Feb 04 2009
globalization
The issue of globalization is strongly contested and speculated; some seeing it in a wholly positive or negative light. Others draw lines along religious, cultural, national and language barriers; seemingly jaded by the reality of international politics in its current anarchic state. Something lacking in these studies is the in the belief in humanity and growing relationships amongst foreign masses. This is the era of globalization. It is not just about states, their rivalries and economies. It’s about the world picture in the human dialogue of life and an ascertain of learning.
I start with one of the most negative of writers of globalization: Barber. Barber is stoically pessimistic and believes McWorld and Jihad are both plagues to the world. He even goes so far in his pessimism to assume jihad will infect the end of history with its struggles and wars against McWorld in an absurd end. Barber is too dramatic and cynical for my taste… to which brings to recollection a cheesy fortuneteller. In his work it was a poor choice of a high content word like jihad, to which the author tries to explain in his book. Although he elucidates it the reader must constantly contextualize his meaning in the best light. With Barber being a scholar, choice of words are your tools and weapons; it matters a lot. As Mark Twain once wrote: “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” Understandably so, in retrospect Barber now days regrets his use of it.
Huntington in his work of “Clash of Civilization” seemed overly-simplified and absurd. He goes so far as the pit the West (which he narrowly defines) against the Other. The Other which is composed of everything not the Great and Righteous West, namely Eastern Europe and everything and everyone else. Within the Other Huntington takes great care to highlight Islamic civilizations contained by this alliance. To him, civilization is characterized by religion. I find that on a whole these two assumptions are inept. Firstly, there are many mutli-religious civilizations brought together by an understanding of language and local custom. This is self-proven with the existence of the cosmopolitan or even the ex-patriot that Walton and Hannerz describe respectfully in their works. In addition Eastern Europe, including countries with Islamic majorities, and therefore apart of the Islamic civilization (as Huntington poses), is currently a part of the EU and in union with the rest of Europe (including the West). Moreover, Huntington is dated, yes, but to his discredit comes off universally bigoted with sentences like “individualism, liberality, the rule of law, democracy… have little resonance in Islamic, Confucius, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist, or Orthodox cultures.” However to his brief credit, he spares his last few comments on a resolution entailing that we need to try and understand the ‘other’. He takes no notice or account children or peoples and thus cultures/religions/nationalities that are mixed… a growing populace in our global world. There’s nothing as simple as the Iron Curtain in our era of globalization. He also wrongly declares (even in his time) that Japan is sole example of a civilization being modern and yet still retaining it’s cultural integrity by not becoming Western. In his time, South Korea and the rest the Tigers had economic and a modern poweress along with the gulf states in the Middle East coming into full bloom. Huntington is a complex character in of himself. Surprisingly, I found out he is a democratic, and voted for Obama, someone, I wonder, who would make his assumptions at large inept. Or then again, perhaps that’s why he voted for him.
I, on the other hand, place more belief in our world. Much like Tomlinson points out in his study of Dallas world audiences, humankind need not to fear cultural imperialism through media. World-wide people are judgmental and watch the world with it’s strange cultural practices and norms through moral spectacles. Audiences are not passive and initially very critical. I find this accurate in reconciliation with Hannerz definition of the popular tourist/traveling cosmopolitan when he writes that when they travel there is this “home plus…(sun, servant etc)” phenomenon. Not innately bad but innately narrow.
I do believe, initially our world and our cosmopolitans were, and still to a large extent, bear similarities to the picture Hannerz paints (a local at heart). In dissimilarity, Walton’s true cosmopolitan is that which one is a muddle of cultures, borrowing distinctiveness. His quotes from Kant, brings to mind our growing global conscious and slowly growing international regulatory organizations and a cosmopolitan world order coming into place.
Such international organizations may include Amnesty International, The Red Cross, The United Nations that promote their agenda across the globe. Such a global conscious also brought by our media and innovation such as the internet. Discourse such as these and empowered by these tools and groups with their “imperialism” accredits Micklethwaite and Woodridge’s allusions to the benefits of globalization. To which by personal prejudices I give them merit in their optimistic writings.
ilana