Looking ahead

Thanks to the web and greater awareness of the scarcity of resources, the hierarchy of value based around modernity, where the most modern is seen as the best and conversely the least modern (generally I'm referring to ways rather than objects) is seen as the worse will lose its appeal. This will add up to quite a major shift. The prestige of sustainability will appear instead, one where respect is given to ingenious and efficient ways of doing things.

Many cultures are great repositories of such ingenuity, but despite the efforts of tiny minority, the vast majority see non-Western as being mainly backward, since they are unconciously programmed to see a system as faulty unless it generates profit for someone. Modernity will be relegated to being more instrumental than a matter of prestige. The elite of each country will start to try to outdo each other in appreciating once again what's left of their own cultures which until recently they had nothing but contempt for.