can still sell products with misleadin g safety claims.
Many essential oils derived from plants have insect repellent properties, and some plant-based formulations provide protection from bites.[10] CONSUMER REPORTS magazine says a product called Bite Blocker is effective for 1 to 4 hours.[11] With all insect repellents, it is worth minimizing your exposure. Treat clothing, rather than skin, whenever possible, and wash off repellents with soap and water after returning indoors. ^If WNV has not yet appeared where you live, you may want to get ready in case it appears next year. You can start now to educate your town, city, or county officials about pesticide hazards and encourage them to develop a comprehensive non-chemical mosquito control program. It makes sense to contact these officials during the winter, when they are not under pressure to act quickly.
Find out whether your city or town already has a mosquito control program, and try to identify an individual in your public health department who is responsible for mosquito-borne diseases. Ask whether the department has a written plan for responding if infected birds or mosquitoes are found in your area. ^This could also be a good opportunity to find out about and work to eliminate "nuisance" mosquito control programs, in which routine spraying is carried out with no public health rationale.
Finally, you may wish to raise awareness about the links between global warming and emerging infectious diseases. Because global warming creates opportunities for tropical diseases to spread or move northward, the appearance of WNV in the U.S. may be a harbinger of things to come. If your municipality has a program to reduce emissions of "greenhouse gases" such as carbon dioxide, talking about links to WNV could help jumpstart the program or give it new publicity.
Paul Epstein of Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment argues that the spread of mosquito-borne diseases like WNV is aided by several phenomena associated with global warming, including mild winters, hot summers, and drought. The "globalized" economy and increasing international travel also create new opportunities for exchange of diseases across regions. According to Epstein, back-to-back weather extremes in 1998 and 1999 probably encouraged the proliferation of WNV and the mosquitoes that carry it. In a recent article in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN he writes, "The mild winter of 1998-99 enabled many of the mosquitoes to survive into the spring, which arrived early. Drought in spring and summer concentrated nourishing organic matter in their breeding areas and simultaneously killed off mosquito predators, such as lacewings and ladybugs, that would otherwise have helped limit mosquito populations. Drought would also have led birds to congregate more, as they sha red fewer and smaller watering holes, many of which were frequented, naturally, by mosquitoes."[12, pg. 54] Later in the summer, heavy rain created new mosquito breeding opportunities. Higher temperatures also tend to increase mosquito activity and accelerate the reproduction and maturation of viruses within their bodies.
As communities make decisions about WNV, public officials must be prepared to talk frankly about the uncertainties they face. For example, it is not acceptable to provide ample information on risks associated with WNV while witholding parallel information on the toxicity of pesticides used to combat mosquitoes. As always, our ability to make good decisions depends on honesty about scientific uncertainties combined with open public discussion of the full range of alternatives available to us.
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