Sustainable Global Culture
Introduction
The book Future Shock by Alvin Toffler [1] discusses changes in ways of life brought about by technology and cultural innovation; then considers the psychological and sociological impact of the increasing rates of change of such things. Some of these effects include "information overload" and what Toffler describes as "shattering stress and disorientation". The term "future shock" itself is from earlier writers Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner.
Definitions:
culture : art and other manifestations of human achievement, knowledge, oral traditions, skills, social practices, ways of life, etc. regarded collectively ; the embodiment of all things that can be passed on from generation to generation.
sustainable : able to be maintained at the same level and quality, throughout the future.
The concept of "Sustainable Global Culture" is roughly equivalent to UNESCO's definition of Intangible Cultural Heritage, expanded to include all things needed for humans to live (not just the most "notable" things) and combined with the requirement that it be sustained at a level necessary for future generations to continue to sustain the things.
Modes of Change
Virtualisation of Personality : People can diversify their image (as seen by others) and even their own self-identity, through such means as broadening acceptance of diversity (driven by such things as civil rights efforts, antiracism, elimination of lifestyle prohibitions, etc.) and indirect or abstract methods of interaction (telephone and other electronic communication, social media, the virtual workplace, etc.).
Evolving Technology and Infrastructure : New ways of accomplishing basic essentials of life supplant previous methods, usually due to a net gain in benefit vs. cost (e.g. horses -> gasoline cars -> electric self-driving rideshare)
Accelerating Innovation : Partly overlapping the previous, but here affecting the service sector (for example, young people learning more quickly via the internet, creating A.I. models to accomplish tasks hiterto requiring human effort, and then making that new A.I. available in the form of new mobile apps)
Shift From Hierarchies Towards Heterarchies : Such social changes as the above tend to make people more interdependent on each other, in ways that are unmanageable via traditional hierarchical structures (such as exist within governments or large corporations). Therefore, the interaction and commerce between people happens non-hierarchically.
Additional Modes of Change : The examples denoted above are examples, and do not constitute all that exist presently; furthermore the number and variety of such phenomena continues to increase over time.
Challenges to Present Ways of Life
Each of the above Modes of Change tends to accelerate the others, and efforts to mitigate the "future shock" effects of a particular Mode of Change can (and usually will) accelerate one or more of the other Mode of Change.
Footnotes
[1] Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (Random House) 1970.
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