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Are
you a ‘Cultural Creative’?
Take this quiz and find out
In
their book The Cultural Creatives:
How 50 Million People Are Changing the World, authors
Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson define and explore what they
believe is a new sub-culture in the United States.
According to a variety of market research and national
surveys conducted throughout the 1990s, the authors have identified
three main cultural groups in the US.
They call these groups the Moderns (about 48 percent of those
surveyed), the Traditionals (about 25 percent), and the Cultural
Creatives (about 27 percent).
To
see where you might fall in their scheme of things, decide if you
agree or disagree with each of the following statements:
1.
I love nature and am deeply concerned about its destruction.
2.
I am strongly aware of the problems of the whole planet (for
example, lack of ecological sustainability, exploitation of people
in poorer countries) and want to see more action on them, such as
limiting economic growth.
3.
I would pay more taxes or pay more for consumer goods if I
knew the money would go to clean up the environment and to stop
global warming.
4.
I give a lot of importance to developing and maintaining my
relationships.
5.
I give a lot of importance to helping other people and
bringing out their unique gifts.
6.
I volunteer for one or more good causes.
7.
I care intensely about both psychological and spiritual
development
8.
I see spirituality or religion as important in my life, but I
am also concerned about the role of the Religious Right in politics.
9.
I want more equality for women at work, and more women
leaders in business and politics.
10.
I am concerned about violence and the abuse of women and
children around the world.
11.
I want our politics and government spending to put more
emphasis on children’s education and well-being, on rebuilding our
neighborhoods and communities, and on creating an ecologically
sustainable future.
12.
I am unhappy with both the left and the right in politics and
want to find a new way that is not in the mushy middle.
13.
I tend to be rather optimistic about our future and distrust
the cynical and pessimistic view that is given by the media.
14.
I want to be involved in creating a new and better way of
life in our country.
15.
I am concerned about what the big corporations are doing in
the name of making more profits — downsizing, creating
environmental problems, and exploiting poorer countries.
16.
I have my finances and spending under control and am not
concerned about overspending.
17.
I dislike all the emphasis in modern culture on success and
“making it,” on getting and spending, on wealth and luxury
goods.
18.
I like people and places that are exotic and foreign, and I
like experiencing and learning about other ways of life.
According
to authors Ray and Anderson, if you agree with 10 or more of these
statements, you are likely to be a Cultural Creative. In this case,
they say, you are part of a “nation” as large as France, an
almost invisible culture within the United States that “represents
a promise that a creative vision of the future is growing.”
“There is nothing inevitable about the kind of life we have now in
modern society,” they argue. And they see the influence of the
Cultural Creatives as “a resurgence of hope, of imagination, of
willingness to act for the sake of a better civilization.”
Adapted
from page 1 of The Cultural Creatives;
How 50 Million People Are Changing the World by Paul H.
Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson (NY:
Harmony Books, 2000). See
also their Web site: www.culturalcreatives.org.
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