The Information Revolution and the Arab World
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Book Description
The revolution that is underway in the fields of information and communication technology is impacting on every nation. Until now, however, there has been little attention focused upon the effects of this revolution on the Arab world as a whole--a lack that this book seeks to redress. Leading academics and representatives of government and business have cooperated to produce this multi-layered exploration of the current state of the information and communication revolution and its effect on Arab states and societies. The volume offers a timely and in-depth analysis of a variety of technological themes which are having a profound and enduring political, social and economic effect on nations, corporations and individuals. These themes include global telecommunications trends and policies and their implications for national development; the information superhighway and education, business, the media and finance; cultural imperialism and the widening of the information gap; and the impact of satellite DBS TV on terrestrial television broadcasting in the GCC states.
Table of Contents
Introduction--Jamal S. Al-Suwaidi * The Information-Communications Revolution and the Global Economy--Lester Thurow * What Makes Arabian Gulf Satellite TV Programs? A Comparative Analysis of the Volume, Origin and Type of Program--Abdellatif Aloofy * The Contribution of Public Opinion Research to an Understanding of the Information Revolution and its Impact in North Africa and Beyond--Mark Tessler * Mass Media and the Policy Process--David Morgan * Triumph of the Image and its Aftermath: The Gulf War as Media Ecology--Hamid Mowlana * The Arab World and the Information Age: Promises and Challenges--Mustapha Masmoudi * Telecommunications Trends and Policies in the United Arab Emirates and Their Implications for National Development--Muhammad I. Ayish * The Impact of the Information Revolution on Society and State in Jordan--Sager Abdel-Rahim * The Age of Creation and Communication--Michel Saloff-Coste
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The impact of the information and communication revolution on society an state in the Arab World
a english adaptation from
General Introduction and Part One of the book
Management for the
Third Millennium
by
Michel Saloff-Coste publish by Guy Trédaniel in France
Humanity has never faced a challenge such
as the one we face today. It is not the
destiny of a single civilization, nor of a single race, nor of a single nation
that is at stake, but the destiny of each and every person.
We have the power to define that destiny,
and while we now have the technological capacity to realize our oldest dreams,
we also face the nightmare of annihilation by the weapons we ourselves have
made. Now we experience a challenge in
which we must risk ourselves, and either we will lose reality, or we will
access our own essence.
In this game, we do not have the option
of choosing double or nothing, for we will win the first time or not at all, as
we will not have a second chance. The
lightning progression of science accompanied by the consequent degradation of
the health of the planet means that there can be no delay.
But perhaps the same technology gives us
the power to create a global society without miseries, free of the labors for
survival to which we have always been chained.
How, then, shall we overcome the planetary crisis that we face, in which
two-thirds of human deaths come from starvation; in which the surface of the
globe touched by war steadily increases; in which each year a larger share of
farmland is degraded into desert by the use of synthetic fertilizers, worsening
still the earth's ecological balance?
While unconsciousness takes us surely and
rapidly towards holocaust, we might save ourselves by transcending cultural differences
and the selfishness that scatters our energies.
Each day, by the efforts that we make in the full search for our
humanity, we increase the odds of success, while each day that we pass in
unconsciousness brings us towards nothingness.
We face, ultimately, the choice between love and death.
This book presents a new approach to the
reality that emerges today from the edges of our awareness to the forefront of
a planetary awareness.
After the eras of hunting and gathering,
agriculture, and industrialism, we are falling into a new type of society based
on Creation and Communication. The
beginning of a new era brings with it a flood of questions, including these:
• How does our current situation compare with the preceding stages
of the development of humanity?
• What tools do we need to face the current context?
• How shall we use these tools to bring the peace and planetary
harmony necessary for the survival of the species?
The time of
change: Today there is a pervasive anxiety in the
face of the increasingly rapid evolution of our society, and the changes that
affect individuals, companies, and nations.
While the great majority of trades of
tomorrow are unknown, the average person born into the next generation will
change careers five times during their professional lives.
This kind of shift creates a problematic
gap between those Who know how to take advantage of change, and those who, on
the contrary, merely struggle to endure it.
