Your vote may count more than you think. In the 1996 presidential election, only 61.6 percent of registered voters in Coconino County cast a vote. Nationally, the figure was even lower, just 55 percent. In last spring’s Flagstaff City Council general election, barely 32 percent of registered City voters voted. And these figures don’t take into account the fact that many eligible voters are not even registered.

Sociologists and pollsters tend to lump most people into one of two main categories: liberal moderns/progressives and conservative traditionalists. However, research conducted by sociologist Paul Ray in his 1994 “American Lives” survey revealed that there is a new and growing subculture of Americans that is just now beginning to reach critical mass. This emerging critical mass of people has the power to effect the outcome of elections, if they so choose.

This subculture, whom Ray has named “Cultural Creatives,” is bringing forth a new culture that cares about the complete psychological, physical and spiritual well-being of all people, all species and the Earth as a whole. Cultural Creatives have a male to female ratio of 40:60, 50 percent more women than men.

Paul Ray notes that “The CCs subculture represents the appearance of new values and worldviews that were rare before World War II and were scarcely noticeable even a generation ago. … Cultural Creatives are a very large pool of people – 44 million – bigger than any comparable group seen at the birth of any previous societal renaissance. The empirical data of my “American Lives” survey show that the appearance of the Cultural Creatives since the 1970s heralds a transition to Transmodernism and what may well be the birth of the new and distinctive social force that I am calling Integral Culture.”

Cultural Creatives clearly see how all the different elements of a healthy cultural mosaic synergistically relate to one another, including ecology, nonviolence, economic democracy, civil and human rights, animal rights, natural learning, holistic health, feminism, and holistic spirituality. These areas of concern belong to a larger whole that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. The entire picture is coming into focus, emerging into a coherent worldview and way of life that meets the real needs of all life. This new way of living is based on life’s intelligence and creativity, in contrast to the machine metaphor of modern society.

Cultural Creatives have increasing political influence and also volunteer their time in large numbers to set up meaningful alternatives to current institutions and cultural arrangements that are no longer meeting all our real needs. They are moving our society towards a truly sustainable and humane way of life.

Ray’s Integral Culture Survey reveals that Cultural Creatives are a growing 24 percent of the American population. And that was six years ago! Today the continued growth in the number of Cultural Creatives continues. Last November 40,000 people showed up in Seattle to protest the World Trade Organization. Coalitions of labor groups, human rights groups, environmentalists and others, rarely before witnessed, formed and grew.

In contrast to the Cultural Creatives, Paul Ray also identifies “Moderns” and “Heartlanders.” Moderns are the current majority voice of the American population, 47 percent and declining. They are our mainstream scientists, teachers and doctors, politicians and military leaders, entertainers and newsmen, office and factory workers, and middle of the road religious leaders and secularists. They value personal success, which tends to be defined in terms of economic status, power or popularity. They see clearly the cultural decay and violence around them but are still trying to solve those problems using the old paradigm of progress. They tend to view human nature through the capitalist lens of greed and scarcity.

Some Moderns still think that modernism will work, that it just needs a few kinks removed. Other moderns are discouraged because they cannot envision a way out of our cultural dilemma. To them, life without many of the technologies and other privileges they have come to accept as their right, and which they view as encapsulating the meaning of human life, seems like a disappointing backward step. They need to see how their lives could be truly richer with a different definition of progress.

On the other hand, Heartlanders want life to step backwards. They wish to return to a mythical past of small towns, strong churches and “traditional” values. They are a declining 29 percent of Americans. Largely Christian and politically conservative, they tend to be xenophobic and critical of new ideas.

However, they sincerely care about the fate of the world and they volunteer their time to help others and make the world a better place almost as much as Cultural Creatives. They feel mystified and threatened that so many people don’t agree with their views of how the world works any longer. The emphasis on economic status and personal success of the modern way of life is repugnant to them. They feel like they are taking their last stand, that they are in an epic battle between good and evil, and that if they don’t win, all is lost. Their concern for the world and dislike of modern life could potentially be harnessed to help create better lives for everyone.

The Integral Culture Survey shows that until recently, Cultural Creatives were not aware of how many of them existed, thinking that they were somewhat alone in their perception of the systemic and interconnected nature of the problems with our present way of life, and their optimistic visions of how life could be. Now Cultural Creatives are seeing themselves more and more as a unified movement.

“Wonderful changes are possible once the synergies become obvious, and we start co-creating a viable and positive image of the future, and even more so if we stop acting like an audience, and start acting like a community,” writes Paul Ray.

Furthermore, Cultural Creatives’ grassroots integration is also happening on a global scale. Humanitarians and environmentalists, labor organizations, farmers and many other diverse groups are self-organizing into an international civil society movement that opposes the globalization of corporate power and other unjust and unsustainable practices. This movement is also busy creating cooperative and ecologically sustainable alternatives. These diverse groups realize that only by banding together across many boundaries can they hope to stop the erosion of democracy around the world and to help usher forth sustainable and humane cultures and communities.

All of the elements of a sustainable and humane way of life whether social or technological in nature already exist. They are all in practice somewhere in the world right now, among diverse human and biological communities. These elements of a healthy society are the creative results of many people preserving, remembering, learning, envisioning and experimenting with more satisfying and less harmful ways of living. Continued research and experimentation will further enlarge the realm of possibilities.

When we join together we can change the world. There are a multitude of Flagstaff nonprofit groups that are awaiting your participation, including Flagstaff Tea Party. And your vote could mean the difference between having elected officials who will serve our real needs or those who will continue business as usual.

Don’t just vote. Vote your conscience!

To read more, see “The Rise of Integral Culture” by Paul H. Ray in the Noetic Sciences Review, Vol. 37, Spring 1996, pp. 4-15. The article is available on the Web at www.noetic.org/ions/index.asp?key=Archives, “The Rise of Integral Culture.” See also www.integralculture.org.

An 11-year resident of Flagstaff, Lisa Rayner holds an Interpreation of Natural Resources degree from Northern Arizona University.  She is a master gardener and permaculture consultant.  She is also the author of Growing Foods In the Southwest Mountains.