【正文】 as radically expanded. Today, large numbers of people are being aware of themselves as evolving beings who have arrived at a moment in history when they can decisively reflect upon, analyze, and influence their personal and collective development. And this possibility has emerged at precisely the moment in history when we must deliberately and wisely influence the course of our development if our species is to survive. A MYTHOLOGY THAT FAILED TO TRANSFORM Countless onceglorious cultures around the world, and their mythologies, have disappeared, leaving only the faintest clues about the reasons for their demise. In MesoAmerica, dozens of ornate Mayan temples lie mute, as do an untold number of Incan monuments in Peru, Celtic cairns in Wales, Khymer statues in Kampuchea, and Sumerian ziggurats in Iraq. The puzzle of Easter Island39。s first settlers, explorers from Polynesia, found themselves in a pristine paradise with subtropical forests, dozens of bird species, and no predators. They prospered, multiplied, and distributed resources in a manner that suggests a sophisticated economy and a plex political system. Emulating the stone carvings of their Polynesian forebears, they began erecting everlarger statues on platforms, perhaps as an expression of worship of their gods, perhaps to surpass rival clans with ever more grandiose monuments to their power and wealth (Bahn amp。 Diamond, 1995). Eventually, as the population on the 64squaremile island grew to perhaps as many as 20,000 people, the trees were being cut more rapidly than they were regenerating. The need for canoes, houses, and rollers and rope for transporting the gigantic stone heads finally decimated the forests. The absence of wood for seagoing canoes reduced fish catches. The growing populace consumed the local birds and animals. Erosion and deforestation diminished crop yields. The island could no longer feed its human inhabitants. Many archaeologists believe the political and religious establishments that had directed and distributed the local resources languished until the ruling class was finally overthrown. Disorder ensued, and clan fought clan, toppling and finally desecrating each other39。s name), the Date: New Myths for the New Millennium Assignments 22 oncefertile land was barren and desolate. Its remaining inhabitants, only a fraction of the numbers a few generations earlier, were heirs to a society that had deteriorated from splendor into violence, starvation, and cannibalism. How could this have happened? In an astute analysis of Easter Island39。s page in history, if we can discern its lesson, is not just a bleak omen but also an example of mistakes not to make, the miniature enactment of a possible future, a negative instruction manual that can be creatively studied. Easter Island39。 Flenley, 1992). A rising population is faced with dwindling resources. Vested interests inhibit a realistic assessment of the predicament, no less an adequate response. And just as no one could emigrate from Easter Island, the Earth has bee so interconnected that it is itself like a single island. There is no place on the globe that is not affected by the ecology of the entire pla and, as Diamond observes, we can no more escape into space than the Easter Islanders could flee into the ocean (p. 69). Humanity may not act in time to prevent the decimation of the rain forests, fossil fuels, rare minerals, arable land, and ocean fisheries, just as Ethiopia did not act fast enough to prevent its forest cover from shriveling from 30 percent to a mere 1 percent in 40 years (Kennedy, 1993). Powerful decisionmaking groups are ignoring those voices who sound an alarm. The private agendas of political, economic, and religious groups keep them from effectively addressing the profoundly important problems of our diminishing natural resources and their imbalanced distribution. Finding parallels with Easter Island, Diamond observes that corrective actions today are also blocked by wellintentioned political and business leaders [who] are perfectly correct in not noticing big changes from year to year. Instead, each year there are just somewhat more people, and somewhat fewer resources, on Earth (Diamond, 1995, p. 69). WHAT WE HAVE THAT THE EASTER ISLANDERS DIDN39。t learn from history. Best then that we learn from past failures to learn. Diamond is more optimistic than Heideigger about our ability to selfcorrect, emphasizing a crucial difference between us and the illfated later Easter Islanders: The Easter Islanders had no books and no histories of other doomed societies. Unlike the Easter Islanders, we have histories of the past information that can save us (Diamond, 1995, p. 69). We also have munications technologies that can allow us to decisively utilize that information. Electronic munications, mass media, and puterized information highways have abolished the walls that once kept families, clans, and entire nations separate from one another. These technologies, according to munications expert Joshua Meyrowitz (1985), have allowed information to flow through walls and rush across great distances (p. viii). With these developments, veils have lifted between children and adults, men and women, rich and poor, political leaders and their constituencies, blurring age, gender, class, and authority distinctions (p. 322). At their best, these technologies are capable of dismantling tyrannical hierarchies, preventing the abuse of power, and providing free and open access to information that could set us marching to a new myth that would support our collective survival and wellbeing. At their worst, information technologies manipulate social consciousness in the covert service of corporate greed