"You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There is no West." He continues, "We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies...Our children will live in that perfect world where there is no war nor famine, oppression or brutality."
Despite the promises that the executive makes, many people find the prospect of the world being run by nebulous corporate entities rather frightening. In the end, the movie is hardly optimistic, and other mediums have expressed this worry as well, from books to music, and even video games.
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| In Deus Ex: Human Revolution for the PS3 and Xbox 360, the main character fights against a vast corporate conspiracy. |
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| In the late David Foster Wallace's novel, people's lives are dominated by distraction and entertainment from corporate entities. |
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| In Pink Floyd's tenth album Animals, they compare the corrosive effects of capitalism and despotic political rule to various animals, notably business men being likened to dogs. |
I've talked before about the effects of globalization on my experience here in France. With the presence of the internet and the ease with which people can travel and access information nowadays, old concepts of nation-hood, human identity, and political relationships are collapsing and being replaced with something new.
Economics is one of the ways that this transition is being facilitated, specifically corporate capitalist economics. I've worked on trying to understand economics better lately, but, given my background, I can understand why people would not find me the most credible source on this issue. Luckily, what I'm going to talk about doesn't really relate to raw economic and commercial theory.
Usually when I hear people criticize transition and change as the result of globalization, it's often in the form of cliched and inarticulate rants about "the corporations, man," but I think that there are some legitimate concerns about the effects globalization, or rather coporatization, has on peoples lives.
Usually when I hear people criticize transition and change as the result of globalization, it's often in the form of cliched and inarticulate rants about "the corporations, man," but I think that there are some legitimate concerns about the effects globalization, or rather coporatization, has on peoples lives.
One thing that bothers people about this prospect of corporate power is the effect that it can potentially have on the emotions. Businesses are profit driven, so they try and cater their strategies to people who feel that they must have something that they may or may not necessarily need. David Foster Wallace talks about this in both his book and in interviews. Businesses exploit people's unhappiness by offering products and services that will temporarily slake their emptiness. This, in turn, stokes an endless feeling of unsatisfaction which can only be quelled by buying more shit. This is sales 101: create an atmosphere in which your potential customer feels that he will regret not buying what you're trying to sell, and the ideas above are just a huge expansion upon that principle. While this is very good for stimulating economic growth and material prosperity, it doesn't address deep-seeded emotional needs and can arguably contribute to feelings of emptiness and isolation.
Overall, I've found France to be much less consumerist than United States, with the exception of Paris, but international economic interests are still present. Another aspect of globalization that frightens people is the idea of homogeneity, that everything in life will be turned into one monochromatic parade of mass-produced simplicity that, again, works to serve the profit motive. Anyone who has access to as much as a newspaper stand will tell you that people are pissed off by corporate powers. The biggest example is the Occupy movements happening in the United States, though their grievances extend to other things as well.
These are a couple of the legitimate problems, though there are certainly more, posed by mass, consumer culture that need to be addressed. Other, more vocal criticisms aren't so well founded. There is a difference between corporate interests using lobbying and donations to push their agenda, and the existence a shadowy capitalist conspiracy that has its fingers in everything. I've found that conspiracy theories never hold up under scrutiny.
Furthermore, there are things that foster globalization besides economics. Communication, namely the internet, has breached borders in every area from politics to arts to science.
For whatever the reasons, Earth seems to be entering into what optimistic thinkers, like Michio Kaku, call a type 1 civilization, or a planetary civilization. This civilization is defined by planetary unity, in which politics are not dominated by national interests, but rather by more collective interests. If I were to speculate about the far future of this sort of civilization, I could imagine a universal language, a universal currency, and even singular government system.
Evidence for this transition is everywhere. There haven't been any large-scale wars between nation states in many years,countries crowd themselves into trade agreements like the EU and NAFTA in order to better compete, English is becoming a common language everywhere, including even places like China where students are required six years of it before even entering high school, and I can pull up my computer and speak to someone who lives half-way around the world and to whom I've never spoken right now I wanted.
At the same time, one must consider that perhaps this transition will be slow or not happen at all. Turmoil in the EU is the biggest illustration of the possibility. Whereas I was quite convinced in an earlier post that Europe would seek to strengthen their economic bonds, a lot of the research I've done is predicting disintegration rather than federalization. More locally, NAFTA has been criticized by thinkers on both the left and the right as ineffective.
Furthermore, there's no way of knowing that English will become a universal language or if there will even be one. Common languages in the sciences and in trade have existed for a long time, notably Latin and Greek for about five hundred years, but these were reserved to only select spheres of people. Most others functioned only on the vernacular of their own context, and I think that for the most part, especially in parts of the world with poor education, this is still the case.
