"All that we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains unknown."
~William Harvey
~William Harvey
McWorld and Jihad’s relationship is like using Wonder bread for Shabat.
My coach always liked to put little life lessons into the context of the game basketball. Life is a bit of a game and my coach would say, “Good basketball players learn to react intelligently to what the other team gives them”. It’s not only what life gives you, its what you make of it that is important. Benjamin Barber writes about the “dialectic” relationship between Jihad and Macworld. He explains that Macworld and Jihad depend on each other.
McWorld is one team and Jihad is the other. They play a game over the control of the future that has no end. The score builds and the game is never won because the future is unknown. Fans who come to watch are the citizens of the world who sit and watch the game of life go by. They may complain but ultimately they have no control of what goes on. The ref in this game is democracy, whose job it is to enforce the rules and give order. But democracy is being overridden by the forces of the two teams and no longer has power.
The term Jihad is not used in its actual definition but has different meaning. Jihad is not modern; it is the diverse identities of people and their culture. McWorld is the market of popular culture and its expanding influential advertising and products. It comes from a Western point of view but looks globally for profit.
These two teams aren’t only opposing each other, but one is not found without the other. Barber gives many different examples of how the two mix. He tells us about how Jihad India is being affected by McWorld. One example he gives is looking at a poverty-stricken area just outside of Bombay where there exists a form of low cost labor for multinationals such as AT&T. In Russia where the traditional Matryoshka dolls that fit inside each other in descending order of size are now being made as popular celebrities, such as Madonna and Bruce Springstein. The two mix, the jihad of the old and traditional is made into something marketable by Macworld.
Barber doesn’t write about Jihad and McWorld as being something good. He sees these two forces as something that will grow and dominate the future moving farther away from democracy. He puts the future in bleak terms, as something uncontrollable and places bets on the two teams. He thinks that Jihad will violently act out in our near future with “local tragedy and regional genocide” (Benjamin Barber), following a new trend of events like the 9/11 attack. And McWorld is that it is the slow and steady winner in this game. Slowing and eventually McWorld will homogenize the world and give power to those established elites, “those who control information, communication, and entertainment” (Benjamin Barber).
My Vagina’s has a Voice
Anatomy is what defines the biological difference in a human’s sex. As a modern woman, my vagina demands the use of condoms, knows its rights and prefers to be shaved. I was raised in a culture where the women liberation is strong; equality of men and women is demanded. On discussions of globalization, cultural diversity and feminism in the United States clash. In Joseph E. Stiglitz writing Globalism’s Discontents he says, “Few subjects have polarized people throughout the world as much as globalization”, suggesting that sensitivity is needed when discussing the topic, especially when it comes to a topic like female circumcision.
The cultures that practice female circumcisions are predominately in Asia and parts of Africa. These cultures have a different idea of what a woman should be like. A woman is supposed to be vitreous and submissive. Getting this surgery enables a future wife to be clean, faithful and sexually remote (Kelleher Klein page 40). This is the opposite view of the woman in the United States who is more independent and the opposite view promiscuous.
Different cultures have different practices and values for women. The issue of female circumcision or otherwise called female genital mutilation is a topic of dispute between ethnocentric views and cultural relativity. The practice of female circumcision is a coming of age ceremony in which the severity of the surgery can vary. The least intense is a prick to the clitoris to draw blood, and then there is the sewing up of the vaginal walls leaving a small hole and sometimes most severly even removing sexual organs. The surgery is described as being something that changes a woman’s bodily functions. The book Global Perspectives talks about the issue of globalization in this context and explains the surgery, “the nature of the surgery itself is to change the sexual organs and modify sexual sensation” (Kelleher and Klein page 40).
The issue becomes more complex when there is not only a judgment of one’s cultural tradition, but also when the mixing of cultures happens in the case of an immigrant. Citizens and immigrants in the United States have the right to practice their religion. So if the issue of female circumcision is looked at as part of a religious belief and practice then the immigrant should have that freedom. In the states there is supposed to be tolerance for all cultures and separation of religion and state is important. But if the culture that the immigrant resides in does not agree with female circumcision as a religious practice, and has laws against it then the immigrant will look to get the surgery done in another place illegally and under unsanitary conditions. For the immigrant and other cultural practices there needs to be a balance between assimilation and maintaining diversity.