As it is the capacity for innovation that
determines the capacity to take advantage of change, this book is offered as a
tool to help innovate in the face of change.
Change = Danger
+ Possibilities: The reaction to change,
whether negative or positive, depends on how one looks at it.
While some see only the increasing
dangers, while others see new possibilities, today's change is in fact the one and the other. States, companies, and individuals that
concentrate only on opportunities seek to escape, and although might appear
brilliant and successful, they accumulate problems that, in the end, undermine
the appearance.
Conversely, to see only the danger is to
fall into defeatism, blind and fruitless. These do not see that in change, the
sources of problems also offer the means to find solutions, for change empowers
innovation.
A tool to
confront the dangers and to seize possibilities: The world has always changed, but as it changes increasingly
rapidly, the very challenge of change is difficult to grasp. When things did not evolve so quickly, fixed
technical solutions could be applied during the passage of many years even
while remaining at the forefront of progress.
Today, the lifetime of a solution is much shorter, and a great many
proposed solutions are useless even before they are used.
The increasing speed of change is not the
only cause, for with great change the world's complexity is also increasing,
bringing the phenomenon of multiple interdependencies. Extreme specialization disappears down unknown
and unmarked hallways in the vast universe of knowledge, emerging unexpectedly
into other specialties, and there forming curious hybrids: biology merges with
data-processing; physics with philosophy; history with mathematics.
Thus, we have to deal with an abundance
of increasingly specialized and interdependent knowledge, and the very problem
is that we have to confront an image of our knowledge, precise and sectored,
that is rooted nevertheless in the multidimensional complexity of our new
planetary society.
The challenge is difficult to grasp, and
evolution is so rapid that it no longer offers time for reflection. The very
complexity is so great that no duration is sufficient to understand it.
Therefore, we must revise our approach to one of "reflection-action,"
even as change destroys our points of reference, and renders void our old
reflexes.
The tension climbs, creating a great wave
that is ready to break, a wave that can consume us, but is also a fabulous
source of energy to drive us forward. It
is necessary to have a surfboard and ride this wave, to confront the dangers
and seize the possibilities.
The danger of
formulas: The upheavals brought on by accelerating
change have provoked an abundance of formulas, and one has only to open a
business journal to find a catalogue of handy formulas ready to be applied to
whatever problems you face.
Sadly, all formulas depend on
mechanically following pre-established directives, and finally constitute a
prison where one sits, blinded to the real dangers. With rapid change, the application of a
formula takes time that likely renders the formula void even before it can be
used.
It will not surprise you, then, to learn
that the intent of this book is not to provide you with another formula. Rather than a predetermined itinerary, this
book offers a map. It is for you and you alone to decide your path and
your purpose.
The Grid of
Evolution.
To understand and anticipate the great
trends of today and the future, we seek to understand their origins in the
past, for without a clear perspective of history, it is difficult to
distinguish repetition from the emergence of truly new elements.
This look into the mirror of history
allows us to measure the extent of the rupture that we are living through
today. The first tool that we offer is
such a mirror, a "grid of evolution".
The word "grid" is intended
literally and figuratively. It is a
grid, a matrix which presents the dominant periods and activities of humanity,
and it shows, therefore, the grill upon which humanity has been cooking for these
last millions of years. It is also a
grid, a pattern that will be useful for decoding the emerging future.
A Tool for
Understanding: The grid of evolution is a tool for
understanding how we arrived at the current situation, the key characteristics
of our time, and key trends of the future, for reflecting on the past enables
us to develop tools that help us understand the present.
Using the grid, we explore questions
concerning the past, present, and future
evolution of humanity:
• How
common are the ruptures that we see in history?
• Can
we discern any pattern in their occurrence?
• Are we now experiencing a true rupture, or rather the mature
development of tendencies that have been emerging for a long time?
We begin with the origins of human
activity. For millions of years, human
activity was focused on obtaining the food that came from hunting and
gathering. Agriculture and animal
husbandry were developed in the last 30,000 years, followed most recently by
300 years of industry and commerce.
