Note: Normally capitalized words for groups of people are intentionally left in lower case.
A couple of terms that I had to familiarize myself with were industrial and post-industrial society. Industrial society is where the majority of wealth is generated from manufacturing and a post-industrial is one where the majority of wealth is based on service. Interestingly, Alain Touraine coined the term “post-industrial”.
My bedtime reading is a book called After the Crisis from the French sociologist Alain Touraine. In it he gives examples of current societal issues, conflicts between different groups fighting for their rights, the future of society and defining it going forward. I haven’t finished reading the book, but so far to me he is theorizing on ways to help people create a new model of Human organization and calls it the “post-social” civilization.
Touraine lays the foundation and context by showing our society lives in a global economy which is without global regulations and also that like a zit on a face (my own metaphor), is the concentrated wealth in the hands of so few. The global economy pushes down on the individual, such that the old social constructs or groupings don’t work anymore, white, black, gay, straight, jewish, muslim, christian, etc. I admittedly don’t have this quite right, but in my defense I am still trying to understand all of this.
What I’m understanding as he builds his theory for a path forward, is one based on Human rights, not any one group’s rights but rights for all, universal rights, the right of each Human to security and freedom. This makes a lot of sense, because at the basic physical level of atoms, we are all one, we all have two arms, two legs and a head, although some seem to have two tongues, but it’s late.
We all live in a virtual world, our networks aren’t physical but virtual through facebook and twitter and tv, etc. How many of us hang out with our physical neighbor(s)? I suspect it’s very few.
The approach of universal human rights cascades into forcing old economic models to not work. For instance, obliterating indian lands and sacred burial grounds to lay pipelines in the name of progress, stomping on their rights or at least just the boldness in trying. The indians have the right to clean water, water is a Human right. This theory would then force the energy company to find another solution. Another example comes to mind with the kids suing the U.S. over the right to clean air. Clean air is a Human right.
As I’m reading and absorbing all this, what comes to mind is the foundation that Eleanor Roosevelt laid out almost 70 years ago at the UN, ….. “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”
http://www.humanrights.com/what-are-human-rights/international-human-rights-law/
Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash