Lithuanian Woman and Cultural Creative Nijole (Neola) Sparkis

"Cultural Creatives" is a term that sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson coined to name an emerging group of over 50 million Americans that is changing the future of America.

The husband and wife team of Ray and Anderson undertook 13 years of research into the various lifestyles of Americans and identified this Cultural Creatives group of over 26% of all Americans (and rapidly growing), as being formed over the last 50 years and having values very different than what is represented by mainstream media.

Cultural Creatives value authenticity, holistic thinking, idealism and activism, environmental sustainability, self-actualization and spirituality, women's issues and the importance of the feminine aspect of our natures, and they reject materialism, status display, and needless consumption.

In contrast, the largest group of Americans -- just under 50% -- are called the Moderns and their values are those reflected in mainstream media -- climbing the ladder of success, speed and efficiency, goal-setting, consumerism and materialism, looking to greater technology for their solutions, an emphasis on the body as a machine, the organization as a machine, the compartmentalization of life, being in control, the rejection of an inner or spiritual life, and the valuing of women in more masculine roles.

As a result of the media reflecting mainly these Moderns' point of view, the growing population of Cultural Creatives tend to feel that they are alone in their lifestyle choices, and that they must be very few in number. The book "The Cultural Creatives" by Drs. Ray and Anderson, which compiles their findings, helps to empower this emerging group of Americans to realize that their numbers are indeed large enough to band together in finding solutions to the problems that the Modern world has created. (Though the focus of this book is on America's Cultural Creatives, in Europe the number is more like 90 million.)

All content © 2005 Nijole Sparkis.
Only copy and distribute this content with proper attribution -- thanks!

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