The Evolution of Society and Culture

The Internet has supplanted the postal service, libraries, schools, books and newspapers -- who have to reinvent their original meaning and purpose. Most of these institutions came into being in the 19th century -- to address a lack of communications and information -- which is no longer true, and so rather than doing what we've done before, in the past, we need to do things that really need to be done in this day and age, and not realizing that, are the problems of these times.

If one grows up in a society (culture) in which everyone is educated, informed, and can access all the information (Internet), every person doesn't have to have that ability -- but a core commitment to solving actual problems -- rather than simply perpetuating them as their own job security -- that leaves no available resources for the exigencies of these times.

Most of the education, information and education process can be supplanted by state of the art forms -- which require a lot less labor for better.

The most disturbing trend of these times is the exploding growth of the health care sector and expenditures -- to perpetuate and enable a dying way of life -- requiring increasing many others, just to keep one alive -- with no prospects for a full recovery. That's not a vision of a viable and sustainable society -- in which the majority of the resources go to increasing dependencies -- rather than increasing self-reliance and true independence, and simply calling a greatly constricted form of life "independence," because one still is living on their own, and caring for themselves primarily. That is a truly frightening portent of the future -- which more money at, is not a solution but increasing the problem.

What has to happen instead, is that people have to get healthier and stay healthier all their lives -- but is not only possible, but now made inevitable except for the cultural lag in the recognition of greater possibilities -- beyond just doing the same things faster, easier, and requiring even more personnel. That way of life, is unaffordable, as well as it should be unattractive as the meaning and purpose of any society.

Thus concepts that were introduced but quickly forgotten in the 20th century, like job-sharing, increased leisure time (not necessarily unemployment and retirement but something productive and life-enhancing), co-housing, and integrated existences, are no longer just faddish thinking, but developments that point the direction society has to go -- whenever it wants to or not.

Change has always been the creative force in American life and society which has lately become a morbid preoccupation with maintaining the status quo and entrenched hierarchies, that has brought down every civilization in the past. Some people know the words, but they really are not the real prophets of change -- but are actually the defenders of the status quo, while designating themselves as "progressives," as though saying so, was enough to make it so.