The End of Globalization

Over the last century or so, our world has been globalizing rapidly. The process has been occurring since cultures were formed, was accelerated in the exploration during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when Europeans were brought into contact with people and goods from all over the world. However, now that we have entered the communications and digital era, the diffusion of culture is taking place at a historically unprecedented rate. We have not hit this point yet, but the day is coming when globalization will have ended. There will still international exchange, but no net flow. Just as chemical reactions and natural systems reach a kind of dynamic equilibrium, so also will we reach a point of cultural equilibrium.

Globalization is the process where one country ships its cultural products to another nation. We can see the results of this everywhere. Pizza and tacos have become fully integrated into American cuisine, foreign books are being translated, and American music and film is enjoyed everywhere in the world. Whereas exchange was formerly mediated by long travels, it is now mediated by such instant media as television and the internet. Consider the zoo, for example. A long time ago, one elephant could be brought to a town as a main attraction, where people would flock to see this unusual that had never been seen in America. Nowadays, we can all look up a picture of an elephant, giraffe, shark, or whatever animal we want to see on the internet. We can watch videos of them on the Discovery Channel or Youtube. This is a good example of what I am talking about, but it mostly just gives me an excuse to post this cute picture of an orphaned baby elephant with a raincoat. Now you don’t have to go to the zoo!

This was exciting years ago, but most people have seen most of the exotic animals worth seeing from Africa. If they haven’t, they can just google whatever it is that they haven’t seen. There is no new cultural exchange here; it just takes time for everyone in a country to adapt to a new influence.

Part of what makes foreign countries and their citizens so interesting is their foreignness. I’m not exactly sure what goes on in Nepal, but I’m slightly curious because it’s different than America. Much of a national identity is formed by portraying other countries as distant others that we aren’t like. There is much to be gained from a positive national image, but this distinction between “us” and “them” is disappearing. English is widely becoming the universal language. People eat American food, talk about American politics, and are influenced by American thought, no matter where they live. Eventually, our national identity will be lost to the larger concept of a global identity. This is neither good nor bad, but it will be the end of traditional ethnicity as we know it. There are still some countries that are “others” to us and will be for some time, perhaps forever. This is not due to a lack in globalization efforts, but factors to be discussed presently.

There seems to be no purpose in dividing ourselves along national lines. I can have just as much in common and communicate with someone in England just as well as someone in my neighborhood. The main factor dividing us is primarily economic. As it is communication that is driving the equilibrium, places with little communication will not adapt. A good example of this is Uganda, Southern Sudan and other places where Kony is active. The idea behind the name “Invisible Children” is that people there are unable to properly communicate their own helplessness. It is up to the coalition of first-world countries to communicate with each other to give them a hand. The direction we are headed in is toward a world divided by economic status. The rich and powerful will always associate with the other rich and powerful from around the world. There is nothing wrong with this, but they have similar interests and goals. The middle classes of the world will always be a large society online on Facebook, Twitter, or other forums. It is only the very poor that is left out. Even in our own country, not that we have any truly poor people here, but one’s society is in some part determined by one’s immediate surroundings. People are always complaining about the barrier keeping the lower classes from accessing the upper echelons of society. I see no reason why this should not become worldwide.

A person is a person is a person. The internet, as an open mic for anyone with a voice and a computer, has been promoting this concept of egalitarian international exchange. Some people do not have access to this medium and will not be able to join in the growing community. They will always be the “other” to us. The wealthy, who control external sources, will always retain their position. Cultures are on track to collide and the result will be an international community without any distinctly national characteristics. Instead of the national poor, the poor all over the world will form a universal lower class. Globalization will have ended and we will have the world and each other. Gone is the intrigue of foreign ideas and foreign people, they are us now. We have no national cultures, only a culture of what has been communicated to us by anyone in the world. Is this good or bad? How are your feelings toward other countries changing? These questions of identity are important for us in the days to come.