Without coming across as a zealot, I believe there is a new world order coming – and it’s going to be like nothing we have known before. This one thing will be enough to generate another Bronze Age or Renaissance period and will clearly demonstrate the concept of America’s perceived entitlement of “manifest destiny”. What will move people all over the world into this change? Those of us fortunate enough to have been born in the USA, Europe, and Asia in the late 1800’s to the middle of the last century, have already watched this change unfold around us.
Just think- my three grandmothers (Yes, I was lucky enough to have more than any of my friends!) were born between 1897 and 1899 in the “wild, wild, west”. One grandma was the first white child born in that part of the White River Valley in Colorado. (Probably politically incorrect, but we are proud to be one of the pioneer families.) My grandmother born in 1897 celebrated her 100th birthday, and clearly remembers the Indians in Montana coming to stare through the windows to see a pale-skinned person. Her father’s journal recounts Custer’s last stand from the viewpoint of the ranchers in that area. My youngest Grandma was born in the US but her older siblings were born in Norway. I have letters she received from her family in North Dakota written in Norwegian on one side and translated into English on the other by one of her siblings that knew both languages. The younger children were punished if they spoke or learned Norwegian because it was that important to her parents that their children be true Americans. What do you think they and their parents would have thought of someone talking to them about astronauts, jet planes, vaccines for nearly every disease that killed the people of that time? Or motor cars, indoor plumbing, electricity, or refrigeration? How about computers, telephones in everyone’s pocket that allow constant contact, satellite TV? Yet my grandmothers saw, and adapted to, all of that in their lifetimes!
They were the first ones be swept up in the change. My parents and I were the next; but my children have never known a single day where all that and more wasn’t normal. My grandchildren are frighteningly adept at using these things practically from birth. (I think we may be seeing our species evolve before our eyes.) What is making this catastrophic change? Technology.
Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist that studied why some people could make it to incredible achievement and others couldn’t. He developed Maslow’s Pyramid to help give his observations of common traits and circumstances structure and coherence for laymen. His tool is known as the “Hierarchy of Human Needs” and is in the shape of a pyramid.
His pyramid is comprised of 5-levels, and the needs of one must be fulfilled to move forward to the next. The base is physical needs, next comes safety needs, third is love and belongingness, four is esteem, and the top tier is self-actualization. What would happen if everyone, everywhere had all these needs met? What options might percolate up through the process? I think that’s a topic for another day!