Cultural Stories: Perspectives and Context

The last several months I've been looking into cultural narratives. What is our cultural narrative? And from which lens are we viewing it? Is it the American dream? Is it the Western cultural narrative? And how is this different from the cultural narrative of other cultures and civilizations such as the African, Indian, Latin American, Japanese, or Chinese?

If we take it to the very local level, we can think of the cultural story of our home town, and then go up the scale. So, for example, we can start with the Inner Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco, then the City of San Francisco, then the Bay Area, then Northern California, then Western region of the US, then the USA, then North America, then Western Hemisphere and finally Western Culture. Each of these levels has a particular character and a specific quality to its cultural story. So, it's very difficult to assign a cultural story at a global scale.

In the case of San Francisco and the Bay Area it is a hot spot for new innovations and hi-tech and one of the cultural narratives revolves around this theme. It is also a place of constant change, a melting pot of different ideas and cultures. There's also a transient quality about this region. There's also the cultural heritage of San Francisco, the impact of the Gold Rush in the 1850s, the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes, the port of San Francisco, the emergence of Silicon Valley, the impact of Jack London, David Brower, John Muir, the 1960s music and counterculture, Stanford University and UC Berkeley and many other individuals institutions and movements that comprise the story of this region.

In addition to the physical and economic characteristics affecting the cultural narratives, there are the qualities associated with urban centers. In the case of the San Francisco Bay Area, the fast pace of life, the congestion, traffic, population density, valuable real estate all impact the story of this region.

A completely different cultural narrative may apply to someone living in say Cairo, Paris, Osaka, or Johannesburg. What each cultural narrative has in common is the impact of the city's physical biogeography, national and cultural heritage, population ethnicity, economic activity among many other factors.

For additional information about the world's civilizations, see: The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington. Also, Duane Elgin has done interesting work on social evolutionary stages. And to learn about cultural stories, see Great Transitions Stories and New Stories.

Whidbey Geodome Project

One of the most awe-inspiring events at this year's Bioneers conference (Oct. 19-21) in San Rafael, California was the Whidbey Geodome's Earth Portal. As a special project of New Stories (a non-profit supporting emerging stories as a tool for understanding humanity), The Earth Portal provides an immersive multimedia experience where we can take a journey from the Earth to our solar system and beyond to infinite galaxies. The Geodome reminds me of the classic Charles and Ray Eames "Powers of Ten" film where we can play with scale.... only in this case we pull away from the Earth, our galaxy and way beyond to an amazing perspective on our place in the universe. The technology is also very well-suited to learn about the many of the ecological issues that we're confronting here on Earth including climate change, fracking, loss of biodiversity, etc.

Everyone who watched the show with me was awestruck by the remarkable perspective that the Geodome delivers. This is a remarkable tool for schools to inspire students (and adults!) about our planet and ways of understanding our role in the universe. Because it's portable, it can be set up temporarily at schools, conferences, fairs, etc. For the past six months, it was set up in Seattle as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the World's Fair.

I look forward to hearing more about the Whidbey Geodome as it becomes better known and experienced by everyone. Check it out!