[Oe List ...] The Spirit of the 10s

[jlepps at pc.jaring.my]

Colleagues:

One contemporary task of this group of people is 
to keep track of the "signs of the times." I've 
tried it for the past 5 decades, and below are my 
current thoughts about the teens. Please comment 
with your perceptions. This task takes us all. 
Anyway, have a very Merry Christmas, and here are some thoughts:

The Spirit of the 10s
John Epps, December 2010               (draft)

      We have made a practice of looking at the 
various decades and seeking their underlying 
spirit quest. We have used the categories of 
External Situation which creates an Internal 
Crisis that leads to an Existential Question from 
which we tend to Escape. Those categories have 
provided a way to look beneath the surface and 
discern some underlying issues and struggles that 
provide a way of making sense of what’s happening 
and addressing it creatively. With a new decade 
well under way, it seems time to have another go 
at that task. But first a quick review.
      In the 70s we experienced expanded 
horizons.  The oil crisis and the Vietnam War 
brought globality home to us personally. Our 
internal experience was unity: we sensed a common 
humanity with people everywhere. Our existential 
question was “How can I participate?” and we 
often escaped the demand of that question through 
withdrawal, either into ourselves with a 
self-sufficient style or into the cheap euphoria 
of drugs. One authentic response to this 
existential question was the development and 
promulgation of the Technology of Participation (ToP).
      The 80s were a time when we experienced the 
collapse of separating boundaries and encountered 
the inescapable diversity of planet Earth. The 
existential question it raised was one of 
integrity: “Where do I stand?” With all the 
options so visible (and none of them universal) 
what standpoint can be the basis of my integrity? 
We tended to escape through mindless relativism 
(“When in Rome, do as the Romans do”). The 
authentic response in this decade came in the 
formation of collaborative efforts and alliances 
among dramatically different groups.
      In the 90s we encountered a time of the 
intangibles: in science, nano-physics disclosed 
that nothing is substantial in the materialistic 
sense. Everything is energy in motion. Technology 
focused on information management, business on 
vision and values, medicine on preventive 
practices, cultures on foundational traditions. 
Our internal crisis was meaning. The question 
raised was: “What’s worthwhile?” Where is it 
possible to find the significance that will add 
fizz and mischief into life? Spiritualism was our 
escape in which we pursued mysticism and various 
Eastern religions as a New Age search for human 
authenticity. Authentic responses came in the 
disclosure of depth in the midst of ordinary 
experiences, a transparency sometimes disclosed in photography and art.
      In the 00s, the turn of the century was a 
decade in which we experienced the collapse of 
sustaining structures. It was not simply 9-11 
that occasioned our perception of collapse. 
Economic, political and cultural institutions 
which had provided a sense of stability and 
predictability seemed no longer to work 
effectively. Even the environment showed its 
fragility. In this situation we encountered a 
terrifying crisis of security. Our underlying 
question was “What can I trust?” We attempted to 
escape the turmoil of that question through a 
belligerence that seemed prepared to do battle 
with anyone and anything that called into 
question dependence on our favorite institutions. 
Another attempt to escape the question was 
through establishing security systems, notably at 
airports in an attempt to thwart the aims of 
“terrorists.” We also developed regulatory 
systems for economic institutions. Authentic 
responses to this situation came in the 
formulation of new myths. This was the time of 
Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings in which 
authors were developing stories that showed 
heroism in the face of unavoidable insecurity and terrifying danger.
      We've just turned into a new decade, and 
hopefully one that can diminish some of the 
hostility of the past ten years. Certainly 
Obama’s election seemed to herald a new time, 
though subsequent events have shown belligerence 
to have a residual persistence that remains 
disruptive. Still, there is a new scent in the 
air that may herald a distinctive decade ahead. 
I’d like to explore that a bit now.
      The 10s seem to be a time of intensifying 
technology. Our dependence on gizmos and gimmicks 
has never been stronger.  While watching young 
children lined up with their parents to see Santa 
Clause at a shopping mall, I noticed a couple 
with two children in the queue both intently 
fiddling with their smart phones,  probably 
surfing the Web or social networks. Even their 
two children were playing with toy cell phones. 
Later driving home I met numerous cars whose 
drivers were talking into their cell phones. A 
colleague spoke recently about college students 
who were unable to take a 4-hour examination 
because they couldn’t be away from their smart 
phones that long – they were addicted. Of course 
it’s not only the cell phones and their 
remarkable inclusion of apps for unimaginable 
activities that capture addicts. Computers, 
automobiles, TV’s, and other technologies that 
have defined modern life have developed their own 
dependents. A recent NY Times article describes a 
local coffee shop as “laptopistan,” complete with 
its own economics, polity, culture, and 
ethics.  Looking at research into energy 
generation, biotechnology, robotics, and 
