was held Saturday, February 27, 2010 in a crowded Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, the presentation of the movie
"Olos, the Soul of Earth" was screened in Klimaforum premiered at Copenhagen last December.
The film aspires to be the manifesto of a new global culture is emerging that seems to cross between the population of developed countries: that which unites the so-called cultural creatives.
The term "cultural creatives
" was coined for the first time by the American sociologist
Paul H. Ray that between the mid-80s and late 90s, along with psychologist Sherry R.
Anderson has played numerous research studies on this population sample maker, according to two scholars, a process of cultural change is still ongoing and continuous development.
Today an increasing number of people concerned about the state of the environment, world peace, climate change, social injustice and economic and, by contrast, look in everyday behaviors to adopt attitudes geared to a lifestyle more conscious, sustainable, in the search of a better quality of life and inspired the research personal growth and inner. If you recognize yourself in these values \u200b\u200band goals will also help you proudly call "cultural creatives
. The studies of Ray and Anderson have found that the cultural creatives in the U.S., still a small minority of people in the '60s, went today to represent a sample of
over 30% of the U.S. population . Ray
studies have been taken in Italy by Enrico Cheli
, sociologist and professor at the University of Siena and
Nitamo Montecucco, psychosomatic physician, researcher at the Center of Natural Medicine, University of Milan, and chairman of the Club
Budapest Italy (for info visit:
http://www.club-of-budapest.it/ ).
These two Italian scholars, as well as having collaborated with the film "Olos" are also the authors of the book
"The Cultural Creatives" (Xenia Edizioni, €. 10.00) which presents the similar examination of the theme carried out in our country and show us too, but generally in all major European countries, the cultural creatives
are multiplying over the years with rates quite close to those found in the U.S..
In general, Italian studies and those conducted by Ray, emerges as more than 30% of the population now falls into this category, consisting of a mild and greater percentage of women than men (55% women and 45% men), and that the issue ever more dear to cultural creatives is
peace immediately followed closely by
environmental protection.
But the most important figure in my opinion is another.
When comparing the two studies clearly show the presence of a trans-national culture
widely shared and growing that aims to become the new dominant culture over time and characterized by a sense of direct responsibility of the individual. The Cultural Creatives
support the need to commit themselves to follow a lifestyle that can be active in helping to ensure that the desired positive change will occur.
The philosopher and Nobel Prize for Peace
Ervin Laszlo argues that "
we do not know with certainty what the future holds. However we can not keep going like we did before. "
We are destroying the structure of society, insecurity is growing both in rich countries than in poor ones, and more than 900 million people worldwide live in slums, shanty towns.
One billion people on the planet has available and uses 80% of the planet's resources, and the rest of the world's population (6 billion people) has provided the remaining 20% \u200b\u200bof resources. This was not enough, we are also destroying the planet. The production of biological resources has reached its maximum, the biodiversity and are threatened with extinction, water shortages for more than half the world's population. Climate change threatens to make the planet unsuitable for food production and the very life of the people who inhabit it.
"
Point - still supports Laszlo -
is not so much to change - what we must do it by force - but rather the question is another: change in time? "
Already in the eighteenth century Thomas Malthus
he theorized that one day the number of the world population would exceed the capacity to produce enough food to feed them.
today consume more than we can regenerate and replace or discard more than nature can absorb.
E 'must therefore acquire a different understanding that is based on different values \u200b\u200band different priorities from those who have shaped our lives so far. This is probably the only way we can take to safeguard the life of the human species on Earth. Because the point is another. The Earth has 4 billion and a half years, has survived the extinction dinosaurs, surely survive even the extinction of man.
The problem is ours and of our species.
So what?
M. Gandhi stated: "
Be the change you want to see in the world." A. Einstein added
"you can not solve a problem with the same thinking that created the problem."
If we want to save the world today we need to change ourselves and our way of thinking .
The Cultural Creatives depart from two assumptions in order to induce the desired changes:
- the first is the awareness that
man and nature are one and not two separate entities.
-
the second condition is the sense of direct responsibility for all of us. If we are one with nature and with others on our responsibilities do not end with ourselves, our families, with our country, but include the whole human family and the whole Earth.
The film "
Olos " takes its name from the greek word that is just
mean "everything", the 'whole "and seeks to develop the concepts mentioned above. Do this by defining the so-called "holistic paradigm
" or a scheme of interpretation of reality that is far from the scheme envisioned by the philosopher Descartes
and separating definitely matter and spirit, knowledge and belief (
cogitans res and res extensa, fact), trying instead to affirm the model
holistic 's based on a unitary and most complex of man and the planet where he lives.
E 'at the bottom as early as the 70s of last century have tried to assert
cultural movements such as environmentalism, ecology, alternative medicine or some meditation practices such as yoga, Zen, Buddhism and more.
With the collaboration of thirty distinguished scientists and scholars around the world, "
Olos " attempts to prove the scientific basis of the holistic paradigm by analyzing the individual branches of research: from medicine to genetics, psychology, philosophy until ' ecology where it is recognized in
James Lovelock and his
"Gaia Hypothesis " (where the full range of living species on Earth is seen as a single large unit active and able to manipulate the environment to your needs global), probably one of the most significant contributions to the development of the holistic paradigm. The same
path, in a more structured and detailed, is also followed in the book
"The Cultural Creatives" by Cheli and Montecucco.
ultimate aim of the Cultural Creatives
is through an increasingly extensive and widespread dissemination as possible of their guiding principles, to establish the so-called "
critical mass" necessary for global change. The
"
critical mass" in physics identifies the amount of fissile material (uranium, plutonium) needed to trigger a chain reaction. It is taken as a comparison in this case to show how an active minority of the population sensitive to certain other issues, however, can cause a great social change when they reach a certain level of size or intensity. And this change to reach this critical threshold may then develop into a very sudden and radical.
E 'no doubt that humanity and the planet we are passing through a historical period of great climatic changes, social, economic and existential. Parallel is also no doubt that at present there is also a process of questioning the dominant culture. They are two tendencies in sharp contrast to each other: a
destructive and a constructive
. The outcome of this clash is still uncertain.
E 'but not sure we still have plenty of time for our final choice.
initiative in Palazzo Vecchio had had almost no emphasis in the press room and yet the Salone dei Cinquecento in Florence was gremitissimo.
That is really something is moving at the level of public awareness and desire for change for the better?
For more info see:
http://www.reteolistica.it/ or
http://www.creativiculturali.it/ Michele Salvadori
