The Great Transition Today:
A Report from the Future

by Dr. Paul D. Raskin
© Copyright 2006 by the Tellus Institute

Dateline - Mandela City, 2084: Our treatise of 2068—Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead— portrayed the astonishing transformations that had occurred during the twenty-first century. It is gratifying that scholars and citizens alike continue to find value in our capsule history, even as research continues to fill in details and add analytic insight. Our primary focus in the earlier volume was on historical antecedents and critical twenty-first century developments on the path to what has come to be called the Great Transition. In this belated postscript, our attention turns to a sketch of the contemporary world.

We give an introductory picture, highlighting important aspects of today’s society, while referring to a companion series of papers that elaborate key themes. This is no easy task. We are witnessing a complex process of planetary transition that is still unfolding. The wheel of history is still in spin. The real story of our times is one of dynamism, vitality, and change. The process of cultural invention shows little sign of abating. So it should be kept in mind that this survey of the cultural, political, economic, and social landscape describes but one momentary scene in an unfolding global drama.

What Matters

The emergence of a new suite of values is the foundation of the entire edifice of our planetary society. Consumerism, individualism, and domination of nature—the dominant values of yesteryear—have given way to a new triad: quality of life, human solidarity, and ecological sensibility. Naturally, these are expressed with varying weights and meaning across the spectrum of our diverse regions, but they are the sine qua non nearly everywhere. We review the three value categories in the paragraphs below.

That the enhancement of the “quality of life” should be the basis for development is now so self-evident, it must be remembered that, over the eons, the problem of scarcity and survival—what Keynes called the “economic problem”—dominated existence. In Keynes’ day, the industrial cornucopia, while unleashing an orgy of consumption among the privileged and desperation among the excluded, opened the historical possibility for our post-scarcity planetary civilization. People are as ambitious as ever. But fulfillment, not wealth, has become the primary measure of success and source of well-being.

The second value—“human solidarity”—expresses a sense of connectedness with people who live in distant places and with the unborn who will live in a distant future. It is a manifestation of the capacity for reciprocity and empathy that lies deep in the human spirit and psyche, the “golden rule” that is a common thread across many of the world’s great religious traditions. As a secular doctrine, it is the basis for the democratic ideal and the great social struggles for tolerance, respect, equality, and rights.

With their highly evolved “ecological sensibility”, people today are both mystified and horrified by the feckless indifference of earlier generations to the natural world. Where the right to dominate nature was once sacrosanct, people today hold a deep reverence for the natural world, finding in it endless wonder and enjoyment. Love of nature is complemented by the humility that comes with a deep appreciation of humanity’s place in the web of life, and dependence on its bounty. Sustainability is a core part of the contemporary worldview, which would deem any compromise of the integrity of our planetary home both laughably idiotic and morally wrong.

One World

The ambit of interpersonal affiliation has expanded throughout history, along an increasingly complex chain of identity—family, clan, tribe, city, and nation. Now, this sequence of historically constructed communities has scaled up again. Identity and citizenship has reached the level of the planet. We are one human family with one common fate.

At the turn of this century, the idea of a thorough-going globalism was mocked by august scholars and pragmatic politicians alike. This is not surprising. Looking forward, historical transitions seem highly improbable, while looking back they may come to seem inevitable.* From the vantage point of a few hundred years ago, a future world based on nation-states may have seemed an unlikely idea. Then, with the triumph of nationalist struggles, nations came to be viewed as the natural building blocks of the political order for several centuries.

Now, globalism is as deep-rooted as nationalism once was. Perhaps more so. One sees our blue planet from outer space in its integral wholeness, not imaginary state boundaries. By the turn of this century, the vision of a global civilization had become anchored in objective realities—a threatened biosphere, interdependent economies, common cultural experiences, and the long reach of war. Humanity as a whole had become a community of fate.

So globalism draws its energy from both idealism and pragmatism. The ancient ideal of a world civilization, as captured in Aristophanes dream of “mingling the kindred of nations in the alchemy of love”, is finally shaping an authentic global community. But it needs its partner, an unsentimental pragmatism that understands the practical need for planetary cooperation. Both the “pull of hope” and the “push of fear” forge the global citizen.

The set of universal principles that underpins global society did not fall from the sky. They were shaped by our forebears in the great historical projects for human rights, peace, development, and environment. In the last half of the twentieth century, the principles for a sustainable and just world were codified in a series of international agreements and declarations. While it would take a global transition in the twenty-first century to fulfill them, these were our indispensable preconditions and inspiration.

The point of departure of our Consolidated Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities, the opening section of the World Constitution of 2032, is the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Indeed, in one sense, the Great Transition can be understood as a project to make good on the long unfulfilled Article 28 of the Universal Declaration: “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized”. In addition, the Great Transition draws its environmental framework from the Earth Summit of 1992 and the stream of conventions that followed; its ethical compass from the Earth Charter, drafted in 2000 and adopted as international law in 2018; its framework for corporate responsibilities from the United Nations Global Compact of 2000; and its social covenants from the declarations of the global meetings of the 1990s.

These unifying principles are powerful expressions of the global commonwealth. But they would be little more than ephemeral good intentions were they not rooted in the commitment of living human beings. Ultimately, it is the keenly felt sense of global solidarity that binds and sustains our planetary society. The global citizens of today have refuted the old skeptics, who could not see beyond nationalism, and absolved the visionaries of a new global consciousness: “The age of nations is past; the task before us now, if we are to survive is to shake off our ancient prejudices, and build the Earth” (Teilhard de Chardin).

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Download the 15 page pdf from the Global Scenario Group

Dr. Paul D. Raskin is President of Tellus Institute, "a member of the Great Transition Initiative, a global network for elaborating visions and strategies for a future of enriched lives, global solidarity and a healthy planet."

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