Cultural Creatives is a term coined by sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson to describe a large segment in Western society that has recently developed beyond the standard paradigm of Modernists or Progressives versus Traditionalists or Conservatives. The concept was presented in their book The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World (2000), where they claim to have found that 50 million adult Americans (slightly over one quarter of the adult population) can now be identified as belonging to this group. They estimated that there were an additional 80–90 million Cultural Creatives in Europe as of 2000.
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Ray and Anderson divide Cultural Creatives into two subdivisions:
Just under half of the CC population, this segment comprises the more educated, leading-edge thinkers. This group includes many writers, artists, musicians, psychotherapists, feminists, alternative health care providers and other professionals. They combine a serious focus on their spirituality with a strong passion for social activism.
The more secular and extroverted wing of the Cultural Creatives. They tend to follow the opinions of the Core group and have a more conventional religious outlook. Their world views are less thought out than the Core group and less intensely held.
Ray and Anderson created a questionnaire to identify Cultural Creatives in Western society. The below characteristics were identified as qualities of a Cultural Creative. Agreement with 10 or more indicates status as a Cultural Creative.
Ray and Anderson assert that "values are the best single predictor of real behavior". The list below outlines the values that dictate a Cultural Creative's behavior:
Core Cultural Creatives also value altruism, self-actualization, and spirituality.
The 2008 marketing text, Karma Queens, Geek Gods and Innerpreneurs, by Ron Rentel, was the first to identify the Cultural Creative subculture in entrepreneurship. Rentel named entrepreneurial Cultural Creatives "innerpreneurs". Innerpreneurs have the defining characteristics of an entrepreneur:
But while entrepreneurs use their business for monetary gain, innerpreneurs use their business to find personal fulfillment (creatively, spiritually, emotionally) and create social change.
In 2008, there has been much discussion in the Western media on the ‘creative economy’ and the importance of the ‘creative class’. Richard Florida published a series of books on this identified 'creative class' and their upcoming economic importance. Bill Gates spoke at the World Economic Forum 2008 on the need for ‘creative capitalism’ as a solution to the world’s problems. They theorize that being creative and inventive will be the key to business success in the 21st century and that a country’s economic success will be determined by its capitalists' ability to mobilize, attract and retain human creative talent.
Ray gives the term Integral Culture to the growing subculture also referred to as Transmodernism, and which he refers to as the Cultural Creatives. They are concerned with ecological sustainability and in the case of a core group have a commitment to personal and spiritual development. These are individuals who can meld the best of Traditionalism and Modernism to create a new synthesis, having a cognitive style based on synthesizing varied information from many sources into a big picture.[1][2] This term can also apply to Integral Theory, a philosophy expounded by Ken Wilber.