If the information age represents a middle-phase adolescence, perhaps in some distant future society will morph into its fully mature form, a “solar” age in some distant era, its butterfly stage, but that will not be my concern or interest. Society’s mature ideal will not be my concern here because getting through societal adolescence will be task enough. I have little insight beyond the business, potential and therefore future of our present adolescent age.
But were you to ask me what I wanted for society when it “grows up”, I’d wish for world where most people live free to achieve their full potential, whatever that may be, where life for many reaches higher or deeper than consumerist or social striving, to achieve self-actualization and self-realization, and whatever may be the collective parallel for global society as a whole.
Is there also a carrot out in front of this societal donkey, one we can never experience and only imagine? Idealism frequently inspires reforms in business, government, and civil society all around us. In countless examples, companies of all sizes strive to make their products, services and operations environmentally sustainable, their employees’ lives more well rounded and fulfilling, and their customers, communities and other stake-holders better off. Although such goals are also congruent with cost-benefit calculations involving reputation, good will, employee productivity and market opportunities, and some companies only pay lip service to progressive objectives, nonetheless, in many companies, reforms are inspired by and drawn forward by a sincere passion to make the world a better place. [1] Apple Computer espouses a business philosophy of single mindedly aiming for product improvement, regardless of cost, leaving profit maximization to take care of itself, and the same pursuit of improvement over cost savings or short-term profit maximization characterizes many leading technology companies. Many progressive companies are guided by a vision of what an environmentally sustainable future might look like, conceived in broadest terms, nurturing to each person’s individual spirit. For the leaders of such companies, ideals are both practical and real.
To the extent ideals have practical effect, to this extent they must be taken into account by those seeking to understand societal progress and development. Such ideals might become increasingly significant as society leaves behind the materialistic industrial age, where materialistic costs and benefits were relatively easy to calculate and estimate, and proceeds through the information age, where the costs and benefits of progress are less tangible and perhaps harder to quantify. Since carrot and stick propel and draw the donkey in the same direction, we do not necessarily require the carrot to move the donkey, or to empirically predict or explain its path. It is certainly easier for social scientists to measure and monitor the bottom line material efficiency of businesses and other social institutions, but examination of the ideals which inspire change could equally enlighten society’s developmental path forward. Human adolescence is a time when children take charge of their future and begin to shape it proactively out of their own free will, dreaming of ideals and limitless possibilities. Similarly, this argues for now in the information age proactively imagining the better and best future society we would want and could have. I will come back to these ideals in the latter portion of this essay.
[1]See for example Michael E. Porter, Mark R. Kramer, “Creating Shared Value: How to Reinvent Capitalism – and Unleash a Wave of Innovation and Growth”, Harvard Business Review, January, 2011, or Nicholas D. Kristof, “Do-Gooders with Spreadsheets”, New York Times 1/30/07, p.A22 [Update]