Today, creation and communication are the key activities in the
developed economies of the world, for these are the fields in which more than
50% of the population works.
Each time the basis of the human economy
changed, the tools, thought processes, perceptions, organizations, exchanges,
and communications were then transformed, along with human values. As the values of a hunter-gatherer who
travels following the seasons and the prey are different from the values of a
breeder-farmer, who defends the land and remains in one place, so our emerging
values are different from those of the industrial age.
Our own cultural perspective makes it
difficult to comprehend the very process of evolving values, for a culture is a
filter that enables one to ignore or discount the cultures of others, and of
the past or the future as well. But
because culture is our means of encoding our experience of the world, it is
also our reality. Thus, to ask
"What are the great stages that humanity has undergone?" prompts the
question, "From the perspective of which culture do we ask?"
Thus, we must grasp our own culture in
order to see the larger patterns beyond our direct perception, to therefore
understand the changes that are cultural as well as economic. Just how our
values are becoming different is a key point that we seek to illuminate with
the Grid of Evolution.
The Grid: Human evolution is divided into 4 periods:
Hunting-Gathering: 3,000,000 years
Agriculture-Husbandry: 30,000 years
Industry-Commerce: 300 years
Creation-Communication: ??
To analyze the characteristics of each
period and the evolution of its corresponding culture and values, we have
defined seven key characteristics:
TOOL:
The extension of physiological capabilities.
POWER: The development of key factors in social and
physical control.
EXCHANGE: The development of the means of exchanging
goods.
REFLECTION: The development of the means of reflecting on
and understanding reality.
COMMUNICATION: The evolution of the means of communication.
ORGANIZATION: The evolution of the organization of society.
HISTORY: Evolution of the means of understanding time
and its passage, history.
By then creating a matrix showing the
Primary Activities and the Seven Key
Characteristics, we obtain the Grid of Evolution.
Activity Tools Power Exchange Reflection
Hunting-
Gathering Nails Harmony Barter Intuition,
Teeth w/nature Animism
Agriculture-
Husbandry Arms Possession Metal Analogy
Legs of territory Coins Monotheism
Industry-
Commerce Visceral Availability Paper Rational
Senses of Capital Money Science
Creation-
Communication Brain Mastery
of Electronic Holistic
Nerves Data Barter Spiritual
Activity Communication Organization History
Hunting- Verbal Myth Prehistory
Gathering Word of mouth Tribe Circular
time
Agriculture - Writing Monarchy Sacred history
Husbandry Manuscripts Kingdom Linear time
Industry- Audiovisual Democracy Secular history
Commerce Mass Media State Unified
and uniform
time
Creation- Interactive Responsive Post history
Communication Software Networks Fragmented time
--------------------
HUNTING - GATHERING
3 million years
For three million years, humanity's means
of obtaining food was hunting and gathering.
Since hunting and gathering takes place in small groups, innumerable
nomadic and diversified cultures were isolated from one another, and so
humanity was divided into a multitude of nomadic and diversified tribes.
In the Mediterranean basin where
agriculture originated, there were few founding languages and several hundred
dialects, while in North America where hunting and gathering continued into
modern times, there were several hundred founding languages and several million
dialects.
Teeth and Nails: In museums of prehistoric culture, flint
implements remind us of teeth and fingernails, externalized and enlarged.
Harmony with
Nature: Power in the Hunting-Gathering period requires
the ability to live in harmony with nature.
Barter: The exchange of goods occurs through barter,
or through mutual gift-giving rituals.
Intuition,
Animism: The Hunter-Gatherer reflects intuitively, and
identifies with the object of contemplation.
This kind of thinking corresponds to animism, in which events, objects,
and beings are seen as manifestations of spirits.
Oral, Word of
Mouth: Communication is oral through the spoken
word.
Myth,
Tribe: Myths initiate individuals into the
mysteries of harmony with nature, and belief in the same myths unites the
members of a tribe. Myths are the
essence of the tribe's intuition about spirits that exist in nature. Myths and the rituals connected with them, are
the basis for the power structure within the tribe.
