Perceptions of Part One Scholte

Scholte clearly has a strong grasp of the failings of many of the classical interpretations of what is meant by globalization.  He also is quite aware of the pitfalls that exist in reactions against it as well as a full embrace of globalization. However, I must comment on a few problems I see with some of his references and frame work of thought.  In his discussion of communication technologies, Scholte completely fails to make any mention of Sir Arthur C. Clarke's book, "How the World was One" on the development of communication technologies.  While the book was written for a more "popular" audience, it does great justice to the topic by explaining how hard it was to develop the technologies for global communications.  In general, I am not fond of Scholte's treatment of technological developments.  He argues that the lack of high speed communication and high speed travel was what marked the period before globalization, or that the volume of communication was what makes the difference, or the breath and depth to which people interact with these technologies.  While high speed-high capacity communication all over the globe is a truly new phenomena, it is firmly grounded in the gradual development of communication technologies over the last two centuries.  I cast my time frame so wide because one must understand that in order to have a technology, there must be research into the physics before a product can be produced.  Early studies of electricity, magnetic fields, and material sciences were what made the telegraph, telephone, radio, television, computer, and internet possible in the first place.  I suppose that one could imagine a world in which communication technologies always developed wirelessly but it does not change the fundamental fact that technological processes are an evolutionary process with stops and starts.  Thus, when each new technology was "globalized" it may not have had the deep impact that the internet has but it still was a facilitator bringing people in disparate parts of the world closer together. 

Furthermore, Scholte argues that global ecological problems did not exist until recent times.  This is a terribly naive and unnuanced view of the world and global ecology.  While it is true that the scale of global ecological problems have grown exponentially, the problems have always been present in human society.  The increase in the size of the human population and the development of new technologies have helped to facilitate the creation of the grave environmental times in which we find ourselves, but global climate change began with the start of the Industrial Revolution and the spread of industrial development has only made the problem worse.  (I will not say wide spread because of the always defused nature of green house gas emissions)  Loss of biodiversity has arguably been a fact of human existence since at least the last Ice Age and probably earlier.  The cultivation of sugar in the West Indies led to the destruction of the rain forests on those islands and the loss of many species.  While mahogany did not go extinct, it came quite close as a result of deforestation from sugar cultivation to meet a rather global demand for the substance and its products, and as a result of the unsustainable harvest of the wood for cabinet makers in America and Europe. 

In general, I fully agree with Scholte that globalization as seen from the 1980s onward is quite distinct from anything else that proceeded it, but I would say that its antecedents have been with humanity sense at least the eighteenth century and some much earlier.  I suppose my main point of contention is his interpretation of environmental and technological matters.  A far more robust and thorough discussion of these developments is required if one is to better understand how the world became "global."

From Wired Magazine: "Journalist Tweets From Jail With Guard’s Phone"

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/09/tweet-of-the-day/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29

This article does a great job of illustrating how uneven globalization's effects have proven.  Although Afghanistan is probably one of the most remote locations in terms of communication, there are people living there that have access to cell phone communication and the internet.  However, these technologies have not penetrated into the culture of the Afghans and thus allowed the journalist to give some notice of his location to others. 

Saving us from ourselves

I found it interesting in the discussion of religion and globalization in "The Paradox of a Global US" that there are missionaries from the third world seeking to enter the West for the purpose of proselytizing the gospel to save Westerners from their liberal non-orthodox ways.  The schism in the Anglican Church over the ordination of homosexual clergy has been especially interesting to me because my great aunt is Episcopalian.  Her bishop actually resides in Africa after her congregation and others decided to they no longer wished to associate with the American conference.  The church itself (Saint Luke's) was founded in 1833 in Georgetown, Pennsylvania.  The congregation probably has thirty people on a good day for services as the town's population is around 150.  While the town is not remote in a strict geographical since, it is fairly removed from the broader world of Beaver County by virtue of the fact that there are only two roads into town.  It fronts the Ohio River but no longer has any direct connection with that most august conduit of trade.  In some respects it represents the antithesis of globalization, the population is very insular and could scarcely care about what goes on in the wider world unless it directly affects the town.  Yet, that the bishop of the Episcopal Church resides in Africa and has fairly regular communication with the congregation is a testament to how thoroughly interconnected human society has become.  Religion is by no means divorced from this process and in some ways the missionary zeal of the nineteenth century combined with the advances in modern communication and transport technologies have made the situation of Saint Luke's possible.  Yet in some respects it has allowed the church to stay within the larger Anglican community while attempting to separate itself from what the congregation sees as the sins of a liberal agenda within the Episcopal Church.  In another age such an ideological schism would have likely resulted in the formation of a splinter organization or a totally new congregation.  I am sure from the African bishop's perspective, he is helping to save a congregation in America from the sins of a heretical ordination that is a result of the Episcopal Church's willingness to depart from orthodoxy.  Thus, while in earlier times the congregation of Saint Luke's would have thought it was the African that needed his soul saved, today quite the opposite has developed.  Africans think that those in the West are the ones in need of a help.  This will prove especially problematic for the Catholic Church in the future as it too will likely face a division between the Western bishops and those in the Third World.  Globalized religion has created just as many challenges to society as has the broader swath of Globalization.  Yet, perhaps while those peoples in the traditional Third World have had much to fear from the onset of globalization, with religion it seems probable that perhaps the institutions in the West have much to fear from the disciples their ancestors created in the broader world if they wish to hold onto their control of institutional hierarchies while also "changing with the times" in the West.