When the Paris-centered 18th-century
intellectual revolution (Enlightenment) coincided with the London-centered
First Industrial Revolution, the European intelligentsia demanded a political
and constitutional system that closes the iniquitous gap between societal
contributions of the forward-looking bourgeoisie and the reality of their
inferior politically and legally mandated social status that precluded societal
progress.
Meritocracy needed to replace the old regime
of privilege that allowed the nobility to rule on the basis of birth status,
not only because the bourgeoisie wanted political and social recognition
commensurate with their actual and potential contributions in all endeavors, as
Sieyes wrote in the What is the Third Estate, but because they
identified the national interest with their social order and regarded the
backward-looking clergy and nobility (First and Second Estates) as more
menacing enemies to the French nation than England. This was the birth of a new
definition of progress, nationalism, and democracy, along with the nascent
stage of bourgeois consciousness and value system.
Though other countries would aspire and
emulate the Enlightenment’s definition of nationalism and democracy in the next
two centuries, with each contracting cycle in the global economy there has been
a corresponding crisis in the social and political structures on which
18th-century liberal democracy is rooted. Hence, the overriding concern of
politicians and social elites to support sub-structures on which social order
rests, fearing the inevitable socio-political turmoil if nothing is done.
The under 40-years-of-age generation
belonging to the cyber-eco bourgeoisie, as I have baptized it to
distinguish it from bourgeoisie of previous eras, has been profoundly
influenced by web mindset around which the world evolves, ecology sensitivity,
and a new consciousness that distinguishes it from its predecessors. The West
arrived at the present social order after the formation of the mercantile
bourgeoisie (1350s-1750s), industrial bourgeoisie (1750s-1870s), and financial
bourgeoisie (1870s-1970s), all the result of the evolutionary economic
system predicated on perpetual expansion and global integration of the system.
Prevalent in developed and semi-developed
countries, the cyber-eco-bourgeoisie (1970s-present) are now on the
verge of a new revolution that is redefining the foundations of bourgeois
liberal democracy. Manifesting signs of profound contradictions throughout the
20th century during the “revolt of the masses” as Jose Ortega y Gasset observed
in a book by the same title, liberal democracy is in need of revitalization.
There is a “cyber-eco-bourgeois revolution” currently unfolding; a
systemic change not in the mode of production but in thought and way of life
that is a continuation of the Enlightenment spirit.
Technology and contradictions in the
political economy will continue to foster the evolutionary development of this
post-web middle class. The cyber-eco-bourgeoisie will become more
evident once it emerges from its nascent stage and reconfigures the entire
social and institutional structure just as the mercantile bourgeoisie and their
successors did in their time. With the caveat that all social orders contain
disparate elements within them, some characteristics of the cyber-eco-bourgeoisie
that the political economy has created include:
* Cyberspace-Eco-consciousness and
world-view. This entails distinct identity, and difference in the way of
thinking not so much in terms of substance but of style from the bourgeoisie of
previous eras. Cyber-eco bourgeoisie is not a passing fad nor is this
class suffering from another form of addiction. Rather it is immersed in
cyberspace-ecological consciousness to which it has given birth and an integral
part of its common interests and lives. Just as the industrial bourgeoisie felt
a sense of solidarity two centuries ago, so do their cyber-eco counterparts
today.
* Living inside universal cyberspace.
Doing everything from shopping and communicating to praying and dating through
the web may be a sign of greater alienation of this class than of its
counterparts in any previous era, but an indication of technology–computer
system philosophy–determining life. Moreover, by living in and through the web
as citizens of the world rather than citizens of nation-state and experiencing
the world through cyberspace present, the new bourgeoisie and working class
youths emulating them reject the real-time-real-space present. They are aware the
world is institutionally corrupt, ecologically destructive to the planet, and
backward instead of forward-looking. As currently constituted the political
economy is immersed in contradictions in so far as it fosters greater
scientific and technological progress along with wealth concentration that
engenders greater poverty, greater social and geographic polarization, and less
sustainable development.