Prehistory,
Circular Time: A tribe has no sense of past events, for
there is no event-based history. Myths
transmitted faithfully from generation to generation explain the cycle of
seasons and all events.
Time is circular and so myths are
separate from time. They do not embody
time, but rather only the present moment, with no beginning and no end. They are immutable.
Although myths take very different forms
from one tribe to another, their fundamental characteristics do not
change.
Myths name the source, the origin of all
things.
In tribal societies, myths are considered
the "true" history, as contrasted with "false" history, or
what happens every day. Truth lies in
the myth, and not the day to day reality, which is exactly the opposite of the
Western concept. For the
Hunter-Gatherer, the events of daily life are only reflections of the original
myth, embodied in time. Thus, the events
of daily life are of little interest, and one neither attempts to count the
days nor remember events as we have learned to do in Western civilization.
Consequently, tribal societies are
detached from time. Their spatial
mobility is balanced by unchanging loyalty to the creation mythology. The same rituals are repeated year after
year to celebrate creation and to unite the tribe. The perfect rite is that which innovates the
least and resembles most closely the original event.
Recently an exhibition of Australian art
toured the world, and the works of contemporary artists (whose objective is
maximum innovation) were displayed beside those of aboriginal artists (whose
work displayed total fidelity to the same signs and gestures that have existed
for thousands of years). The change of
perspective associated with the change in primary activity from the hunting and
gathering of the aborigines to our age of creation and communication was
profoundly evident.
--------------------
AGRICULTURE-HUSBANDRY
30,000 years
The advent of Agriculture-Husbandry
brought with it a less mobile lifestyle.
Cultivation made slow inroads on the wilderness, as humans gathered in
larger and larger groups.
While the survival of the hunter-gatherer
depended upon total mobility that permits tribes to follow the prey and the
seasons, the survival of the farmer-breeder depends upon the definition of a
fixed territory, and its defense. The
hunter-gatherer survives through immersion in the wilderness, which requires
total understanding, while the farmer creates a definitive boundary between
wilderness and cultivated land.
Humanity, which had remained secondary to
its mythology, begins to express itself, to keep count of the days, of the size
of property, of the seeds to be planted and to be traded for goods. For the first time, written numbers appear,
and with them, writing itself. We emerge
from myth and enter history.
What made a change of this magnitude
possible?
In the Mediterranean basin, the change
from hunting-gathering to agriculture-husbandry took place as a great turning
point during three ice ages. In fact,
the workmanship of tools, perfected to a high point before the glaciations,
regresses afterwards; as reflected in the cutting of flints lower quality after
the glaciations than before, indicating that the culture and knowledge of the
hunter-gatherer was lost little by little, even as agriculture and breeding
were barely beginning.
Arms And Legs: Agriculture and husbandry are the start of
the great period of development of tool-making.
Agricultural tools are specialized extensions of human capabilities, as
the power of the oxen and the plow replaces arms and legs for working the
earth.
At the museum , we leave the Prehistoric
department filled with its flints, and we arrive at the beginning of
history. One of the first objects we
find is an earthenware pot, shaped like two hands for holding things. The first wheel will soon make its
appearance.
Possession Of
Land: In the Age of Agriculture and Husbandry,
power is established by control of land, which determines the amount of food
and goods produced, whether it is cultivated by oneself, by hired labor, or by
slaves. Power is no longer directly
dependent upon the physical strength of an individual. It becomes important to defend one's land
from a return to its former wild state, and from potential invaders.
Metal
Coins: Goods are exchanged through another
medium of exchange, metal coins struck with the head of the representative of
the territory.
Analogy,
Monotheism: With the development of agriculture and
husbandry, and the appearance of numbers and writing, man ceases to have a
solely intuitive relation to reality.
The age of Agriculture and Husbandry is
accompanied by a shift to thinking and expression by analogy. Primitive intuition is no longer directly
used, but indirectly applied to find analogies between the different worlds of
the human, the animal, the vegetable, and the cosmic. Reality is grasped through a series of analogous
concentric circles, of which humanity is the center.
