Eric Booth lecture, 5 November 2009

What is the relationship between 21st century skills and culture? What is the advantage of national cultural identity in the era of globalization? And what does creativity really mean anyway?

Nations are being forced to grapple with these questions, driven by economic, political and social demand. The current answers often seem vague, as if the two worlds of 21st century necessity and cultural/artistic heritage do not meet in practical, essential, successful ways.
"When looking at seeming opposites, seek the greater truths that contain them both" said the physicist David Bohm.

There are lessons to be learned from experimentation overseas – mistakes to be avoided and understandings that create healthy progress. In America there have been explorations in cultural institutions, community settings and in businesses that offer provocative rethinking of basic assumptions and practical successes to adopt in order to find the successful foundation of a 21st century culture.