* Fear, anxiety, and Cyber-cynicism of
Proletariat-ization on the part of the cyber-eco bourgeoisie resulting
from globalization and obsolescence of the professional class that identifies
itself with the future. The web has an underlying universal egalitarian aspect
to it that redefines elitism just as Enlightenment thinkers did three centuries
ago to reflect societal change. The new bourgeois class is exposed to an
overflow of web-knowledge from a very young age, therefore it is far more
skeptical and demanding than any other group that the contradictions of
20th-century political economies and cultures have produced thus far in East or
West.
Perhaps justifiably, the cyber-eco
bourgeoisie is more cynical of all authority–from politician to teacher and
preacher–largely because information on the web presents many different
viewpoints, facts, and possibilities other than those the establishment or
authority wants to inculcate into the public mind. Skepticism stems partly from
web exposure at a very young age and patterns of hypocrisy of rhetoric judged
against the long-standing record of ecological contamination and social
injustice. And unlike the corporate-owned media that fosters conformity,
cyberspace contains endless possibilities for dissidence, endless possibilities
for a better world.
* Nihilism: Immersed in massive
information and fantasy of “multimedia” and the realization that there is a
gap between severe limitations of institutions and daily life vs. limitless
possibilities for progress as presented through cyberspace to achieve the goal
of social and environmental justice along with sustainability accounts for
tendencies of nihilism among the cyber-eco-bourgeoisie. Nihilism tends
to pervade across a substantial segment of the bourgeoisie as a reflection that
the “real world’”is irrelevant, unaccommodating, hostile, and above all
hypocritical because it is socially unjust, environmentally dangerous, and
nothing matters because the status quo remains unchanged behind the veneer of
vacuous rhetoric.
There is a widening gap between political
systems and institutions in general that theoretically promote meritocracy when
in the real world it is increasingly evident meritocracy is obviated by the
absence of opportunities. Hence, the only option before the new bourgeoisie is
to pursue institutional change to close the gap between very high expectations
and very low reality levels.
* Techno-science would-be-rebels at
one level, the cyber-eco bourgeoisie will be interested in re-molding
society in a neo-positivist orientation to reflect their value system and way
of life, and to be integrated into an institutional mainstream that reflects
their values. More relativistic in political and social thought, the new
bourgeoisie are unburdened by the political dogmatism that plagued their
predecessors who felt the need to demonize the opponent. At a more fundamental
level, however, dialectical materialism and class struggle is not and will not
be obviated by the new bourgeoisie, who sees fighting against an entrenched
obsolete institutional structure that marginalizes and deprives it of a future
to which the new middle class believes it is entitled.
* Cyberspace-Eco Social Order is inevitable with the evolution of the bourgeoisie,
largely because objective conditions will bring it about. The working class or
at least a segment will be co-opted into the cyberspace-eco-bourgeois
movement in more conservative countries like the US and UK, where institutions
are under the firm control of traditional socioeconomic and political elites.
In countries with a history of strong working-class consciousness labor will
maintain greater socio-political cohesion and may forge alliances with other
radical groups–students and cyber-eco bourgeoisie–as a way of retaining
political influence.
Whether co-opted by or antagonistic to the cyber-eco
bourgeoisie, the comprador bourgeoisie inside and outside the formal
economy, as well as the working class and its role in society will be
influenced, if not largely determined, by the new middle class. Though this is
already a reality in the rapidly evolving division of labor for the most advanced
countries in high-tech sectors, it will become a reality for the entire world
for that is at the core of the both the mode of production and mode of
technology.
However, it does mean the reconfiguration of
the political economy which has been increasingly moving toward state-directed
capitalism and global quasi-management through international financial
organizations and consortiums. Such institutional reconfiguration will result
in the dominant socio-cultural influence of the cyber-eco bourgeoisie and the
reshaping of institutions to reflect the social change, while finance
capitalism will continue with increased state support and intervention.