Analogies weave comparisons among the
different elements that make up reality.
Comparison between the mineral world and the vegetable world, between
the vegetable world and the living world, comparison of humanity and the
universe.
Analogous thought becomes the foundation
of medicine, philosophy, architecture, and all the subjects of knowledge. Internal microcosm and external macrocosm are
linked by analogy through astrology, which is the principal factor in the
traditional art of Agriculture-Husbandry.
This hierarchical homocentrism
corresponds to monotheism: a single god,
creator and director of the world, of whom humanity is the image and
manifestation on Earth.
Writing,
Manuscript: Writing on a variety of materials,
including stones, skins, papyrus, parchment, and paper is the typical method of
communication in the Age of Agriculture-Husbandry.
Monarchy,
Kingdom: Subordination to a single monarchy unites
the individuals of a kingdom. The
monarch represents, by analogy, god of the realm, and favors its subjects with
the use of land. The king is the divine
representative of all the conquered lands: "the king is to his kingdom as
God is to the world". The king
holds all power, for the land belongs to the monarch and establishes his
royalty, as well as his divinity.
The monarchical structure of
"kingdom" becomes the prime organizational structure of the
Agriculture-Husbandry period.
Sacred
History, Linear Time: The writing of manuscripts brings the capacity to keep track
of historical events. To the mythical
stories that continue to be transmitted by word of mouth is added the written
history of humanity as the incarnation of God on Earth.
Biblical writing is typical of the Age of
Agriculture-Husbandry, in which only sacred incidents are taken into
account.
Time becomes linear, with a beginning and
a progression , an unfolding towards the future. This progression is not consistent, but
speeds up and slows down according to the period.
Myths still explain the origin of the
world, but because of the Bible the myth of the beginning no longer closes upon
itself as a cycle. Henceforth, the
origin is embodied at a single point in
time through the history of sacred events.
History has a beginning, marked by Adam and Eve, and develops through
successive events up to the present moment, which itself becomes part of Sacred
History. God is therefore embodied in
time.
However, people are uninterested in
secular events, and while history changes from circular to linear, it is
nonetheless concerned exclusively with the sacred.
Secular history remains dormant, and does
not flourish until the later stage of Industry-Commerce.
--------------------
INDUSTRY-COMMERCE
300 years
Industry and Commerce required 300 years
to develop into the primary economic activity of Western humanity. Industry and Commerce brought globalization,
as world populations became interdependent.
Humans gathered in places called cities.
This period is characterized by
duplication: duplication of writing
through printing, duplication of value through paper money, duplication of
materials through plastic, and duplication of consumer items through machines. Scarcity is replaced by abundance. This is the age of mass production.
Visceral
Senses: Our internal organs transform food into
energy and other products that our body can use, just as factories use raw
materials to produce energy and consumer products. Industrial infrastructure is the externalization
and development on the societal level, of our metabolic functions.
Cameras, radios, telescopes, radar,
thermometers, instruments of measurement, observation, recording and
transmission are all extensions of our senses, outgrowths which allow us to discover
a world beyond the range of our physiological limits.
During the industrial age, our internal
organs are externalized: chemical
factories transform materials by circulating them through long tubes, like the
stomach; electrical circuits like so many sensitive nerves; cameras like so
many eyes to show us the world.
Like the body's internal organs, the
Industrial Age finds in natural resources the energy required to do its work.
Availability of
Capital: In the Age of Industry-Commerce, the
availability of capital defines power and therefore determines production
capacity. One of the most difficult
phenomena for the great landowners to grasp was no doubt the arrival of
individuals completely detached from the land who nevertheless commanded
enormous fortunes. With the advent of
Industry and Commerce, power ceases, little by little, to be measured by the
extent of one's land.
Paper
Money: For a long time, paper money was only a
voucher guaranteed by gold or some other asset, indexed to something of real
value. Goods were exchanged through the
medium of paper money issued by the state, which guaranteed the underlying
asset value and convertibility.
