A spreading fear of change as we approach the new millennium is transforming the old left-versus-right political paradigm, in the view of some Silicon Valley thinkers. In its place they see a new polarization emerging, between dynamists and stasists. PNS associate editor Walter Truett Anderson, a political scientist and author of numerous books including "Reality Isn't What It Used to Be," attended a recent conference to define the emerging movement its adherents call "dynamism."

Although political pundits have been proclaiming the end of ideology for some time now, there is still a lot of it around -- various flavors of conservatism, liberalism, fundamentalism, feminism, environmentalism, and (still alive and reasonably well in western Europe) socialism. Yet another emerged at a recent gathering in California's Silicon Valley -- dynamism. Its hopeful appearance is, if nothing else, a sign that "left" and "right" may no longer be the best way to map political conflict.

Dynamism is about change, and positive change at that. It appears to be a very late-90s sort of movement in some ways -- the conference was heavily populated with young entrepreneurs and computer scientists -- but it has deep roots in one old American tradition: faith in progress. It radiates exuberance about the future, a sense that things not only can and will get better, but that the bettering will be the result of human will and ingenuity.

The movement's founders -- such as Virginia Postrel, editor of Reason magazine -- claim that it is part of a new polarization: dynamists and stasists. Stasists are people fearful of the future, anxious to put the brakes on such current developments as economic globalization and technological change, and fond of using such tools as planning and regulation to do it.

How do you know if you are a dynamist or a stasist? Postrel suggests some test questions: Do you think that progress requires a central blueprint, or do you see it as a decentralized, evolutionary process? Do you consider mistakes permanent disasters, or the correctable by-products of experimentation? Do you crave predictability, or relish surprise?

If your answers tend toward the first option, you are most likely a stasist.

Stasist stick-in-the-muds -- which Postrel describes as "enemies of the future"-- can be found all across the political spectrum. Among their ranks are right-wing opponents of immigration, left-leaning environmentalists, anti-technology Luddites, economic projectionists, cultural preservationists, and all the various romantics and conservatives who yearn to hold onto -- or get back to -- a steady-state world of closed societies, controlled trade and travel, and enforced adherence to tradition.

There are lots of stasists, and their buzzwords -- such as "national sovereignty" and "preserving community"-- are widely used. Their ideas, says Postrel, "regularly turn up in books from major publishers, in influential magazines such as Harper's and The Atlantic Monthly, and on the opinion pages of leading newspapers. Their work shapes the worldview of the yuppie-green consumers of the Utne Reader and of the trade-hawk followers of Pat Buchanan."

Since dynamists tend to believe that progress is better achieved through risk-taking and competition than through central planning, there's an obvious community of spirit with libertarians. Postrel acknowledges the links, but insists there are important differences. Some dynamists, for example, support "paternalistic" policies such as seat belt laws and anti-smoking regulations that libertarians abhor. Some see the need for a social safety net; others favor increased public spending for schools. Franklin D. Roosevelt, with his enthusiasm for experiments and his famous reassurance that "we have nothing to fear but fear itself," might have qualified as a dynamist -- but certainly not as a libertarian.

I have no idea whether dynamism will ever emerge as a coherent political movement. It may well be that its appeal to individualists, contrarians and mavericks more or less guarantees it will never evolve into a structured organization with an official political platform. But its appearance is an important sign of the times, calling attention to a spreading fear of the future, and stating in a new context FDR's warning about the pernicious nature of fear itself.

As we stand poised at the brink of a new millennium and a new world, many people seem to be deciding that the best way to go is back. Some even advocate going all the way back to the supposedly joyous days before the invention of agriculture, when our ancestors lived by hunting wild animals and gathering nuts and berries. Since we really don't know the way back, and since many of us really don't want to head in that direction, perhaps it's a good thing that we have amongst us a group of people who are so exuberantly dedicated to moving ahead.

And, since the forces that most frighten people into stasist reaction -- rapid technological change, economic globalization and widespread migration -- all seem to be likely to continue or even escalate, it seems highly likely that more people will be moved to define their political identities in terms of support of change or opposition to it. For some years now the political left -- preferring to describe itself as "progressive" -- has claimed to be the voice of the people and the voice of change. Dynamism challenges those claims, even challenges the validity of the term progressive, and if it can articulate its own vision of the future its appearance may signal the beginning of a larger alignment of political thinking not only in America but in other parts of the technologizing, globalizing, and mobile 21st century world.