ionalist, or
God-forbid, holy posture. Rather than retreating into the simplistic
and childlike, if temporarily reassuring, belief that the answers have
already been written along with the entire human story, we must
resolve ourselves to participate actively in writing the story
ourselves. It is not enough to go back to our old models, particularly
when they have been revealed to be inadequate at explaining the
complexity of the human condition. It is too late for the Western
World to retreat into Christian fundamentalism, accelerating global
conflict in an effort to bring on the messianic age. It is too late to
push blindly towards a purely capitalist model of human culture. There
is simply too much evidence that the short-term bottom line does not
serve the needs of people or the environment. There are too many
alternative values and cultural threads surrendered to profit
efficiency that may yet prove vital to our cultural ecosystem.

Instead, we must forge ahead into the challenging but necessary task
of inventing new models ourselves, using the collaborative techniques
learned over the past decade, and based in the real evidence around
us.

Chapter 4

Networked democracy

The values engendered by our fledgling networked culture may, in fact,
prove quite applicable to the broader challenges of our time and help
a world struggling with the impact of globalism, the lure of
fundamentalism and the clash of conflicting value systems. The very
survival of democracy as a functional reality is dependent upon our
acceptance, as individuals, of adult roles in conceiving and
stewarding the shape and direction of society.

Religions and ideologies are terrific things, so long as no one
actually believes in them. While absolute truths may exist, it is
presumptuous for anyone to conclude he has found and comprehended one.
True, the adoption of an absolutist frame of reference serves many
useful purposes. An accepted story can unify an otherwise diverse
population, provide widespread support for a single regime and
reassure people in times of stress. Except for the resulting
ethnocentrism, repression of autonomy and stifling of new ideas, such
static templates can function well for quite a while. Dictators from
Adolph Hitler to Idi Amin owed a good part of their success to their
ability to develop ethnically based mythologies that united their
people under a single sense of identity. The Biblical