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Chrysalis Effect: The Metamorphosis of Global Culture
The Chrysalis Effect shows that the chaos and conflict experienced worldwide today are the result of a global cultural metamorphosis, one which has accelerated so rapidly in recent decades as to provoke fierce resistance. Many of the changes that have taken place in the last fifty years – the feminist movement, the rapid spread of democracy, the global economy, quantum physics, minority movements, the peace movement, the sexual revolution –are part of this cultural transformation. Contrary to accepted opinion, the conflict it engenders is not a struggle between Left and Right, or between the West and Islam, but one taking place within the Left, within the Right, within the West, within Islam, within everyone and every institution. … Currently, the world is in the middle of an adaptive process, moving toward a cultural ethos more appropriate to a species living in a shrinking world and in danger of destroying its habitat –a world that increasingly demands for its survival integrative thinking, unlimited communication, and global cooperation. … Award-winning author Philip Slater explains the metamorphosis of global culture through the analogy of the transition from caterpillar to butterfly – the Chrysalis Effect – whereby by old cultural assumptions are challenged and innovations are seen as a social ill, a critical moral infection, and attacked as such by the upholders of tradition. And when the budding culture replaces the previous one, it doesn’t create a new way of being out of nothing, but merely rearranges old patterns to make the new ones. Today our world is caught in the middle of this disturbing transformative process –a process that creates confusion over values, loss of ethical certainty, and a bewildering lack of consensus about almost everything. The Chrysalis Effect provides an answer to the question: Why is the world in such a mess?
- GenresNonfiction
242 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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85 people want to read
About the author
Philip Slater
20 books18 followersPhilip Slater was an author, actor, playwright, and sociologist. He taught sociology at Harvard, Brandeis, and the University of California at Santa Cruz. He obtained a doctorate from Harvard.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/boo...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/boo...
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 15, 2019
Fascinating assessment of the turn of society. Surprisingly optimistic. Highly recommend.
September 1, 2020
See review of Slater's A Dream Deferred
See review of Slater's A Dream Deferred
Sse review of Slater's The Pursuit of Loneliness
See Slater's Footholds and Earthwalk
See review of Slater's A Dream Deferred
Sse review of Slater's The Pursuit of Loneliness
See Slater's Footholds and Earthwalk
March 16, 2012
Something like a primer for the major "shift" that is allegedly to come some time in the future.
Slater holds that for the last couple millenia or so, human societies have been dominated by a Control Culture, which requires dominance over women, wages wars, splits the world into "myself" and "others" and thus holds a sort of binary worldview. For some reason (Slater does not elaborate why) the Control Culture is being replaced by an Integrative Culture, which values holism, peace, equality, democratic values.
The metaphor he uses to illustrate this is (like Barbara Marx Hubbard's Conscious Evolution) the metamorphosis of a butterfly. As a caterpillar starts to liquify itself in its cocoon, its body activates imaginal cells to carry through the evolution to a butterfly smoothly. However the caterpillar body sees these imaginal cells as invasive and tries to fight them off. In our society, the imaginal cells started really appearing in the 1960s with the fights for civil rights, anti-war, etc. and what we are seeing today is the fighting of the old caterpillar body that sees the transformation as something foreign and dangerous. Of course the end result is a beautiful butterfly, and so Slater's book is hopeful that this is a natural process that will at some point culminate in a peaceful society.
The book is full of excellent ideas.
His chapter on sexism is particularly insightful. Hew introduced the idea to me that part of the reason men have been doing so poorly in school over the last couple decades is that since females have been given more opportunities to excel in education, administration, etc., rather than openly share dominance in these realms, men find other realms of dominance. And one of these realms is stupidity! So doing well in school is seen as feminine. This explains the worship of the Jackass movies and the disdain that many boys and men have today of education.
His chapter on power/nonduality is also interesting. Because Control Culture has a binary worldview, it is obsessed with eradicating the negative pole. But such eradication has a detrimental overall effect. Integrative Culture recognizes the value in preserving contrary opinion.
As I said above, this book is a sort of primer on these major issues. Slater does not go into the how and why of cultural evolution, but outlines some of the key areas that will see transformation. I would have liked to have read his speculation on why it's all taking place (why is it inevitable?). Some of the chapters are a bit brief and sketched out, but the book is clearly written and quite understandable.
Slater holds that for the last couple millenia or so, human societies have been dominated by a Control Culture, which requires dominance over women, wages wars, splits the world into "myself" and "others" and thus holds a sort of binary worldview. For some reason (Slater does not elaborate why) the Control Culture is being replaced by an Integrative Culture, which values holism, peace, equality, democratic values.
The metaphor he uses to illustrate this is (like Barbara Marx Hubbard's Conscious Evolution) the metamorphosis of a butterfly. As a caterpillar starts to liquify itself in its cocoon, its body activates imaginal cells to carry through the evolution to a butterfly smoothly. However the caterpillar body sees these imaginal cells as invasive and tries to fight them off. In our society, the imaginal cells started really appearing in the 1960s with the fights for civil rights, anti-war, etc. and what we are seeing today is the fighting of the old caterpillar body that sees the transformation as something foreign and dangerous. Of course the end result is a beautiful butterfly, and so Slater's book is hopeful that this is a natural process that will at some point culminate in a peaceful society.
The book is full of excellent ideas.
His chapter on sexism is particularly insightful. Hew introduced the idea to me that part of the reason men have been doing so poorly in school over the last couple decades is that since females have been given more opportunities to excel in education, administration, etc., rather than openly share dominance in these realms, men find other realms of dominance. And one of these realms is stupidity! So doing well in school is seen as feminine. This explains the worship of the Jackass movies and the disdain that many boys and men have today of education.
His chapter on power/nonduality is also interesting. Because Control Culture has a binary worldview, it is obsessed with eradicating the negative pole. But such eradication has a detrimental overall effect. Integrative Culture recognizes the value in preserving contrary opinion.
As I said above, this book is a sort of primer on these major issues. Slater does not go into the how and why of cultural evolution, but outlines some of the key areas that will see transformation. I would have liked to have read his speculation on why it's all taking place (why is it inevitable?). Some of the chapters are a bit brief and sketched out, but the book is clearly written and quite understandable.
March 15, 2016
A brilliant, insightful, prescient call for a new global paradigm
In its depiction of Control Culture vs Integrative Culture, this book has astonishing explanatory power. Although it was written in 2008, it seems to explain the dynamics of the 2016 US elections with uncanny precision. Slater's framework predicts the rise of nationalism, bigotry, and militarism, even down to the call to build a wall, explaining its origins: the "immune system" of old Controller ways putting up its final resistance to nascent Integrative values: evolution, inclusion, progress. This is an essential read for anyone interested in the grand historical and ideological patterns that have molded our modern world, and how we can be a part of the solutions to the challenges of today.
In its depiction of Control Culture vs Integrative Culture, this book has astonishing explanatory power. Although it was written in 2008, it seems to explain the dynamics of the 2016 US elections with uncanny precision. Slater's framework predicts the rise of nationalism, bigotry, and militarism, even down to the call to build a wall, explaining its origins: the "immune system" of old Controller ways putting up its final resistance to nascent Integrative values: evolution, inclusion, progress. This is an essential read for anyone interested in the grand historical and ideological patterns that have molded our modern world, and how we can be a part of the solutions to the challenges of today.
Read
October 12, 2009It started out with a promising concept that didn't really seem to go anywhere or say anything new in the end.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews