"Here we are, the citizens of the world. We drive the same cars, we fly in the same planes, we have the same TV sets, the same phones, the same credit cards. We all surf on the Internet. We listen to music from all over the world. We dance to the rhythm of world techno. We read our books in the giant world library of Babel. Amid tourists from all over the world, we crowd into museums whose collections come from a multiplicity of cultures. We sit and eat at a universal table, tasting cilantro and chocolate, Chinese and Indian cooking. We work for a giant multinational. We are American Buddhists, Indian computer experts, Arab environmentalists, Japanese pianists, doctors without borders. No profession, nation, nor identity claims our allegiance. We change our diets and our religions. We marry partners from other cultures who have different religious beliefs. We are no longer sedentary, we aren’t unfaithful, we’ve become nomadic.Our generation is inventing the world, the first truly global world."
Pierre Lévy, a philosopher of technical and cultural mutations, draws up a balance sheet of the human and metaphysical consequences of the rise of a global consciousness.
Pierre Lévy

Pierre Lévy teaches at the University of Paris-VIII. He is the author of Cyberculture, published by Editions Odile Jacob.