Moving away from a nation based argument there is also an international argument that female circumcision goes against the human right to sexual pleasure and the right to good health. Although this argument has good reason it is made in an ethnocentric manner. It is founded by those who have most of their human rights and the people who practice and advocate for the surgery have a different view of what is right for a woman that contends the human rights list.
Being a woman to me means many things but one of the most important things is my vagina and what comes with that. I have a problem with female circumcision. Because my culture has a totally different definition of woman’s roles than those who practice the circumcision it is difficult to understand the other side. The opposite view is that women are supposed to be pure and virtuous, family based and submissive in marriage and this procedure can enforce that belief and even ensure it.
From what I understand it seems like the surgery is a neutering of the woman, going against the natural needs and sensations of her body. A woman who gets this procedure is said to lose sensation, making sex unpleasurable, which goes against one of the human rights and the natural right of everyone. Other side effects are: “serious internal infections, infertility, difficult birth, and long term bleeding”(Kelleher and Klein page 40). Why would a woman endanger herself for her culture that hasn’t even made this practice something safe for her and her children?
Do these women even want this practice to continue? As an outsider on this topic and being from the States it is hard to see what is really happening. It is hard to see whether the surgery is a family pressure or coming from the culture and if the woman really believes in the surgery. My culture is less family oriented and allows more freedom for the individual to make decisions. So, maybe the women don’t have an opinion on the tradition because in their culture they aren’t supposed to.
Others argue that there is a parallel in the States to the practice; it’s the trend of cosmetic surgery. This argument is weak because although the women in the States do get these surgeries because of a skewed vision of beauty, they are not altering the natural functions of the body and they do it by choice. I would give the same explanation to those who say that male circumcision is another contradiction. Male circumcision has been developed so that the procedure is safe and the male does not lose any natural sensations or abilities. It is something that is considered healthy for the man.
I know that my vagina would back me up when I say that I don’t think female genital surgery is right. But this opinion and my view is from one culture to another. People looking from the outside see this practice ethnocentrically and cannot respect the traditions of another culture. Cultural relativity is the sensitivity to the diversity of cultures and some believe that for this issue, this sensitivity should not be applied. This topic is disputed by many with strong opinions, just as strong an opinion as I have for my vagina but when dealing with something so complex there needs to be a bigger effort to try and understand one another.
Anatomy is what defines the biological difference in a human’s sex. As a modern woman, my vagina demands the use of condoms, knows its rights and prefers to be shaved. I was raised in a culture where the women liberation is strong; equality of men and women is demanded. On discussions of globalization, cultural diversity and feminism in the United States clash. In Joseph E. Stiglitz writing Globalism’s Discontents he says, “Few subjects have polarized people throughout the world as much as globalization”, suggesting that sensitivity is needed when discussing the topic, especially when it comes to a topic like female circumcision.
The cultures that practice female circumcisions are predominately in Asia and parts of Africa. These cultures have a different idea of what a woman should be like. A woman is supposed to be vitreous and submissive. Getting this surgery enables a future wife to be clean, faithful and sexually remote (Kelleher Klein page 40). This is the opposite view of the woman in the United States who is more independent and the opposite view promiscuous.
Different cultures have different practices and values for women. The issue of female circumcision or otherwise called female genital mutilation is a topic of dispute between ethnocentric views and cultural relativity. The practice of female circumcision is a coming of age ceremony in which the severity of the surgery can vary. The least intense is a prick to the clitoris to draw blood, and then there is the sewing up of the vaginal walls leaving a small hole and sometimes most severly even removing sexual organs. The surgery is described as being something that changes a woman’s bodily functions. The book Global Perspectives talks about the issue of globalization in this context and explains the surgery, “the nature of the surgery itself is to change the sexual organs and modify sexual sensation” (Kelleher and Klein page 40).
