From Information to Performance

Living Make-Belief, Chapter 1

I’m spending the next few months analyzing the ideas in Jim Dator’s new book Living Make-Belief, along with related works. The introduction to this project can be found here.

A New Age?

Humanity has gone through several profound shifts in our basic organization over the last several thousand years: from kinship-based hunter-gatherer societies, to agriculture, to industry, and then to information and services. There has always been a mix of these roles in society: today there are still fishermen and farmers, and in ancient agricultural societies there were craftsmen, priests, and astrologers. What has changed, though, is not only the relative proportions of these roles in society, but technology, political organization, and even the dominant metaphors and logic of society.

One of the motivating examples for the book is the rise and success of Donald Trump, whose ability not only to marshal votes but also the loyalty of his followers and, most of all, the attention of the entire world¹, confounds and baffles so many. His disdain for traditions and institutional precedent seem like an aberration, and many in both parties assume that, once he leaves office, things will move back toward “normal”. Dator argues, instead, that Trump is something like an avatar of or harbinger of a new age that we find ourselves in².

Over twenty years ago, several authors argued that the Information Age, which had taken place over the second half of the twentieth century, was in decline, being replaced by something new. Rolf Jensen called this emerging world (based on storytelling) “The Dream Society” in his 1999 book of the same name. Essentially, status and success would flow more and more to those who could weave stories into their products. Jensen, remarkably, calls out the then-emerging trend of free-range chickens in some countries (p. 3), years before Portlandia or Nate Bargatze caught on³.

A different term that broke through public consciousness is “the experience economy”. I had originally conceived of experiences as an economic category to be largely distinct from the performances of the Dream Society idea (tourism, for example), and considered these to be uneasy allies. However, I see now that these are largely two sides of the same coin: producers perform so that consumers experience. This makes clear that not just Taylor Swift concerts fall under this rubric, but any company that trains employees to consistently provide “the [insert brand name] experience” is basically moving beyond a mere business transaction to creating a performance, even with an ostensibly tangible product⁴.

It’s important to note that Dator’s idea of the Dream Society is broader and more mature than Jensen’s⁵, with the benefit of living in it for more than two decades; for example, centering performance rather than story feels more on target. In a world where over 50% of American kids dream of being an actor, musician, YouTuber, or athlete, it’s fair to say this focus on performance has largely come to pass.

By contrast, the core of Andy Hines’s 2011 ConsumerShift is that economic development and the movement up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs drives predictable changes in values, which cluster into values patterns that align with particular worldviews: Traditional, Modern, Postmodern, and Integral. The most important story for modern companies trying to reach consumers is the rise of post-modern values to the “center of gravity” (p. 73), meaning people want authentic relationships more than transactions.

These frameworks definitely rhyme: an evolutionary theory describing how human society changes at its most fundamental level. On page 87, Hines even explicitly links the ideas: traditional values follow the logic of agricultural societies, modern values are aligned with industrial societies, and postmodern and integral values fit an information society. This is going to take some unpacking across this entire series⁶, but I wanted to surface it now.

Optimistic Realism

When describing such radical transformations in the way humans live, learn, and relate, there’s an almost irresistible urge to use our judgment to decide which is better. Sometimes this comes from a progressive viewpoint celebrating the progress the new mode made possible (eradicating smallpox, going to the moon, advancing freedom for women), and sometimes from an atavistic viewpoint mourning the loss of past arrangements (fewer communicable diseases to deal with, revering the moon as sacred, clear hierarchies and gender roles)⁷.

Dator does neither of these. This isn’t surprising; when he presents scenarios to people in workshops, it’s usually with instructions like the following:

Whatever you may initially feel about the future into which you have been so suddenly placed, please suspend your disbelief! You have no more control over your being in this future than you had over when and where you were born. This is your life. Love it, because you can't leave it…. Don't dwell on the "negative" aspects except to understand them, and to develop a "positive" response to them. It just doesn't get any better than this!

This is precisely his orientation here. Dator aims to describe “the best possible real world [he] can imagine given [his] understanding of how the world works and what our degrees of freedom are” (p. 2). He uses his metaphor of surfing a tsunami to show the level of risk and exhilaration, but also the need for careful thought, planning, and precise action. He promises to provide an understanding of the dynamics of this age so we can “make the best of it with understanding and resolve, and without whimpering and complaining”.

Invitation

I’m just beginning my journey into Dator’s book and argument here, so forgive me for everything still being somewhat superficial here. Future chapters will dive deep into these concepts, and I’ll follow. I have some outstanding goals already: the big one is to contrast the theories of change in each of the works and see if a harmonized theory is possible, but I’m also interested in thinking about the question of whether the Dream Society represents the “end of history”, and how generational theories fit in. I’d welcome any comments about questions or ideas at the top of your mind as you read this; they will enrich the experience for all of us.

1. I remember in 2021-2024 when several days would go by and I wouldn’t think about or hear about something Joe Biden had done. Those years now seem like a peaceful intermission.

2. Indeed, the entirety of chapter 12 is devoted to exploring his perfect fit for the present.

3. Also, quick shout-out to stand-up comedy (and, to a lesser extent, sketch comedy) as a good source of emerging trends.

4. For example, what is Trader Joe’s really selling? I recently read an analysis that it’s largely cashing in on the “kidult” trend, but the article now seems to be paywalled. “Kidult”, incidentally, is the name of a K-Pop song, serving as a deep-cut segue to next week’s topic.

5. Jim Dator actually became aware of my project when I replied to him on the APF listserv, and helpfully pointed out this growth in the term’s conceptual coverage.

6. And it’s looking like I’ll also need to dig deeper into at least one additional framework (Spiral Dynamics).

7. As I mentioned in my article on Strange Rites, there is certainly a politically relevant group of atavists on the Right, advocating for a return to old hierarchies, but there are also many on the Left who romanticize hunter-gatherer bands as examples of egalitarian non-capitalist societies. Part of this is how far back people look, and part of it is how history allows us to project our own wishes/fantasies onto it without complaining (because everyone in it is dead).