The unseen hazards of globalization

As communication students we are inundated with definitions, predictions and overall theories of excitement on globalization. What I am proposing, with the media artifact of “In Bruges” and the texts of Manuel Castells and Nederveen Pieterse, is that this phenomena of globalization and seemingly never ending social movements, such as FaceBook and Change That Works, is not necessarily all good. Texts like “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman, which is assigned in Communication and Society and Henry Jenkin’s “Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide,” provide readers with a somewhat rose-tinted view of the world with quotes like, “Walls simply aren’t what they use to be – even for the kings and queens – and this change is opening new opportunities for political activism where it was previously unimaginable,” (Friedman, 506), which gives the reader the perception of a globalized world where the average man can become a high-ranking politician or a king.

Quotes such as these and ones that litter “The World is Flat” imply the positives in globalization and integration, which is a necessary and important argument in which to be well versed because to a lengthy extent, this is the world that our generation is entering. Friedman’s book is over 600 pages long and provides several examples to enrich his argument of the world being flat, such as telemarketers in India taking a McDonald’s order in Idaho or stay at home moms in Utah booking flights for people flying Jet Blue. However, Nederveen Pieterse’s book sits a meager 117 pages and is able to encompass both sides of the argument in the globalization debate, and the sixth chapter especially symbolizes the dangers associated with our supposed social connections.

Granted, I believe in the importance of a connected society, one in which we as people can find common grounds on a variety of topics and issues, but I also hold that there is an extreme danger in thinking that the more information we, as humans, are entitled to and consume equals greater intelligence or understanding. In fact, I argue, along with my artifact and readings that we are blinding ourselves behind a façade of empty information and that we are not as socially intelligent or progressive as our texts and professors suggest.

Also, despite my previous assertion of Friedman and the general thought that he has a tendency to sensationalize globalization, he can at the same time note some of the fear that many Americans, including myself, hold within themselves. Friedman states “The faster and broader this transition to a new era, the greater the potential for disruption,” (Friedman, 49).
This particular Friedman quote stands alongside Pieterse and Castells in their writings that the future there will be future transitions and with that comes power struggles. These struggles will be different however because they will be determined over our minds and will change the way we think, which will be a dynamic determinant for our future societal norms.

ArtifactMy artifact, “In Bruges,” is a movie intended to address issues such as second chances and preconceived notions of individuals. Also, it is the story of two men on the run after a paid killing went horribly wrong. The movie “In Bruges” characters are having a discussion about the possibility of a war occurring between blacks and whites due to an embedded hate that neither race has control over. This argument, which I displayed in class, lumps all people together saying that no matter you personal beliefs or ideologies, your hate or animosity is predetermined. However, not everyone in the film agrees with this dangerous theory. Ken, the heavy set man who storms out of the room because his black wife was killed by a white man, thinks that he should be able to determine what side he fights on because he is an individual.

In relating the artifact to the texts, Pieterse can be chimed alongside the “In Bruges” argument in a couple ways. The first being the loss of autonomy and individuality in the artifact, which likens to the Pieterse text because it warns of the dumping of cultures and the possible takeover of westernized and Eastern modernized capitalism and the downfall of European dominance. “Polarization means the suppression of the middle ground, but does suppression mean that the middle ground does not exist?” (Pieterse, pg. 116). Emptying out the middle ground leads to the loss of individuality and the complete disregard of the importance of cultures. Pieterse notes the conflict of Israel and Palestine as an example of a dispute that can’t be quelled by globalization and hybridity alone. “What of hybridity amid the world’s most chronic conflict zone, the borderlands of Israel and Palestine? Does recognizing this conflict dragging on and on mean ignoring multiple identities on neither side, the complex identity of Arab Israelis, and the backdrop of the levant on both sides of the border,” (Pieterse, pg. 116).

“In Bruges” makes the mistake that Pieterse warns against, it dismisses the importance of underlying cultures individual beliefs and customs. The artifact takes away from peoples personal experiences and Pieterse would note that this is due to the mistake that one can learn culture. “Another misperception that I have sought to avoid or dispel in this account is that “culture” is a rarefied, separate domain, somewhere on the soft side of the hard realities of economics and politics,” (Pieterse, pg. 116). Instead, Pieterse notes that culture in human software and that it is “not just an afternoon spent in the Louvre or an evening in the Scala of Milan or the Hard Rock Café,” (Pieterse, pg. 116). The artifact would agree with this statement of culture being ‘human software’ because the war taking place is based strictly on the color of one’s skin instead of the individual beliefs because if that were the case there would simply be war based upon capitalism and other societal issues.

