Nations are obsolete...useful in their time...but now mostly obsolete. Good for infrastructure management, but not much more. We see the rise now of economic power blocks that will, eventually, give way to hemispheres...and then, sooner than we might imagine, coalesce into a new planetary cultural mosaic....That global culture of people is emerging now.
In this age of rapid transit, people from many countries, have extensively traveled the globe and, as a consequence, they have become as comfortable with planetary ways as they formerly were with the ways of their own country. It also may be true, that, because of the telephone, we have created a global reach that substitutes for many local affiliations.
It's more and more a world of local privacy and global intimacy.
It may not be obvious, at a glance, who these "global" people are, but they are more planetary than national and....virtually constitute a new social class. They are a commonly eclectic segment to say the very least.
Do you wonder if you qualify? You may not have ever thought of it, but should you be interested, here are a growing set of tell-tale indicators for the new planetary culture. Some of the categories may both surprise and interest you.
THE TRAVELER TEST There are certain things planetary people know about travelling, simply because they do so much of it. You can bet they are frequent fliers...maybe with more than one airline. Some have a quarter of a million miles to their credit, and that has come from three or four long trips a year for ten or more years. Most are rent-a-car club members. This means the car may be waiting, motor running and all details of the contract handled. Here, no matter the country or the car, the planetary traveler knows how to operate that unique vehicle.....within a minute.
Others have a metro-car account so that a modest limosine service can get them to meetings with a minimum of distress to the costume, hairdo, or psyche. Their baggage array also tells a story. They have the work bags that go on the plane with them. Then, there is that interesting combo of wheelies with long handles and attachment straps so that as many as four bags can be handled with one hand. They have telephone charge card numbers and often a cellular phone or beeper. They are virtual beings. They live in cyberspace...inside the communication itself ....their location specifically.... is often irrelevant, but they have a raft of planetary friends.
THE FORIEGN FLAVOR TEST On a basic level, these folks are fluent in all kinds of specialty foods and regional sauces. Yes, food and eating it, are still among the most important habits found across the spectrum of life. Planetary folks can instantly discriminate, with menu in hand, many of the flavors that have raced at light-speed around the culinary world in the last ten years. Food ideas move nearly as fast as music or movies. The speed and range is awesome and indicative of the power of the modern communication system.
If you are able to identify the key culinary ingredients in Italian, French, Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Mexican, Southwest American or even creole food you know the territory. Take a minute....cilantro?...sun dried tomatoes?...sweet chili sauce?...shitake mushrooms?...sweet sour sauce? See what I mean? You are more planetary than you thought...right? Hotdog stands near the Washington monument have pizza and egg roles prominently displayed together with the hotdogs.
SPIRITUAL SPIN-OFFS Now lets jump from basics to esoterics. Planetary folks think in a variety of spiritual disciplines. Oh boy, you're thinking, we're over the line here! Well, my guess is that your...faith in life....has been bolstered, for example, by the Christian tradition. I bet your ability to....let go....is way more Buddhist than it would have been ten years ago. My guess is the Hindu tradition has influenced our ability to accept the....dark side...of life and then work with it appropriately. Planetary folk use the...visioning process...which is endemic to aikido and even voodoo. The Taoists have encouraged us to...flow with....circumstances, while the Sufis have refocused us on the practical self-directing nature of....presence and breathing.
See...these influences are now common to our planetary culture. Obviously there are others. Some cultural cross-over has also come from folklore. Santa claus and most of the major fairy stories abide. Folklore has crossed borders from the very beginning of trade.
Trade itself, has also produced a common set of planetary tools. Consider how many people have an English umbrella, a Mexican blanket, a Japanese kimono, a Swiss watch, Italian leather shoes, a French perfume? Examine your artifacts for a moment. Surprised by the mix ? Soon other common features like McDonalds, the Hard Rock Cafe and Blockbusters will give all the shopping areas on the planet a common set of landmarks...like it or not.
ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS If you are a technician or a project manager you can rack up an unbelievable number of air miles on a global milk run. United 1K flyers (over 100,000 miles in a year) have road warrior lounges. Less than a hundred years ago it would take a family in a wagon perhaps 16 hours to make the run to town for supplies....now we can be halfway around the world in that time....resting and eating and working away on a laptop while the aircraft almost imperceptibly cruises along.
Conversations, there in the air , are also available with a kind of instant intimacy. People will talk about commonly expressed and deeply held beliefs it would take a year to discover if you lived in the same home town. Although all the physical body's are facing to the front, the distance between two faces in adjacent chairs is less than a foot...that's intimate! Then with a few buttons pressed the chairs recline and we sleep close enough together to be family.
COMMERCE OUTPERFORMS CONQUEST To fly a quarter of a million travel miles in ten years is fairly standard for the planetary person. And, of course travelers are somewhat obligated to bring something home to the kids. So, whereas in centuries gone by it was military conquest that actually created the transfer of cultural ideas, it is now the global commuters who do much the same kind of work. Some seasoned travelers can hit as many as three cities on a loop and navigate without a map in a dozen more. The world is not only getting smaller but we are becoming as familiar with it as we formerly were with our happy hunting grounds or perhaps the district we grew up in.
There are also stories from the market place which accent the virtual nature of this kind of global intimacy. Recently a company in northern Michigan contacted an artist in Hawaii to create art for their news letter being printed in Chicago. The request and subsequent communications traveled 47,000 miles in 47 minutes, using 3 full loops, with the new art laid out in the newsletter and ready for printing. It was possible with the a phone, fax, and e-mail communications equipment. Think about your planetary connections and how available they are to you. I recently saw a man in an outdoor shower on one continent call his wife in a restaurant in another. Talk about national boundaries becoming irrelevant!
THEY RECOGNIZE EACH OTHER Remember when it was interesting how many friends you had in other towns, then states and now.... is it countries? We may well live in one physical location but could easily be a part of as many as four or five other communities. When you attend the annual conference of your favorite association, isn't that one of your communities? How about the sports club and the friends you have there? Aren't they another community ? And the two chat groups on line? Some people are members of several virtual villages at the same time. Well, understand that it is true for more and more people to be connected by association and not proximity. Our children may live in five different communities simultaneously.
It also seems that really tuned-in planetary class of people can make that close connection in a matter of minutes. No formal introductions....just a few words about what you do, whether business or pleasure...and the discussion is off and running. Often they can intuitively rescue one another in strange airports where the hometown guy helps the...out of town guy...with a few quick but obvious tips. Ah, another plane caught with just minutes to spare. Who was that masked man? Just another planetary citizen whose been in the same jam before. And it used to be that people could be distinguished clearly by their clothes. Now the guy in the yankees baseball cap could be from Lithuania.
A TIP-OFF IN THE TOOLS Increasingly the hip players will carry a laptop with modem on-board. Two years ago it was the book style organizer...still popular. It all contributes to packing the physical office on-board to sustain the virtual presence of a planetary person. The cellular phone and beeper creates another kind of ubiquitous efficiency.
Fashions can be a give-away too. They have variability also but the planetary traveler treats the ride on a plane as a bedroom opportunity or perhaps a bookkeeping marathon. For the moment it's the most consistently private and uninterrupted workspace available.
They can be seen with warm slipper-socks on their feet, a blow -up neck ring around the head and often sprawled in three or more seats across completely out. Often, before landing, a comfortable sweatsuit will be completed with silk scarf and jacket and the lady exec is ready for her meeting.
In a newer version of the transoceanic aircraft, the seats are electrically adjusted for a foot rest, lumbar lift, and swing back as far as an old barber chair. You can plug into 18 channels of sound while watching any one of two dozen movies on a portable TV.
It was quite common in our recent history for cultures to be exchanged either as a function of trade or conquest. Today more and more the international traveler is the means of pollination. Now these travelers are themselves becoming a culture. It is the first planetary culture and the beginnings of a new civilization for the earth.
CHALLENGE
Can you place yourself? Are you a citizen of any country more than you are a citizen of the planet? What are your cherished affiliations? How many communities do you serve? What do you suppose is a fair mix of cultural affiliations for the citizens of the twenty-first century?