The issue becomes more complex when there is not only a judgment of one’s cultural tradition, but also when the mixing of cultures happens in the case of an immigrant. Citizens and immigrants in the United States have the right to practice their religion. So if the issue of female circumcision is looked at as part of a religious belief and practice then the immigrant should have that freedom. In the states there is supposed to be tolerance for all cultures and separation of religion and state is important. But if the culture that the immigrant resides in does not agree with female circumcision as a religious practice, and has laws against it then the immigrant will look to get the surgery done in another place illegally and under unsanitary conditions. For the immigrant and other cultural practices there needs to be a balance between assimilation and maintaining diversity.
Moving away from a nation based argument there is also an international argument that female circumcision goes against the human right to sexual pleasure and the right to good health. Although this argument has good reason it is made in an ethnocentric manner. It is founded by those who have most of their human rights and the people who practice and advocate for the surgery have a different view of what is right for a woman that contends the human rights list.
Being a woman to me means many things but one of the most important things is my vagina and what comes with that. I have a problem with female circumcision. Because my culture has a totally different definition of woman’s roles than those who practice the circumcision it is difficult to understand the other side. The opposite view is that women are supposed to be pure and virtuous, family based and submissive in marriage and this procedure can enforce that belief and even ensure it.
From what I understand it seems like the surgery is a neutering of the woman, going against the natural needs and sensations of her body. A woman who gets this procedure is said to lose sensation, making sex unpleasurable, which goes against one of the human rights and the natural right of everyone. Other side effects are: “serious internal infections, infertility, difficult birth, and long term bleeding”(Kelleher and Klein page 40). Why would a woman endanger herself for her culture that hasn’t even made this practice something safe for her and her children?
Do these women even want this practice to continue? As an outsider on this topic and being from the States it is hard to see what is really happening. It is hard to see whether the surgery is a family pressure or coming from the culture and if the woman really believes in the surgery. My culture is less family oriented and allows more freedom for the individual to make decisions. So, maybe the women don’t have an opinion on the tradition because in their culture they aren’t supposed to.
Others argue that there is a parallel in the States to the practice; it’s the trend of cosmetic surgery. This argument is weak because although the women in the States do get these surgeries because of a skewed vision of beauty, they are not altering the natural functions of the body and they do it by choice. I would give the same explanation to those who say that male circumcision is another contradiction. Male circumcision has been developed so that the procedure is safe and the male does not lose any natural sensations or abilities. It is something that is considered healthy for the man.
I know that my vagina would back me up when I say that I don’t think female genital surgery is right. But this opinion and my view is from one culture to another. People looking from the outside see this practice ethnocentrically and cannot respect the traditions of another culture. Cultural relativity is the sensitivity to the diversity of cultures and some believe that for this issue, this sensitivity should not be applied. This topic is disputed by many with strong opinions, just as strong an opinion as I have for my vagina but when dealing with something so complex there needs to be a bigger effort to try and understand one another.
The Imbalance is Malice
East Asia is a good example of a country that used globalization to its advantage. Joseph E. Stiglitz is an economist and a Nobel Prize winner that looked at East Asia’s economic history and said that the success was due to the fact that, “they were able substantially to control the terms on which they engaged with the global economy.” The financial markets were highly regulated by the government and grew rapidly to create wealth for the nation. But when it succumbed to the pressure from the North to liberalize their capital and financial markets which caused problems. This is the case for many poor countries that were advised to do the same and never saw any positive results from it. The idea of trade liberalization is to move resources from one place to another place that can use it more effectively (Joseph E. Stiglitz page 203). The problem is that in the past developing countries were not stable or skilled in the capital markets so they could not benefit from liberalizing their market. Now money is moved too quickly for under developed countries to set up new jobs and lending is not an option because the benefit again goes to stable developed countries like the US.