artificial intelligence, technology seems only to 
be in its infancy (but in a phase of rapid 
growth).  It’s little surprise that Time magazine 
selected the founder of Facebook as their “Person of the Year” for 2010.
      The function of technology is to expand 
human potential.  Current research and inventions 
seem to offer undreamed of possibilities. Virtual 
meetings, satellite radio, microwave meals, 
robotic surgery, online shopping with digital 
assistants, self-driving automobiles, 
self-diagnosing body parts, space travel – even 
avatar immortality – are all either currently 
available or in pilot stages. The interior crisis 
occasioned by all this possibility is pure 
potential. Clearly the old structures are past 
their usefulness as we saw in the past decade. 
Now we have pure potential for creating a new 
functioning civilization. Technology is no longer 
a constraint: we can do even more than we can 
imagine. Our imaginations, however, seem 
constrained by established images of systems and 
structures that are no longer effective. We don’t 
know how to think in new categories, or even what 
those categories might be. People often speak of 
this as a digital generation gap, and to be sure 
there is one. But I suspect even the brightest 
young geeks haven’t set themselves to thinking of 
new ways to operate as a global society. Pure 
potential is an abyss – a gap with no place to 
stand, no security, and no certainty. That’s the 
situation in which we find ourselves.
      Our existential question is “How shall we 
operate?” and even the “we” is not clear. At one 
time it could refer to the family or our network 
of friends or colleagues or the community or the 
state or party or nation or race or even in our 
more generous moments, humanity as an inclusive 
whole. Now even that seems inadequate. The 
environmentalists have expanded our horizons. All 
animate beings now seem to have a claim on us, 
and that includes flora and fauna. Even the 
mineral resources which we’ve extracted and 
manipulated with abandon seem to be crying for 
attention. Neither our economic, political nor 
cultural systems are equipped to address those cries.
      We seem to have developed two means of 
escape from this question. One is the more 
political in which we latch onto any person or 
group that pretends, not so much to have a 
solution as to point the blame at someone else. 
In the USA, the Tea Party is rich in its 
objections to “the system” but sparse in its 
alternatives. More radical groups and movements 
seek to destroy existing systems in favor of a 
greatly reduced grouping that is pure in its 
ideals but exclusive of diversity.
      The other approach is more cultural and can 
be found in the media. Programs like “The Biggest 
Loser,” “Lost,” “The Survivor,” “Amazing Race,” 
“Apprentice,” “Undercover Boss,” “Slapdown,” and 
other so-called “reality shows” have captured a 
huge market in the US and abroad. Their common 
feature is the depiction of people in terribly 
difficult circumstances, and their appeal is in 
presenting the mental, physical, and emotional 
struggles of protagonists in agonizing detail. We 
seem to take some comfort in seeing others going 
through internal uproars similar to our own. The 
reason these are escapes is that on television 
there is always a way out, a winner, or a rescue. 
At that point their analogy to our experience of reality breaks down.
Authentically facing up to the existential 
question requires us to build new models, models 
that are inclusive in their scope and in their 
development. We need models for a global economy, 
for a polity that is inclusive, for a culture 
that respects diversity. There are pilots in all 
these arenas, but none has the recognition that 
might lead to widespread adoption. And the old 
systems will not go quietly away. There is 
opposition to be faced. Much is at stake. The 
trap here (perhaps another escape) is to become 
enthralled with the newest technological 
gimmicks. It is important to be aware of 
developments, but continually to raise the 
question of applying them to development of new systems for civilization.
      In the 60s and 70s, the EI/ICA set out to 
develop a “New Social Vehicle” based on a “New 
Religious Mode.” We succeeded admirably in 
formulating the rational and spiritual frameworks 
for those realities. And we put into place 
numerous pilot projects demonstrating what the 
future called for. We even experimented with 
replication in which those pilots could set in 
motion a rapid expansion. Those are valuable resources for the task at hand.
      After four or five decades, the environment 
has altered dramatically. Globality is no longer 
an edge concept; it’s an operating reality, 
thanks in part to technology. Instead of 
expanding people’s horizons, we now need to 
enhance the recognition and appreciation of 
diversity. Learning from the past, we will need 
collaboration with dissimilar groups, 
appreciation of depth in the ordinary, stories 
and myths that support creativity, and, of 
course, the technology that is newly at hand
      The alterations that have come to “us” as a 
group have been numerous and substantial going 
far beyond the inevitable process of aging. But, 
in the words of Tennyson (thanks to Gordon Harper),
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
      There are far more of “us” ready and 
willing to work on the project than were 
available in the 60s and 70s. There is much more 
potential for communications. “We” now represent 
a wide diversity of viewpoint and experience. 
Maybe these are the times and we are the people.  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20101220/8aef6dd9/attachment.html>