In addition, the internet, which has frequently been hailed as the great communication bridge, may in fact be doing more to split us into teams than unifying us. Algorithms on both social networking sites and search engines base what they put up on screen on prior interests and keystrokes. You can try it right now. Pick a keyword and type it into a Google search bar. Then, go to a someone else's computer that you don't use ever and type in the exact same keyword. I can guarantee that the results will be completely different because the internet tracks the users' past activity and filters its results based on that. This aspect of the internet may serve to only confirm old prejudices and biases and make us more separated ideologically.
The criticisms are varied and many, but still the biggest hitch into a post-national world is identity. National and regional origin is still such a determining factor in how people see themselves, and, in reality, who they are. If there is anything that living in a foreign context has taught me, it's that so much of my own identity has been determined by where I've come from and where I've been. It's not easy to dislodge that the role that place plays in people's lives.
Yet despite all these reasons, I think I'll repeat myself again and say that this is the period of transition. It's difficult to know the future of politics, economics, and identity at this moment. Large scale changes don't always translate down into the details of an individual person's life. I doubt that mankind will be unified within my lifetime, but I remain convinced that the aspects of modern life are breaking up the paradigms of what used to dominate mankind. At some point in the future, in the far far future, whether someone or something is American or French or whatever will not only be thought of as irrelevant. In truth, it won't even be part of the conversation. With this sentiment come news sorts of progress and... new sorts of problems.
These are a couple of the legitimate problems, though there are certainly more, posed by mass, consumer culture that need to be addressed. Other, more vocal criticisms aren't so well founded. There is a difference between corporate interests using lobbying and donations to push their agenda, and the existence a shadowy capitalist conspiracy that has its fingers in everything. I've found that conspiracy theories never hold up under scrutiny.
Furthermore, there are things that foster globalization besides economics. Communication, namely the internet, has breached borders in every area from politics to arts to science.
For whatever the reasons, Earth seems to be entering into what optimistic thinkers, like Michio Kaku, call a type 1 civilization, or a planetary civilization. This civilization is defined by planetary unity, in which politics are not dominated by national interests, but rather by more collective interests. If I were to speculate about the far future of this sort of civilization, I could imagine a universal language, a universal currency, and even singular government system.
Evidence for this transition is everywhere. There haven't been any large-scale wars between nation states in many years,countries crowd themselves into trade agreements like the EU and NAFTA in order to better compete, English is becoming a common language everywhere, including even places like China where students are required six years of it before even entering high school, and I can pull up my computer and speak to someone who lives half-way around the world and to whom I've never spoken right now I wanted.
At the same time, one must consider that perhaps this transition will be slow or not happen at all. Turmoil in the EU is the biggest illustration of the possibility. Whereas I was quite convinced in an earlier post that Europe would seek to strengthen their economic bonds, a lot of the research I've done is predicting disintegration rather than federalization. More locally, NAFTA has been criticized by thinkers on both the left and the right as ineffective.
Furthermore, there's no way of knowing that English will become a universal language or if there will even be one. Common languages in the sciences and in trade have existed for a long time, notably Latin and Greek for about five hundred years, but these were reserved to only select spheres of people. Most others functioned only on the vernacular of their own context, and I think that for the most part, especially in parts of the world with poor education, this is still the case.
In addition, the internet, which has frequently been hailed as the great communication bridge, may in fact be doing more to split us into teams than unifying us. Algorithms on both social networking sites and search engines base what they put up on screen on prior interests and keystrokes. You can try it right now. Pick a keyword and type it into a Google search bar. Then, go to a someone else's computer that you don't use ever and type in the exact same keyword. I can guarantee that the results will be completely different because the internet tracks the users' past activity and filters its results based on that. This aspect of the internet may serve to only confirm old prejudices and biases and make us more separated ideologically.
The criticisms are varied and many, but still the biggest hitch into a post-national world is identity. National and regional origin is still such a determining factor in how people see themselves, and, in reality, who they are. If there is anything that living in a foreign context has taught me, it's that so much of my own identity has been determined by where I've come from and where I've been. It's not easy to dislodge that the role that place plays in people's lives.
Yet despite all these reasons, I think I'll repeat myself again and say that this is the period of transition. It's difficult to know the future of politics, economics, and identity at this moment. Large scale changes don't always translate down into the details of an individual person's life. I doubt that mankind will be unified within my lifetime, but I remain convinced that the aspects of modern life are breaking up the paradigms of what used to dominate mankind. At some point in the future, in the far far future, whether someone or something is American or French or whatever will not only be thought of as irrelevant. In truth, it won't even be part of the conversation. With this sentiment come news sorts of progress and... new sorts of problems.
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