Cultural Creatives Now 35% of US | 10% in Transition

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Antonella Graef, lensed in Vogue Russia July 2010 by photographer Ben Weller juxtaposes important values subsets around the globe.

We doubt that Vogue Russia intended to make any global values statements with these photos, but they capture perfectly the milkmaid who loves nature and baubles, too. She is the Smart Sensuality woman. 

Dr. Paul Ray and Cultural Creatives

We embrace the research of Dr. Paul Ray and his wife Sherry Anderson and their identification of Cultural Creatives as a growing group of international globalists who embrace human values considered female-centric. 

My strategic  focus on Smart Sensuality women highlights a subset of Dr. Ray’s values-driven universe. In my conversations with Dr. Ray and in reviewing his research through the prism of my own observations about American culture and consumerism, I find his insights rock solid. 

The Antonella Graef’s photo dramatize the conflicting issues around materialism, wealth, nature and environment, international development and the relationship of the individual to her/his group status. 

We oversimplify the Integral Values research, positing these trends as an American mindset vs a Scandinavian one.

Yet the comparative lens reflects the concerns of millions of independent-thinking, creative achievers — who aren’t socialist threats as argued by Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck in the tradition of Joseph McCarthy.

Like them but perhaps more thoughtfully and definitely in lower-toned voices, we consider what defines a life well-lived life and the nature of our obligations to the rest of the world community and Mother Nature.

We regret that CulturalCreatives.org — the top Google entry in a search on Cultural Creatives hasn’t been updated since 2001. The finding suggests that Cultural Creatives are no big deal, which is not the case.

Camped out now at Wisdom University,  the Cultural Creatives remain a comparatively weak voice on a critical mindset evolution, and especially among women.  Watching a sprinkling of YouTube videos embracing the Cultural Creatives movement, the spokespersons are largely men, which is unfortunate because being a Cultural Creative requires an embrace of female-centric principles. 65% of CCs are women. 

In 2008 Dr. Ray updated his research from his groundbreaking 2000 study on the Traditionals, Moderns and Cultural Creatives. Reading the overview document, we update key points for readers.

Cultural Creatives often describe themselves as ‘bridge people’ between the Traditionals and Moderns, ‘trying to make a ‘cultural synthesis’ that moves the world beyond its polarized opposites.

The core values of Cultural Creatives remain:

  • Ecological sustainability
  • Enjoying exposure to foreign ideas and culture
  • Concern about women and children worldwide
  • Priority of health care and education
  • Desire to rebuild neighborhoods and community
  • Improving neighborhoods and community
  • Emphasis on creating caring relationships and family life
  • Social conscience and demand for authenticity
  • Guarded social optimism
  • Emphasis on altruism, self-actualization and spirituality as a single complex of values.

Dr. Ray positions the Cultural Creatives as a new values-driven subset emerging from the activism of the 1960s. In the prior years only two values sets were primary in america: the Traditionals and Moderns. 

In the 1995 study, Cultural Creatives were 23.6% of US adult. By 1999 they had increased to 26%. 

An addition to the new research is a new group called the Transitionals, representing 10% of Americans. 

The current US breakdown in Dr. Ray’s research is:

Moderns 39.7%

Cultural Creatives 34.9%

Traditionals 15.4%

Transitionals 10.1%

Women Must Lead the Cultural Creatives

A rule among Cultural Creatives should be that women are not only visible as leaders of the discussion, but dominate it.

Otherwise, the Cultural Creatives become just another regurgitation of the New Left.  As women who embrace men, we’re not interested in being instructed by them any longer on how to create an improved word. At this stage in global development, we agree with development strategies that support investment in women. 

Men — like women — should earn their Cultural Creatives credentials and their ideas and programs should be evaluated against the core principles of the 65% of CCs who are women.  The world simply doesn’t need another ideology led by males on any continent.

Nor does the world need men interpreting what’s best for women.

We’ve wasted 50 years on that crap shoot, watching women’s status devolve in many parts of the world and not progress or become sidetracked in developed countries like America.

The 40% of Anne of Carversville readers who are men support this viewpoint around the priority of getting goddess wisdom. We hope to help articulate the Cultural Creative - Smart Sensuality viewpoint in a landscape where the viewpoints are quiet compared to Palin, Beck & Company. Anne

Note: Smart Sensuality women are Cultural Creative women who like style and promote responsible consumption.