Just as the mercantile bourgeoisie remained
an integral part of the social order after industrial capitalism triumphed, and
the same occurred with the industrial bourgeoisie once finance capitalism
consolidated as the backbone of the economy, similarly the cyber-eco
bourgeoisie will become the social group dominant in molding institutions. This
does not mean the emergence of the cyber-eco bourgeoisie in the developed
countries entails the end of the comprador bourgeoisie in the underdeveloped
areas, any more than it would mean the end of lumpen-proletariat that is more
than likely to be increasing in the 21st century along with the “informal”
economy, especially in the underdeveloped and semi-developed countries.
While the 21st-century cyber-eco bourgeois
revolution is a certainty in the absence of evolutionary institutional change,
it is difficult to predict how it will impact institutions in each country
under local political, economic, and social conditions. But it is certain that
unless the asymmetrical relationship is effaced between the high expectations
of the cyber-eco bourgeoisie and dim prospects for realizing career, upward
mobility and bourgeois lifestyle, society can expect challenges within the
perimeters of existing regimes as well as bourgeois-led mass movements that
workers will follow to express their own grievances and aspirations.
Because the cyber-eco bourgeoisie identifies
(or soon will do so) societal interest with itself, just as their middle class
counterparts of the 18th century, it would either have to be co-opted as their
fathers were co-opted after the Vietnam War to become the yuppies of the 1980
and 1990s, or they will force the system to accommodate their interests so they
become the class sharing in the privileges of traditional elites.
From conservative to liberal and varieties of
socialist political parties that are remnants of 19th-century ideologies and
20th-century political movements, it is difficult to see how accurately, if
indeed at all, they reflect the interests of the cyber-eco bourgeoisie.
It is
entirely possible that in the early 21st century at least a segment of
cyber-eco bourgeoisie could mobilize under some type of a “fascist” movement
that could very well become a regime, just as the petit bourgeoisie of the
interwar era supported varieties of Fascist and authoritarian-type movements
and regimes. In fact the neo-corporatist trends in a number of countries
including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, US, UK, and Germany to mention the most
notable examples, lend themselves to such possibilities, especially under the
convergence of a political, economic, and social crises coinciding with a major
foreign policy challenge.
However, it is much more likely that
cyber-eco bourgeoisie will become increasingly radicalized and may adopt
variations of Socialist paths. In the absence of systemic change in the mode of
production in the next 100 years, the majority of the new middle class will
either be absorbed or evolve into established parties that will eventually form
regimes in the most progressive countries where there is a large social base of
cyber-eco bourgeoisie. For most of the western world and Asia, the last century
has been the most deadly and turbulent politically and socially in human
history, while at the same time experiencing unprecedented technological and
scientific progress. In my view the last century has been even worse in many
respects than the Black Death/Hundred Years War epoch that marked the slow
structural transition–ideological, cultural economic and social–from the
Medieval to the modern era.
Owing to global and regional wars and
revolutions in the last 100 years, the entire world has undergone far-reaching
systemic political, social, economic and cultural changes that signal the
waning influence of hegemonic elites on society and the evolution of ideology
designed to preserve the status quo that never seems to catch up with the speed
of societal change, because it looks to the past instead of the present and
future.
The dynamics, which give birth to new elites
and new ideology, rest with evolutionary or revolutionary change that
culminates into catalytic events and radical transformation in the prevalent
mode of thinking and behaving by dominant groups as a response to societal
changes. Crises of varying types from political to social and economic as the
world is currently facing serve as catalysts in re-evaluating obsolete national
and international institutions and the existing value system on which they are
based.
The hegemonic elites and their variation of
19th -century liberal ideology with modifications so they may fit into the 20th
century world will be facing a challenge from the nascent Cyber-Eco Bourgeoisie
(CEB) as the new elites of the 21st century. Ideas are born from the depths of
human experience and become important to groups of people or society at large
only if they reflect dearly held values and aspirations rooted in the human
experience instead of dogma.