First slowly, and then more radically,
paper money developed in parallel to the industrial world. Gold became no more than a
point of reference.
With the abandonment of the gold standard
during President Nixon's administration, money was dissociated definitively
separated from any connection with actual value, and became only a measurement.
Paper allows the power to swing towards
the ownership of capital, even though paper money has exchange value entirely
without intrinsic value. Thus, for the
first time exchange value and real value are completely separated.
Gradually, it has become clear that in spite
of its lack of intrinsic value, money does creates a sort of monetary value
from its exchange value itself.
The value of paper money is now a
reflection of an abstract and psychological notion of power or economic reality
of the countries that issue it.
Rational
science: During the Enlightenment, humanity adopts
a new kind of thinking which becomes the basis of modern science. The principal factor in the development of
this kind of thinking is rationality. In
the same way that analogy used intuition to draw comparisons between different
fields of reality, rational thought employs analogy to link a field of reality
to a theoretical system that explains and reveals the elements of cause and
effect which direct it.
The Age of Industry-Commerce is thus
accompanied by rational thought. Through increasingly refined analysis reduced
to its smallest parts, rationalism has as its goal to explain practical
phenomena by theoretical concepts related logically to cause and effect.
Analogy no longer links and compares
different aspects of nature, but instead links practical phenomena to their
explanation by theoretical concepts.
Reality is understood to be a vast rational mechanism, and this
materialistic vision corresponds to scientism.
During the Age of Industry-Commerce,
analogy is relegated to the status of antique.
The sciences and arts that are linked to analogous thought such as
alchemy and astrology are discredited, and no longer cited as examples except to
illustrate medieval abstruseness.
As the Age of Industry and Commerce did
not reject agriculture, but only used it in a different way, rational thinking
retains the contributions of analogous and intuitive thought, and employs them
to different ends. Intuitive thinking
defines the theory, to ascertain the meaningful structure underlying concrete
phenomena. Analogous thinking is
constantly used to relate events to their practice and causes in theory.
Analogous thought leads to the
abandonment of animism and the growth of monotheism. Rational thought, because it tries to grasp
reality as a vast mechanism directed by cause and effect and comprehensible
through rational scientific theory, takes God out of reality. Man of the Industrial-Commercial Age believes
above all in scientific rationalism.
Monotheism drifts towards atheism....
Audiovisual,
Mass Media: Communications methods typical of the Age
of Industry-Commerce are all the visual and auditory methods distributed by the
mass media.
Democracy,
State: The great organization of the Industrial-Commercial
Age is the democratic State. Once power
ceases to be linked to land ownership, the former power base of land owners
must cede to industrialists and businessmen who need to develop the democratic
State to guarantee liberty as well as property rights, which are necessary to
both Industry and Commerce. The fact of
being citizens of the same democracy unites individuals in a State. Democracy guarantees citizens ownership of
capital. Democracy rationally manages
the State and organizes its power.
Secular
History, Uniform Time: The scientific approach permits a more and more detailed
picture of the history of humanity.
History no longer regards only sacred events, but attempts to encompass
all aspects of life.
In the scientific view of history, time
is no longer a linear continuum with a start, a finish, and momentary
colorations along the way as conceived by sacred history. Instead, time becomes a neutral continuum,
uniform, with neither start nor finish, without local characteristics, unvarying
everywhere, and divided into universal entities: hours, minutes, seconds, nanoseconds, etc.
While Agriculture and Husbandry invented
linear sacred history, Industry and Commerce, through science, introduced
linear secular history. In fact, scientific
time radicalizes religious time. From
this time forward, all the details of
human history are recorded, not only "divine" events.
Beginning in the 18th century, humanity
discovers the world through the principals of a linear and uniform space-time
continuum on which is superimposed the great mechanism of the world, whose
workings it struggles to comprehend.
History itself is established as a
science which reveals the mechanisms of reality. Historical research finally embraces all
aspects of life, and attempts to compile information on all cultures.
With one great leap, an outburst of
encyclopedic effort, history sets its sights on the universal.
