CYBER-ECO EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION?

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.