Once ideas are formalized and become part of
an ideology and then adopted by elites interested in institutional conformity,
ideas no longer reflect the original purpose of furthering the welfare of the
people who embraced them to give their lives meaning and purpose. While ideas
as ideology or dogma are useful to forge coalitions intended to preserve the
status quo, the absence of authentically reflecting real experiences means the
absence of systemic change that conflicts with ideology which invariably
evolves into dogma by the hegemonic elites and their followers embracing and
conforming by coercion or faith.
While the body of ideas (ideology) based on
philosophy or religion from centuries ago seems perfectly sound intellectually,
society’s rapid changes make ideologies obsolete and regressive. For example
“democracy” as an ideology that has ancient Athenian roots has no relevance to
modern-day Norway any more than modern day France, US, or any other country. By
the same token, Norwegian, French, or American democracy of 100 years ago has
no relevance to the present generation, except for that which the hegemonic
elites in each of these countries choose to attribute to ideology in order to
perpetuate the social order.
Hegemonic elites use ideology to preserve a
system and prevent change within the system, change needed to best serve the
needs of the vast majority of the population in the present and prepare for the
future. Thus ideology rooted in the past invariably works against the present
and necessarily reflects the past that hegemonic elites wish to preserve. Like
science that always stays dynamic and its conclusions invariably incorporate
Einstein’s caveat–”until further notice”–similarly social, economic, and
political ideology to remain vibrant and alive in the present, to reflect
changing conditions instead of the distant past must remain dynamic.
While science is indeed is possessed by the
sense of universal causation as Einstein comments in The World as I See It,
ideology must be rooted in scientific thought to be relevant in the present and
look toward the future which is every whit as necessary and determined as the
past. In short, if ideology is rooted in ontological (essential) criteria
instead of empirical (historical), then it fails to look toward the future, and
toward promoting progress which is both a scientific and socially ethical
matter.
Modern political economy as articulated by
ideology, rooted as Bertrand Russell pointed out in the Liberal theory of
politics as a recurrent product of commerce, is used to justify an obsolete
system that cyclical crises empirically demonstrate its decadence. Given this
inescapable reality, the masses view traditional elites embracing an obsolete
ideology with enormous popular skepticism–i.e. very recent public opinion polls
indicate in the US 38% have confidence in business elites; the percentages are
even lower in other countries. Crisis in confidence by those expected to
conform to the ideology of the hegemonic elites necessarily provides an opening
for the emergence of new elites. The CEB currently emerging will as previous
elites formulate an ideology based on its own needs and aspirations, just as it
will stand in opposition to ideologies of former elites standing in the way of
systemic change.
Although CEB has emerged increasingly
influential since the Clinton-Gore administration, the new US administration
clearly represents CEB ideology and elites that are essentially technocratic,
managerial, and part of the intelligentsia. Though Obama is the first president
to be elected at least partly by CEB, and that may be indicative of ideological
and political orientation of this group, it remains to be seen whether the
broad coalition that includes the CEB will have any sustaining power to elect
future presidents, and to formalize an ideology and move into the mainstream as
I am confident it will in the next few decades.
As the new emerging elites, the CEB will in
time demonstrate and propagate a strong sense of social responsibility and
obligation because their ideology rests on furthering human progress through
cyber-eco value system that incorporates the interests of all classes under a
neo-corporatist model. Unlike the old elites that relied on nationalism while
practicing internationalism in business, CEB will embrace internationalism and
solidarity with people throughout the planet they see as one in a geo-centric
order whose common interests are intertwined.
This will mean that global integration on a
world scale would not proceed on a neo-colonial basis as it has in the 20th
century, but on a more equitable geographic and social model. The core belief
that symbiosis is the only rational and practical approach that benefits people
and the planet will be the motivation of the masses to follow CEB elites that
will embrace an internationalist cyber-eco ideology. To be effective in
co-opting the masses and becoming mainstream the new CEB ideology will
necessarily carry with it a new CEB ethos– a topic I will be addressing shortly
in the final segment on CEB.