The whole economic system is governed predominately by the World Trade Organization, the IMF, and the World Bank in a nondemocratic way. The governing is done with the ideology of profit. Instead of dealing with issues of unemployment it works with inflation. These institutions answer to the financial community which helps perpetuate the agenda. With this ideology the IMF helps banks in the financial community to become more independent and less accountable. Unfortunately the decisions being made by this group have effects on the world.
The International Monetary Fund and the financial community who control the flow of international exchanges are too involved in self-interest. The potential for the good that globalization can do seems to be up to the user. When a country can utilize and manage its finances like the example with East Asia it benefits but when the control is left to the IMF and others that’s where problems occur.
There has been some reform in the system that created minimal growth for developing countries and is looked at as more of a catching up. The benefits from reform are often only spread to the small wealthy portion of a country so not much improvement is made. Developed countries are becoming more aware of the unjust system is being recognized but it is hard to see a future of real change. Stiglizt advises action for the future saying we need, “a global alliance for reducing poverty and for creating a better environment, an alliance for creating a global society with more social justice.” But it is likely the IMF, in accordance with the financial community will continue to keep the same global economic structure as it is, maintaining a large gap between the rich and the poor.
East Asia is a good example of a country that used globalization to its advantage. Joseph E. Stiglitz is an economist and a Nobel Prize winner that looked at East Asia’s economic history and said that the success was due to the fact that, “they were able substantially to control the terms on which they engaged with the global economy.” The financial markets were highly regulated by the government and grew rapidly to create wealth for the nation. But when it succumbed to the pressure from the North to liberalize their capital and financial markets which caused problems. This is the case for many poor countries that were advised to do the same and never saw any positive results from it. The idea of trade liberalization is to move resources from one place to another place that can use it more effectively (Joseph E. Stiglitz page 203). The problem is that in the past developing countries were not stable or skilled in the capital markets so they could not benefit from liberalizing their market. Now money is moved too quickly for under developed countries to set up new jobs and lending is not an option because the benefit again goes to stable developed countries like the US.
The whole economic system is governed predominately by the World Trade Organization, the IMF, and the World Bank in a nondemocratic way. The governing is done with the ideology of profit. Instead of dealing with issues of unemployment it works with inflation. These institutions answer to the financial community which helps perpetuate the agenda. With this ideology the IMF helps banks in the financial community to become more independent and less accountable. Unfortunately the decisions being made by this group have effects on the world.
The International Monetary Fund and the financial community who control the flow of international exchanges are too involved in self-interest. The potential for the good that globalization can do seems to be up to the user. When a country can utilize and manage its finances like the example with East Asia it benefits but when the control is left to the IMF and others that’s where problems occur.
There has been some reform in the system that created minimal growth for developing countries and is looked at as more of a catching up. The benefits from reform are often only spread to the small wealthy portion of a country so not much improvement is made. Developed countries are becoming more aware of the unjust system is being recognized but it is hard to see a future of real change. Stiglizt advises action for the future saying we need, “a global alliance for reducing poverty and for creating a better environment, an alliance for creating a global society with more social justice.” But it is likely the IMF, in accordance with the financial community will continue to keep the same global economic structure as it is, maintaining a large gap between the rich and the poor.
The ‘G’ Complex
Global Warming, Globalization, and Global Governance
In 2009 an international conference held by the United Nations in Copenhagen assembled 192 countries to discuss and make decisions on lowering green house gas emissions. What really happened was that the representatives of these countries expended energy in conversation with no end agreement, no action taken. That was no use to the environment. Critics of the conference say that the United Nations process usually results in this way.
The UN’s attempt to solve this problem was due to almost unanimity expected of many different countries on such a large topic. Climate change is a global issue and other global issues are in the process of being solved by large international organizations like the UN. Large multilateralorganizations, such as the European Union, G-20 and the Major Economies Forum (MEF) will be given more responsibility as globalization develops in the political and economic world. These organizations will be important in helping to resolve modern global issues like climate change that cannot be the responsibility of one nation.
Manfred B. Steger a professor of Global Studies and author of Globalization: A Very Short Introduction suggests that the world is moving away from the nation-state system of governing to a global governance. As the world becomes more interconnected so does the need for global problem solving because everyone is involved and therefore responsible or at least affected.
A better way to tackle big issues like climate change, agree Michael Levi of Foreign Affairs and Sharon Bagley from Newsweek is to make decisions within smaller groups with appropriate leadership, like that of U.S. President Barack Obama in Copenhangen. He intervened to make compromises on the last day of the conference because his representative negotiators were too stubborn and unwilling to cooperate to make any progress on the agreement (Levi, Foreign Affairs). The nation-state is strong and can more effectively concentrate on issues with practical action decided upon by a small group. The focus should be narrowed with fewer people involved in order to make more proactive change happen. A positive example of this kind of action is the MEF a 3-year-old organization whose process is to collaborate top officials from the world’s 16 largest urban emitters have discussed energy and climate policy making headway on things like deforestation.
Globalization is mobilizing and quickly changing how the countries function with each other and independently. The nation-state still functions well with some issues. Immigration policy, for example, has been dealt individually by the nation-state. Steger points out that only two percent of the world lives outside their country of origin and the amount of immigration into the United States has halved since the 1990’s.
Everyone knows climate change is a problem. It is not just a problem of a country or state but a global issue. The world seems to be changing with its climate and environment; Steger says that this period of time is to develop a new administration. He says, “The world finds itself in a transitional phase between the modern nation-state system and postmodern forms of global governance.” (Steger page 6) It’s hard to say what that change will look like but as the world transforms and becomes more interconnected the complexities of issues will only increase and new forms of governance will be needed.
Global Warming, Globalization, and Global Governance
In 2009 an international conference held by the United Nations in Copenhagen assembled 192 countries to discuss and make decisions on lowering green house gas emissions. What really happened was that the representatives of these countries expended energy in conversation with no end agreement, no action taken. That was no use to the environment. Critics of the conference say that the United Nations process usually results in this way.
The UN’s attempt to solve this problem was due to almost unanimity expected of many different countries on such a large topic. Climate change is a global issue and other global issues are in the process of being solved by large international organizations like the UN. Large multilateralorganizations, such as the European Union, G-20 and the Major Economies Forum (MEF) will be given more responsibility as globalization develops in the political and economic world. These organizations will be important in helping to resolve modern global issues like climate change that cannot be the responsibility of one nation.
Manfred B. Steger a professor of Global Studies and author of Globalization: A Very Short Introduction suggests that the world is moving away from the nation-state system of governing to a global governance. As the world becomes more interconnected so does the need for global problem solving because everyone is involved and therefore responsible or at least affected.
A better way to tackle big issues like climate change, agree Michael Levi of Foreign Affairs and Sharon Bagley from Newsweek is to make decisions within smaller groups with appropriate leadership, like that of U.S. President Barack Obama in Copenhangen. He intervened to make compromises on the last day of the conference because his representative negotiators were too stubborn and unwilling to cooperate to make any progress on the agreement (Levi, Foreign Affairs). The nation-state is strong and can more effectively concentrate on issues with practical action decided upon by a small group. The focus should be narrowed with fewer people involved in order to make more proactive change happen. A positive example of this kind of action is the MEF a 3-year-old organization whose process is to collaborate top officials from the world’s 16 largest urban emitters have discussed energy and climate policy making headway on things like deforestation.
Globalization is mobilizing and quickly changing how the countries function with each other and independently. The nation-state still functions well with some issues. Immigration policy, for example, has been dealt individually by the nation-state. Steger points out that only two percent of the world lives outside their country of origin and the amount of immigration into the United States has halved since the 1990’s.
Everyone knows climate change is a problem. It is not just a problem of a country or state but a global issue. The world seems to be changing with its climate and environment; Steger says that this period of time is to develop a new administration. He says, “The world finds itself in a transitional phase between the modern nation-state system and postmodern forms of global governance.” (Steger page 6) It’s hard to say what that change will look like but as the world transforms and becomes more interconnected the complexities of issues will only increase and new forms of governance will be needed.
