Beneath the critical veneer of modern life lies a deep hidden reservoir of idealism.
Every time we criticize the way things are, we indirectly signal our desire for a better world. Every statement about what's wrong is actually an unarticulated hope. Every social critic wants the world to be a better place.
Yet it takes courage to depart from the standard conversations of complaint.
"To be gloomy is to be serious," writes William Safire. "To be joyful is seen as frivolous or deceptive."
My colleague and friend Anne Nickerson echoes this insight. Anne heads a family foundation in Sheridan, Wyoming, a dynamic community of 15,000 people. She says she used to feel timid about expressing her aspirations in meetings with others in the community.
"I didn't want to look silly," she admits. "Sometimes people can make you feel that way."
After organizing a community-wide dialogue that used the principles in this book, Anne realized how many people had the same high hopes for the community as she did. She vowed to speak up with confidence, instead of holding back on her thoughts and ideas. As a pathway, the people who Anne had gathered created a Center for Vital Community, a permanent, daily convening point for conversations of consequence and action.
Anne's sense that others share her high aspirations for society is supported by the research of Paul Ray, who has described an emerging worldview held by a growing segment of the population that he calls "cultural creatives." These people share values that range from personal authenticity to ecological sustainability. They're optimistic and altruistic. They're looking for more meaningful lives and working to create a better future.
Ray believes that the more than 50 million cultural creatives in the United States, and nearly 100 million in the European Union, have already begun to create a new culture. And yet they are largely invisible, even to one another. Each individual thinks they're alone in their beliefs. At most, they know a few friends who share their views. They don't talk about their values in public because they feel out of step with social norms. Like Anne, they don't want to be embarrassed or put down. So they remain unaware of their numbers and their potential power.
For Americans who came of age during the social upheavals of the 1960s and 70s, this new culture may simply represent a return to their roots. A few years ago, I facilitated a board retreat for an organization that wanted to elevate its contribution to society. At the beginning of our time together, a board member questioned the idealism inherent in the approach I was suggesting.
I made a point of sitting with him at lunch, and learned that he had served in the Peace Corps as a young man. So often, the flame of idealism and activism that burned so brightly in youth is waiting for the embers, still faintly glowing, to be fanned back to life.
By the end of the day, and without my ever answering his objections, he said to the group, "I began the day as the greatest skeptic of these ideas. I end it as the greatest champion of them." Sometimes a bit of reflection is all it takes to remind ourselves of our deepest beliefs.
It's time to acknowledge how many others share our hopes and dreams. Heaven forbid, they might even be closet idealists.