After analyzing Cyber-Eco Institutions: Social
Identity in the first of a four-part essay in order to establish the thesis for
arguing the transformation of the existing social order, in the second part
there is analysis of Institutional Challenge that the CEB will be posing to the
social order during the 21st century. Ideology & Elites in the third part
sets the foundation for the replacement of classical liberal ideology and its
many variations in the past two hundred years with CEB ideology, while this
final segment dealing with Elites and Cultural Evolution argues that we are and
will continue to undergo thoroughgoing cultural evolution that will entail the
consolidation of CEB elites in this century.
Elites: Cultural Evolution
Fernand Braudel in Civilisation Materielle et Capitalisme, and Samuel
Huntington in Clash of Civilizations and “Culture, Power, and Democracy”
contended that late 20th -century world is immersed in clashes of
civilizations. Both Braudel and Huntington maintained that the Chinese,
Russians, Africans, Indians, and Muslims feel that historically western
civilization had tried to impose its hegemony through the “tools of imperial
policies” that include everything from wearing apparel and entertainment to
religion and hedonistic-atomistic-oriented value system.
Cultures under Islam, Hinduism and Confucianism have historically resisted
western cultural traits rooted in materialism, atomism, and pluralism that
invariably alienate the individual or set her/him separate and above the
community. Owing to globalization (neo-imperialism), there is gradual change in
the values system of advanced and semi-developed countries around the world,
change prompted by the combination of eco-awareness and modern web-cell
technology that is shaping the new generation of CEB.
It seems difficult for some to conceive how cyber-eco-consciousness has
pervaded the late 20th- century young bourgeoisie immersed in a cyber-eco world
that has been an integral and ubiquitous part of life in all areas from
education and business to leisure and entertainment. The convergence occurred
largely because the environmental movement was popularized about the same time
as cyber tech that disseminated information about global warming, holding the
promise of seeking solutions from grass roots level to institutional
mainstream. Science and technology for the CEB has a culture of life
orientation rather than a culture of death, a phenomenon with which the
bourgeoisie and hegemonic elites had been associated in the past century,
largely because of mass destruction in two world wars and the nuclear race.
In Culture Against Man Jules
Henry argues that in western culture most people associate science with the
culture of death, a culture that includes all academic endeavors, corporations,
and government. “Thus we have an elite of
death that we support in relative luxury… The culture of life resides in all
those people who, inarticulate, frightened, and confused, are wondering where
will it all end.” Because the “elite forces of death” are
institutionalized, while the mass forces of life are scattered and bewildered,
where is the hope for society’s salvation in the future? The answer is from
within the existing social order the emergence of the CEB that will provide the
answer under an evolving ethos already manifesting itself in multifarious
institutional and non-institutional settings.
Culture, of course, evolves over time in layers, and one cultural layer rests
and absorbs elements of the previous. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed, culture
is grown not acquired (Ethics). Given that culture cuts across class lines
despite the dominant class institutionalizing it, it is inevitable that CEB
culture will be a reflection of the evolving values and tastes of the
bourgeoisie, with inevitable influences from aspects of Oriental cultures. A
combination of grass-roots and top-down (superimposed or cultural imperialism) CEB
culture will spread much faster than any other in history.
Top-down (superimposed by domestic or foreign hegemonic elites) cultural
domination does not work, at least not for very long even if they are perfectly
rational from a social engineering and political perspective as far as the
elites are concerned. On the other hand, hegemonic elites intending to co-opt
evolutionary cultural trends afford legitimacy and mainstream value whether as
part of native culture as in pluralistic-multiethnic western societies, or as
an integral part of cultural imperialism as in the Third World under
colonialism and neo-imperialism.
