TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY DEMOCRACY
How does one characterize women struggling to break out of confining roles in Second Wave society? How, moreover, does one describe the fast-expanding millions in the self-help movement? And what about many of the “psychologically oppressed”—the million of victims of the epidemic of loneliness, the broken families, the single parents, the sexual minorities—who do not fit nearly into the notion of class? Such groups come from virtually all the ranks and occupations of society, yet are important sources of strength for the Third Wave movement.
Indeed even the term movement can be misleading—partly because it implies a higher level of shared consciousness than so far exists, partly because Third Wave people properly mistrust all the mass movements of the past.
Nevertheless, whether they comprise a class, a movement, or simply a changing configuration of individuals and transient groups, all of them share a radical disillusionment with the old institutions—a common recognition that the old system is now broken beyond repair.
The super-struggle between these Second and Third Wave forces, therefore, cuts like a jagged line across class and party, across age and ethnic groups, sexual preferences and subcultures. It reorganizes and religns our political life. And, instead of a harmonious, classless, conflict-free, non-ideological future society, it points toward escalating crises and deep social unrest in the near-term future. Pitched political battles will be waged in many nations, not merely over who will benefit from what is left of industrial society but over who participates in shaping, and ultimately controlling, its successor.
This sharpening super-struggle will decisively influence the politics of tomorrow and the very form of the new civilization. It is as a partisan in this super-struggle, aware or unwitting, that each of us plays a role. That role can be either destructive or creative.
A DESTINY TO CREATE
Some generations are born to create, others to maintain a civilization. The generations who launched the Second Wave of historic change were compelled, by force of circumstance, to be creator. The Montesquieus, Mills, and Madisons invented most of the political forms we still take for granted. Caught between two civilizations, it was their destiny to create.
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