Living in the World
Globalization

We live in a global community. When Nigerian domestic problems, the antics of Hugo Chavez or the demand of China and India for oil causes the price of gasoline to rise 5 cents a gallon in the US, we realize it in our pocketbooks. We have political pundits theorizing about how the new French president will change the US relationship with France. Our status in the world is affected by other government’s policies as well as our own. According to Os Guiness, the defining issues for Americans in the 21st century include: [1] Will Islam modernize peacefully? [2] What faith will replace Marxism in China? [3] Will the West sever or recover its roots? Note, that only the third issue is one over which the US has control, and only partially, since we cannot answer for ancestral Europe.

Globalization is a concept that allows for instantaneous communication. Remember the Tsunami disaster in Thailand, Indonesia and India? We had pictures and commentary about it within 24 hours of its happening. When my grandfather was an adult, it took weeks to learn of a tornado in the Mid-west. It would be months until a catastrophe in Asia reached his eyes or ears.

Globalization also allows for worldwide business to take place. You can have a video conference involving folks from every conference. Facsimile and computer communications reach around the globe in a matter of minutes. Time of day, where you are located or the kind of society of which you are a part is not an impediment to communicating and doing business with others. Globalization is called by many the 2nd Industrial Revolution because of its impact on the way business is transacted.

While these may be, in the main, benefits of globalization, there are also far reaching detriments. The ease with which business is done is not limited to licit business…it also applies to illicit transactions. It took 300 years to stop the slave trade that occurred by shipping humans in vessels. Now, with the internet, people are bought and sold into slavery by the tens of thousands. How do you stop it? In our globalized world, everything is for sale even religion and politics which have morphed into so many sub-sets it is impossible to keep track of it.

The communications of our global society fires information at us in a fast and furious pace. And, this only increases the stress and anxiety in our lives. When I began to practice law, the office still used carbon paper for copies! The electronic communication and equipment now available makes contemplation impossible. Everyone wants an answer or decision…now! There is no time to consider the long rang impacts of what you are doing. All is for immediacy. Globalization has put us all in the boat of the Kenyan saying: “All westerners have watches, but not time!”

The frantic pace forced on us by globalization has reduced reflection and thinking. In fact globalization has eliminated thinking. We rely on others for our decisions…Congressmen, their staffs; corporate heads, their VPs; laborers and municipal workers, their union leaders; and the rest of us, television and newspapers. Stem cell research, global warming, intelligent design, Islam, hate crime legislation…who has time to figure it out? We need someone to tell us. So we relinquish our responsibilities to know and believe to others whom we have no idea of their motives or character. We act irresponsibly.

By eliminating boundaries and geography globalization creates a massive “melting down” effect. Local customs, traditions, folkways and mores are being eliminated by a world wide culture of business (some good and some bad) and entertainment (some good and some bad). We all are losing our roots in kin, place and community and any concept of character formation for the good of the individual society in which we reside. Instead of Sgt. York we have Anna Nichole; instead of objective truth we have subjective preference; and instead of standards to live by we have life styles to choose. Globalization is a corrosive that is eating away at the soul of man.