The catalyst to cultural dissemination, as with CEB currently in its nascent
phase, is mass acceptance just as in religion; but also there must be a
material basis for it. In “Grace, Violence and Self,” Frederick Hoffman argues
that “grace may be the essence of culture” in so far as it is linked to
goodness, virtue, and to a spiritual, and that people have been willing to
sacrifice themselves for the sake of their culture’s survival. For culture to
survive and flourish society must have a degree of shared values it is willing
to wholeheartedly embrace–spiritual as Hoffman maintains or material as
Marxists argue–but also prosperity even if concentrated within a small group of
people, hegemonic elites that foment the growth of the education, the arts,
sciences and other cultural endeavors.
At the same time, hegemonic elites that essentially create and propagate the
dominant or mainstream culture are invariably successful in convincing the
majority of the population to revere the cultural values and aesthetic
achievements emanating from it only if there is not only an idealistic ultimate
goal but a practical aesthetic aspect to culture. While economic determinism
has an impact in cultural trends–in everything from elite to popular
culture–economic determinism is by no means alone in shaping culture from
ancient to modern times.
Though educational systems of most advanced and semi-advanced countries are
consciously or unconsciously preparing young people for a cyber-eco-bourgeois
culture, we are still many years away from an education system immersed in CEB
values and chief instrument of disseminating CEB ideology.
Besides stressing the traditional intellectual development and training for
career, CEB education will have at its core the hypothesis that all progress is
predicated on ecology-related research, technology and industry combined with
emphasis on how next generation cyber-tech with applications in everything from
surgery to space exploration will mean the salvation of humanity. One of the
most significant cultural CEB characteristics is the way people choose their
partners who share their values. Everything from entertainment and religious worship
to the way people choose partners and procreate will be determined by the new
CEB-centered value system. CEB cultural trends are manifested in all forms of
entertainment from TV and Hollywood motion pictures to magazines, newspapers,
books, web blogs and web-related entertainment.
Gradually mainstream public and private institutions are adopting aspects of
CEB cultural trends. The catalysts to cultural transformation will be the
combination of eco-friendly energy and new high tech industries linked cyber
and eco. All countries will be working toward that goal and that will translate
into a new ethos that will represent CEB. At this embryonic juncture CEB is
still at the “sub-culture” level but in the next half century or so it will be
moving into the mainstream as it becomes more widespread and accepted
throughout the world. Already there is evidence of CEB subculture in many areas
that are obvious.
There is very clear evidence of this already not just with cyber-net cafes and
bars, but in the eco-friendly foods people choose to produce and consume
throughout many advanced countries, and in CEB lifestyles they choose for
themselves and their children. As a reflection of culture, food will change to
reflect the values of the CEB. Similarly lyrics in music will increasingly
reflect CEB values, as will motion pictures, theater, television and all media.
Of course there is already eco-tourism that has been around for time, and
expanding very rapidly whether it involves travel to mountains or sea.
Institutionalized religion too will change as it must reflect the values of its
followers to survive. Already religion has adapted to web-cell technology where
people access the faith of their choice on line, pray on line, receive
sacraments on line, and contribute on line. Already we have CEB-oriented
churches where “ecology is next to Godliness” and the followers are guided to
preserve God’s ecosystem.
One of CEB’s principal characteristics is its inherent antithesis to
“culturalism,” a phenomenon prevalent in a number of ancient and early modern
societies, especially the Ming (1368-1644) and Ch’ing (1644-1911) dynasties
when Chinese culture was identified with the state and uninviting to foreign
influences of any type. Unlike Oriental cultures, especially Chinese rooted in
socio-political stability, Western culture from the Renaissance to the present
has undergone intellectual, religious, commercial, industrial, scientific and
technological revolutions, all of which lead to CEB culture.
Rapid institutional changes in the West are rooted in cultural changes and
socio-political imbalances since the rise of the nation-state that was the core
of national culture as opposed to international culture CEB will be creating.
If we accept the premise that scientific, technological, and artistic
development and progress is both a reflection of the hegemonic elites
representing society’s superstructure and an agent of systemic societal change,
then it is inevitable (determinist) that the dynamics which have given rise to
CEB will eventually propel it to the core of the superstructure.
