Changing and Adapting

Jared Diamond's excellent NY-Times op-ed on The Ends of the World as We Know Them reminds us that the world is not a static place. He gives examples of cultures that failed to adapt to change and thus failed, as well as examples of cultures that adapted and persevered in the face of change. Clearly, a culture that wishes to endure must be constantly changing and adapting to new realities beyond its control.

The question Diamond puts squarely to us is simple: will we learn from the past? Which path will we chose, the status quo or adaptation?

If we chose to adapt, we face taking a hard look at a number of values and belief systems that have been at the core of what it has meant to be an American in the 20th century and before.

Here are a few of the hard looks:

1] Are we a nation of exceptional individuals with a manifest destiny? This sense of ourselves, over 400 years in the making, was severely challenged on 9/11. Have our responses been optimal responses to the new environment we find ourselves in? Is security better achieved by breaking things and killing people or by development, as Robert McNamara suggested in 1966? Would we be safer if we were investing a billion dollars per month in remediating the conditions that create permanent lives of desperation for young, unemployed males around the world?

2] In a few short centuries, we became a wealthy and powerful nation. Our economy is derived from the 19th century Industrial Consumerism form of Capitalism. We are now about 5% of the world's total population but we consume over 20% of the world's inventory of resources. Is this an optimal strategy for creating a world based upon justice and fairness for all? Is the goal of justice and fairness a key value we share?

3] To what extent are we willing to embrace the demographic change represented by the fact that more people in America under 10 are other than Caucasian? Are the demographics in the so called Red & Blue states different? What are the implications for us when people of color are in fact the majority of American citizens and voters in 2020 or before?

4] Do we wish to adopt policies which will tend to create a permanent, protected and privileged demographic based upon race, wealth, power and prestige? Or should we reject any attempts to create such a special class of citizens? Is this an appropriate response to demographic changes?

5] NAFTA and other international trade agreements appear to be enabling the rule of Ricardo's second law: The Iron Law of Wages. Is this a result we should welcome or fight against?

6] Can our economy create enough jobs that support "living wages" for all who want them? Or are we stuck with a majority of jobs that create so little value that they can only command subsistence wages? What do we have to do to increase the number of high value creating jobs? Is it good that, despite the cost of shipping to and from Asia, it is cheaper to add value to a log in China than in Maine, where it grew and was cut?

7] In many ways the sleeper disruptive innovations are peer to peer technologies that change the way we communicate and distribute content, such as blogs, podcasts, vidcasts, online gaming, and more. Skype, for example, now has over 3.5% of all international calls. P-2-P will in fact touch and change all human activities that involve communications and distribution, including political organization and process. Peer to Peer, with its model of one for all and all for one, will wreak havoc with the business models of the legacy industrial media, communications and distribution companies. Is this acceptable? Peer to peer shifts power in various forms away from today's elites to the people at the edges of the network. Does this strengthen democracy?

8] Should we citizens aspire to being more than consumers? Should we also reclaim the humanity that is based upon also being producers and creators as well?

9] What is the meaning of life as created and nurtured by industrial consumerism? Are there perhaps more substanive and satisfying alternatives?

A very interesting question is simply what sort of new politics and social contract emerges from the answers to questions like these? How are they different from the politics and social contracts favored by the current administration? Or the politics and social contracts of prior eras? Which will we chose?

2005 is going to be a very interesting year. The apparent radicalization of the New York Times, they even editorialized on the link between energy consumption in America and funding of those who would harm us, is but one startling indicator of things to come. Is this interesting year a Chinese curse or a blessing?

Posted by Jock Gill at January 2, 2005 6:34 PM | TrackBack