-------------------
CREATION-COMMUNICATION
The Industrial-Commercial Age was,
through mass duplication of objects, messages, and entertainment, a period of
standardization without precedent. This
standardization is linked with the idea of universalism, and of a mechanical
reality in a linear and uniform space-time continuum.
Today, however, the tendency is
reversed. The Age of
Creation-Communication is a time of decentralization. Interactive communications allow individuals
to exchange, to communicate, and to work in real time from any point on the
planet. Humanity regroups itself into
responsive networks.
Just as the Industrial-Commercial wave
transformed Agriculture-Husbandry towards industry and commerce, the new wave
of Creation and Communication is changing Industry and Commerce through
flexible automation, which liberates industry from the restraints of human
labor and enables humans to concentrate more and more in the areas which are
uniquely human, that is, Creation and Communication.
The creation of products of intangible
value and their communication is becoming the great human endeavor.
While duplication characterized the
Industrial-Commercial Age and is still important today, it is certainly not the
most important characteristic of our time.
Today, the phenomenon of mass consumption is surpassed by the development of interactivity, which
allows the consumer to design an object and to order it for future delivery
directly from a factory, which, thanks to the flexibility of automation, can
furnish this unique object at a reasonable cost.
Similarly, interactivity in communications
offers every individual greater and greater freedom of expression. Individuals are no longer passive receivers
of messages, but can intervene and become themselves the originators of
messages.
Mass media, which dispersed their
messages over a multitude of passive recipients, are replaced in the end by
networks where all consumers are connected directly to one another free of
hierarchy, each able to control transmitting and receiving.
Since the entire educational system which
has shaped us dates from the Industrial-Commercial Age, our upbringing has not
given us the conceptual tools to understand the Age of Creation and
Communication which surrounds us. What
is becoming clear today is the discovery of a universe which is not homogeneous
and uniform but made up of a multitude of ruptures and incomparable
micro-realities. Social reality has
splintered, each individual uprooted, nomadic, disengaged from pre-established
groups, which has brought forth the crises of nationalism and all the
"isms", including and especially that of universalism.
Physical science, which formed the solid
conceptual foundation of a homogenous and linear space-time, brings into
question those very premises. Modern
physics causes us to discover a fractal universe where each incident occurs in
a unique space and time.
However, these independent
micro-realities, located more or less each on a different plane, interact one
with another.
Brain,
Nerves: During the Industrial-Commercial Age,
surgery and medicine sought to understand
the organs of the body, and today the great frontier of exploration is the
human brain.
As our nerves transmit and process
information on the human scale, the transmission of data by cables and
satellites, and the computers which process the information constitutes a
gigantic nervous system at the planetary scale.
Once man externalized all his internal organs through tools, the only
tool left to invent was an extension of the brain, and now our brains are connected
to each other by this vast data infrastructure, externalizing our brain
capacity as well.
The Age of Creation and Communication is
associated with the development of computers, beginning with the appearance, in
the 1950s, of the first mainframes. With
the micro-computer of the 1970s, has come the transformation of all human
tasks. Now with the capacity to create
networks of interactive users without regard to geographic limits, we are on
the edge of a world of knowledge exchange without precedent, operating on a
planetary level and at the speed of light.
Breakthroughs in computing lead to
greater understanding of the brain, and vice versa. These two domains are likely to be even more
closely linked by the appearance of the first biological computers which use
live cells to transmit information.
Mastery of
Data/Information: In the Age of Creation and
Communication, power depends on the ability to master information. Mastery of information determines the
creative capacity which in turn determines the quantity and quality of goods
that can be produced. Therefore, the
control of capital has become secondary.
For heavy industry, the conceptual part
was minuscule compared to the investment in material infrastructure, but this
has given way to an activity in which the material value is minor compared to
the conceptual value. The former relationship between creators of
concepts and capital contributors is reversed.
Businessmen and industrialists built up
fortunes equivalent to land ownership over a much shorter time period through
the accumulation of capital. This
accumulation, while much more rapid, still required one or more
generations. The cycle of wealth
creation for the new "conceptual" entrepreneurs is measured not in
generations but in years.
