Beyond the obvious, specific hazards ahead (such as global warming, excessive population growth, and nuclear proliferation), a more universal drama will play itself out in the coming century. Two great opposing forces are likely to grow stronger, and the contest between them may well determine the fate of humankind. The first force is technology. The second is tribalism.
Technology and Tribalism
Today we know technology as the Internet, satellite television, supersonic jets, and wonder drugs. Tomorrow it will be small, personal digital devices linking us immediately to everything and everyone we could possibly want to be connected with (and even some things to which we'd rather not he connected). And it will be genetic manipulations allowing us to live decades longer, and to commit the ultimate narcissistic act of self-cloning. Regardless of its precise form, technology is based on knowledge, rationality, and invention. It is premised upon insights about how the physical world around us actually works-its atoms, electrons, molecules, and genetic material.
Tribalism is a fundamentally different force. Today we witness this fierce group loyalty in the conflicts between Albanians and Serbs in the Balkans, and Protestants and Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland, and in the obstacles in varying degrees faced by ethnic minorities almost everywhere-the Chinese in Indonesia, Kurds in Turkey, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Francophones in Canada, African-Americans in the United States. In sharp contrast with technology, tribalism is based on passion, ethnicity, and myth. It is premised on feelings of solidarity among certain people sharing the same history, language, religion, race, customs, or homeland.
Do not assume that technology will be unambiguously positive, and tribalism necessarily negative. Technology can improve our lives, to be sure, but it also can generate weapons capable of ever more devastating destruction, and it almost certainly will shrink the already scant cloak of privacy we human beings still possess. Tribalism can be expected to motivate unspeakable atrocities, as it has too often in the past, but the loyalty to a group, its traditions, and its aspirations may inspire great works of art, enhance the human spirit, and deepen people's sense of community and mutual responsibility. Even democracy must rely on the existence of some tribal-like bond, which we commonly call "citizenship." Democracy can be enriched when political responsibility is devolved to subnational groups, as it has been recently in Scotland and Wales.
An Interconnected World
Technology and tribalism are likely to come into ever-greater conflict with one another in the century ahead. Consider, first, that within a few decades all human beings on the globe will have immediate connection to one another through digital voice and imaging and through ever faster and cheaper travel. But rather than weaken the lure of tribalism, such wondrously efficient connections are likely to reinforce tribal ties. Geographically dispersed ethnic or religious minorities will find it easier to stay in contact with one another and thus preserve their ways of life, notwithstanding local pressures to assimilate. The very impersonality and ubiquity of global technology may serve to deepen tribal ties. Superficially connected with everyone and everything, people everywhere may feel greater need for authentic connection and identification with others who share common beliefs or customs. For these reasons, despite greater interconnectedness, the next century may well feature frequent outbursts of ethnic pride, chauvinism, and patriotism.
As money, goods, services and even people move across borders with ever greater speed, the modern nation-state--largely a product of the 18th and 19th centuries--will become less relevant, and political sovereignty of less practical significance. Yet people will quite naturally still yearn to control their destinies. Every economic crisis brought on by the bursting of a speculative bubble and the resulting rush of capital or people from one region to another will ignite demands to reassert political control over borders. Hence we can expect periodic outbreaks of economic tribalism-protectionist tariffs, capital controls, economic isolationism, and restrictions on immigration.
As the world becomes more interconnected and intercommunicative, English will become the universal language. Global culture will grow more homogenized and ubiquitous-dominated by Western music, film, and video-and delivered ever more efficiently to the farthest corners of the world via satellite and the Internet. Sad to say the lure of profits is likely to drive much entertainment toward the titillating, violent, and prurient. This will surely threaten tribal customs and norms. Expect eruptions of cultural conservatism and tribal orthodoxy-tight restrictions on what can be said, worn, viewed, or displayed. In response to ever more intrusive technology, we may also witness an upsurge in spirituality an interest in the "inner life" which technology cannot reach. Expect a greater role for religion, for the occult, and for tribal ritual. Some of these manifestations will be ennobling and will enrich the human spirit. Some may be murderously intolerant.
Conflicts in the New Century
The wars of the 21st century will pit technology against tribalism. The world's most technologically advanced people are likely to exercise power through the use of complex weapons systems. Technologically impoverished groups, meanwhile, are more likely to resort to "ethnic cleansing," religious persecution, and terrorism. Electronic weapons will cause more direct physical damage and greater loss of life in the short run. But tribal warfare will be more enduring and, if allowed to fester, cause greater misery overall. The world's major powers will almost certainly spend ever-larger sums seeking to police or quell tribal conflict. In this, they will find their "smart" bombs virtually useless.
The clash between technology and tribalism also is likely to be reflected in the world's emerging social structure. Increasingly, the best educated in every region of the globe-including China, the Asian subcontinent, and Africa-will converge into a global. technological elite whose members have more in common with one another than with the ethnic, religious, or national groups of which they are normally part. The elite will communicate incessantly around the globe-doing business with one another, learning from one another, visiting and vacationing together. The advancement and spread of technology will make members of this elite far wealthier than the populations surrounding them. They can be expected to oppose tribalism in all its forms-rejecting economic isolationism, cultural conservatism, and narrow religious orthodoxy.
The world's less educated are more likely be attracted to resurgent tribalism. Although they will employ many of the advantages of global technology, they also will be threatened by it. Their jobs will be among the first to be jeopardized by global flows of financial capital goods, and people. Their communities, families, and traditions will be sharply disrupted. They are the most likely to find the new global culture to be offensive. Hence they will be most readily persuaded to embrace economic isolation, tribal solidarity, and cultural purity. While many of the less educated will be better off materially than they are today, they will not be nearly as wealthy as the technological elite. As the economic gap between them and the elite widens, their resentments toward the elite may build.
The Central Dilemma
The most enduring dramas of the 21st century will be acted out on the fields where these two emerging classes meet, and where they will determine-by brute force, by negotiation, or by gradual accommodation-the appropriate balance between technology and tribalism. The central dilemma of the new century will be how to gain the material advantages of technology while maintaining the human bonds and stable communities that give life enduring meaning.
This dilemma will he faced within every nation, in every region of the globe. It will give rise to violence, cultural transformations and spiritual movements. It will never be solved definitively, for there is no single solution. All we can do now, at the brink of the new century and millennium, is to hope that the process of seeking a balance will be as respectful of humanity as is humanly possible.