The best point Pieterse makes in his sixth chapter is that of the actual importance of borders. “With constructivism in social science comes the awareness that social realities and boundaries are socially constructed,” (Pieterse, pg. 117). In “In Bruges” the importance of race predetermines the war, however this mass unionization of blacks and whites would mean that the borders have been broken and we, as world society, have lost our inherent cultural differences. “Powerful interests are invested in boundaries and borders, affecting the fate of classes, ethnic groups, elites; while borders and boundaries are a function of differentials of power, they are social constructions that are embedded and encoded in cultural claims,” (Pieterse, pg. 117). With this type of breakdown we have lost our differences and our capitalistic endeavors and have instead, in the most extreme form, traipsed into fascism.
Also in the ideals of hybridity and power in relation to “In Bruges” comes the Castells article “Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Scoiety” where the author argues again about the loss of autonomy and individual importance. The article fits well with the artifact in that they are both wary of a future war. “In Bruges” discusses a war based on race and Castells portrays a battle over our minds. “This is because the fundamental battle being fought in society is the battle over the minds of the people,” (Castells, pg. 238) and that this occurring battle is more effective because “torturing bodies is less effective than shaping minds,” (Castells, pg. 238).

Castells touches on a more recent topics of interest, that being Internet social movements, applications to current media and political campaigns. He addresses these ideals to the differences between individualism and communalism, “the culture of communalism roots itself in religion, nation, territoriality, ethnicity, gender and environment. The culture of individualism spreads in different forms: as market driven consumerism, as a new patter of socialibility based on networked individualism, and as the desire for individual autonomy based on self-defined projects of life,” (Castells, pg. 240).

In individualism versus communalism in relation to “In Bruges” the actors are more concerned about, what they, as a predisposed shared community, will have to do to be a part of this war and Castells, in a sense, is arguing that the more individual we are and the more akin we are to the globalized technical world, the more likely we are to be shut off from this globalizing world. “In fact, my own empirical studies on the uses of the Internet in the Catalan society show that the more an individual has a project of autonomy, the more she uses the Internet. And in a time sequence, the more he/she uses the Internet the more autonomous she becomes vis-à-vis societal rules and institutions,” (Castells, pg. 249).

So, with that in mind, one can argue that the technology and trends that are pointing towards a more globalized and connected society are actually moving into a society where they, themselves, as individuals can read the opinions they want and take advice they want. As written, the previous does not sounds like a bad thing, but if we are to become a more globalized and connected society, individuals need to be open and educated on all sides of the spectrum. As Castells writes, the more people are able to delve themselves into their own self interests, the less they are able to be culturally aware of other societies and without that, the idea of cultural globalization is a mute point. Simply listening to opinions that sway to one side and researching social movements that sit on a particular side because we can in the form of an Internet connection doesn’t mean a more education, open and culturally aware individual and this is what is the most terrifying of a supposed ‘globalized society.’

In his finishing paragraph, Castells points to what best summarizes my thoughts on our trending globalization. “It will be the result of the new stage of the oldest struggle in humankind: the struggle to free our minds,” (Castells, pg. 259). Castells thinks that this continued trend toward individual endeavors online will cause people to become more akin to each other and more likely to organize and fight with each other than people who think for themselves and research both sides of the story. Instead of becoming more intelligent, society is escaping into the fallacy that more information equals lengthened intelligence and understanding when in reality, if one is only reading what they choose.

As stated in class, I do not personally feel that I myself am any more culturally socialized or significant as the day before simply by reading and accepting globalization theories. I think that that is too easy for a student to do and instead I care to look towards the problems that exist when we, as autonomous individuals, latch onto trending topics. People need to be wary of what it means culturally to attempt to be the same and the implications society may face if we all turn to one culture. These implications could go as far as a war, such as the race war depicted in “In Bruges” or could be as simple as less education as Castells portrays, but I want to simply leave with what Pieterse writes in the last chapter “globalization and culture is not an innocent theme,” (Pieterse, pg. 113).

Works Cited
Castells, Manuel. “Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society.” International Journal of Communication 1 (2007): 238-266.

Friedman, Thomas L. “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century.” New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. V. 3.0, 2007.

Nederveen Pieterse, Jan. Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004.