Without realizing it, a new civilization is emerging. So profoundly revolutionary is it that it challenges all our conventional concepts, dogmas and ideologies regardless of the value they have had for us or the usefulness they have served us in the past, and regardless of any attachment we may feel to them. The world that is emerging is the product of conflict caused by the impact of new values, technologies, lifestyles, geopolitical relationships and communications media. In itself, nothing from the past will serve to define the dramatic change that awaits our society. The dawn of this era is the most momentous event of our lifetimes.
Evidence of change abounds and you only have to look for it to find it. In fact, it can be said that they are growing by the day. Among these is the emergence of a truly global collective consciousness that is breaking down religious, racial, sexual, social, political and economic barriers. There is more real participation in decision-making at all levels, a growing sense of responsibility not only for individual personal affairs, but also for one's fellow man (be he a starving Somali nomad, a politically oppressed person in Bosnia-Herzegovina or a religious refugee in Tibet) and for the protection of our natural resources and the members of the plant and animal kingdoms. This and much more is happening before our eyes.
Humanity is facing a quantum leap in its evolution, represented by a socio-economic and political transformation so fundamental that it is unique in our history. Without realizing it, we are building a new civilization. However, it is not inevitable that this transformation will be positive. The transition period will be characterized by social and political chaos, violent confrontations, economic anarchy, religious and other conflicts. During this change the values of the present epoch will evidence a frank disintegration and there will be authoritarian movements and demagogues who will seek and possibly gain power. Therefore, we must not simply sit back and wait for what appears to be inevitable. The confrontation between the old and the new presents risks and dangers on a titanic scale.
However, the Human Being will survive and will necessarily have to change in order to continue to exist. The embryonic civilization will have to be based on resources that are self-sustaining and renewable rather than wasteful. No one really knows exactly what this new civilization will be like. For this reason we should not think of a single massive reorganization, a single revolution or a cataclysm imposed from above, but of thousands of small adjustments that would allow us to experiment with new models of political, economic and social structures and thus ensure a more coherent transition to the world that inevitably awaits us.
In conclusion, it is essential to broaden this vision of the events that surround us in order to understand where we are heading, always remembering that sometimes we lose sight of the forest by looking only at the trees.