Life, Inc.

I recently listened to a lecture by Douglas Rushkoff on his upcoming book: Life Inc: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back. I haven’t read the book yet, but he spoke to the many lessons we have learned about the impact corporate America and the Internet culture has had upon our societal value system. In John’s discussion, he talked about how the corporation has created a society of consumers to fund everything they were making. With this shift in our culture, American’s on a societal level have become less connected as HUMAN BEINGS. Thus, a lot of our human values have been abandoned as people struggle to connect and share. Taking a look into history, societies that have been able to survive have been based societies based around sharing and working together. As the new social landscape of the Internet allows for us to connect, John feels it is important for us to re-examine the values that we hold from the past, so we have the opportunity to let go of those values that are no longer serving our human needs. As we go into the future as we rebuild our small local economies through a more localized community effort, hopefully there will be a to a more dramatic shift in the American society.

This notion can be applied toward education and education reform. As we go into the future, the education system needs to be re-examined to best serve the changing needs of society. As technology allows us to connect and collaborate in new ways, hopefully it will impact our educational system in a way that allows us to engage and exchange ideas while honoring a value system that actualizes the human’s values and strengths.