This speed short circuits and renders
irrelevant the great economic habits of the Industrial Age, and brings into
question the privileges, laws and customs that we have come to accept. Consequently, the entire banking system will
be transformed from top to bottom. The
Japanese banks that already understand this shift have broken through to become
international leaders in just a few years.
Electronic
Barter: Goods are now bartered throughout the
planet by means of electronic networks, changing the very nature of
exchange. Credit cards are a common
example. Paper money is disappearing in
favor of electronic bookkeeping, especially through the debit card. All this depends, however, on the persistence
of the logic of paper money, even though the paper itself is replaced by
electronic memories.
What is new is the appearance, or rather
the reappearance, of barter. We are
speaking of the practice, spreading throughout international as well as
domestic markets, of exchanging goods in real time thanks to electronic
networks. Thus, the United States has
seen the birth of a whole new economy that bypasses traditional means, in which individuals as well as companies
exchange goods via enormous electronic networks - a village square with the
dimensions of a continent.
With email and electronic payments, each
person has the capability of becoming a dealer, promoting and distributing
products electronically.
This new exchange economy paradoxically
resembles the barter of the Hunter-Gatherer.
Currency will not disappear entirely, no
more than land ownership disappeared in
the Industrial Age, but currency will slowly lose the dominant position it held
during the Industrial Age.
Holistic,
Spiritual: The Age of Creation and Communication
introduces holistic thinking.
Through all-inclusive, systemic vision,
the holistic approach attempts to understand the interactions that make up a
field of reality. In this mode of
thinking, the whole, instead of being destroyed by analysis, is brought to the
forefront as greater than the sum of its parts.
The rational analytical approach is henceforth used only as a secondary
means to clarify the logical sequence of a specialized local sub-group within
the system. We comprehend reality as a
complex fabric of interactions.
In this approach, forms and objects tend
to dissolve, and are considered only temporary solidifications of turbulent and
subtle interactive processes. In
contrast to the universal scientific approach which imposes the existence of a
single objective reality in a homogeneous space-time continuum, the holistic
approach sees the observer and the observed as interdependent, involved in a
specific process, creating an original field of reality.
But there is not only one reality in a
unique and homogeneous space-time, but a multitude of fields of reality, each
with its own specific space, and its own specific time. The scientist's vision of a predictable, mechanical
and cold universe gives way to the spiritual vision of a universe that is
mysterious, living, fractal, and warm.
In the vanguard of the classical sciences
of physics, mathematics, and logic, we grasp more and more the limits of
rational thought, for the problems we face today are of an order about which
discursive, analytical reasoning and rational segmentation is necessary but
insufficient.
Whether we're talking about the
microcosmic level of subatomic particles or the macrocosmic level of
astrophysics, we are not dealing with cause and effect mechanisms, but with a
whole of which all the elements are in perpetual interaction through specific
space-time continuums.
For this new reality a new kind of
thinking is emerging, "holistic" thinking.
In a previous age, rational thought did
not reject intuition and analogy, but used them for its own purposes. In the same way today, holistic thinking
employs rational thought and its dividing up of cause and effect, but not to
clarify a particular segment of an inclusive system. Instead, holistic thinking is based on the
recognition that any whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Interactive
Software: The characteristic means of communication
in the Age of Creation and Communication is interactive software. While the mass media of the Industry-Commerce
period "industrially" distributed information from one point to all
the others, interactive media in the age of Creation-Communication permit each
individual to act as both receiver and broadcaster.
Responsive
Networks: The Age of Creation-Communication brings
decentralization and the development of spiritual awareness.
Individuals no longer feel themselves to
be part of a territory, as during the Monarchy-Kingdom period, nor part of an
economy, as during the Democracy-State period.
What unites them is their "sensitivity", their specific way of
comprehending data.
According to their level of awareness, or
sensitivity, each person occupies a different field of reality, and the
individuals who interact with each other organize themselves into networks that
correspond to their common sensibilities - a semiocracy.
These currents of sensitivity
holistically organize the network and distribute power.
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