We live in a world in which technology has given us instant communicable access to persons who live almost anywhere else on our planet. Witness Facebook, etc.,and the “Arabian spring.” We also live in a world in which national and geopolitical boundaries seem to be, by virtue of glabal communication, disappearing. I’ve heard many objections to these current realities. One objection, which I would like to see discussed here, is that globalization is a threat to individuality, that it has the objective of homogenizing all beliefs, ethnicities, cultures.
It’s a threat to the kind of individuality programmed into us for sure ~ which I think is a good thing.
I used to think that we’d end up with a beige monoculture if things were mixed up enough. However upon reflection I have come to realise it to be more like many kinds of oil and water, no matter how much its blended you just keep getting new kinds of difference.
If we can learn from all sources then no particular group be it political nor religious can contain and control us.
My thoughts on this, whenever someone brings it up, is honestly…“wahh, cry me a river.”
Not to be a dick, but it’s pretty much everywhere we look: anything that is living that inflates to a maximum of its growth within a confined environment may start out as several separate communities of life, but eventually, one way or another, they will either kill each other off or meld together until one colony is left.
The most successful systems are those which largely choose to allow for melding together to create a larger colony.
Humans have been separate cellular colonies of culture for a very, very long time.
Oh phewie…we’re finally running out of space to be our own separate colonies. Well…tough. There’s 7 billion people out there and climbing…fast.
Get used to a more unified identity.
How quickly no one would give a shit if aliens suddenly showed up; peaceful or not.
I think there is homogenizing, of course, but one thing that also interests me is that religion and/or worldview may have more to do with psychology now, rather than geography. Religious outlooks often go with personality types, perhaps because the founder of a particular religion had a certain personality. So maybe a laid back person, or a person who wishes to be more laid back, gets into Daoism. And maybe people with other personality types are more interested in Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, New Atheism, or Hinduism. And it’s probably not really about what’s “true” either, as “truth” (apologetics) in a process like this becomes just a weapon used to justify one’s inclinations. I think there may be an increasing lack of spiritual discipline (learning apologetics doesn’t count), as one’s roots become weaker and shallower. But there may also be a significant increase in self-empowerment (I mean that in a positive way), as people can take up a discipline that has more potential to awaken and transform.
On the whole, I think globalization in this sense is a positive thing. But I think it’s important to not treat the world as a spiritual supermarket. Or, rather, it’s a supermarket but it’s possible to know what kind of food is healthy, what kind of food is “junk”, stick to a nutritious yet satisfying diet, and encourage laws that prevent people from buying soda with their food stamps.
I did not say any of this with a preference of ideas. Hopefully, I opened it for discussion.
Really good response, Anon. The kind I had hoped for.
I wasn’t referring to you.
I was meaning the general state of when people bring up the matter with deep concern over losing culture, or fearing one world community ideals.
I’ll agree with Jayson here, this is a natural process and how things change. And while growing pains are associated with it, the juice is routinely worth the squeeze. Not necessarily in terms of religious ideology but in pretty much every other area – so I fail to see why it wouldn’t apply to the religious realm as well.
And while things homogenize, I think there are plenty of cases where more of a fusion results. For example, American Chinese food is very different from Korean Chinese food, which is very different from Chinese food (inasmuch as any single case of any of those exist! In America, West Coast Chinese food is different from East Coast Chinese food, you know?) and while they all contain similarities due to their fundamental “Chineseness” they are also very different because they have adapted to local conditions. Similar but not the same.
In the case of religion, the Perelandra parable by C.S. Lewis does a good job of covering some of the advantages of this system. Let’s face it, religions are conservative institutions. That is the point of religion, to act as a cultural stator, to preserve and transmit cultural values. It just so happens that sometimes those cultural values are either outdated and no longer apply and in other cases, they are downright poisonous!
Some of the greatest Confucian scholars ever were excellent because they sought to incorporate “new” ideas from other religious traditions, first from contact with Buddhism and later from contact with the West and philosophy. I’d argue much the same with Buddhism, where modifying Buddhism to proselytize in the West has created a much more streamlined and sane religion, removing/de-emphasizing a lot of crazy folk beliefs that are contained within the religion and leaving a wonderful religiophilosophical means of self-cultivation complete with an incredibly deft language. It has happened in the other direction as well. Voltaire cited Confucius as an inspiration. D.T. Suzuki inspired a generation in the West. Or the transformative contact of the crusades on Western Europe due to contact with Constantinople and the Muslim Empire. Modern imperialism and the legacy of imperialism has created a clear imbalance in the direction which ideas flow, but even so, the ideas which flow still adapt and find new expression in the areas where they are transplanted to. And while imbalanced, the transmission isn’t absolute.
Ya I’m with jayson here too, and with my interpretation too; an individualism created from free choice is far better than one imposed upon us. I think that’s similar to what Ierrellus wrote.
Freedom is not a oneness, we don’t have to be all the same just because we share the world environment.
I look forwards to the amazing manifold expressions that will come out of this.
High tech audio-visual media exposes what has been considered sacred and private to public gaze and brings transgressive images into sacred and private spaces. The increase of religious militancy occurring across many traditions may be a defiant reaction to the ever increasing ubiquitous invasive quality of high tech media.
I think of us like neurons, honestly.
The more connections, the more rapid the information transfers and the more is known in one part of the network about what any given other part of the network is doing.
I look at it this way.
We have 10,000 synaptic connections per neuron on average.
We have an average of 100 billion neurons in our brain.
That’s 1 quadrillion connections in our brain.
Now, according to Dunbar’s number, the estimated mean of meaningful human social interaction is about 150 people (true number is somewhere estimated between 100 and 200 and some-such with the common use plopped at 150).
In 1 CE, it’s estimated that around 300 million or so humans were alive.
Now, we’ll play pretend for a moment and assume everyone always had our current technology and that thereby all 300 million people were all connected to each other in 150 people sized groups.
We’ll then treat every 150 people sized group as one social neuron capable of as many connections in thought as every person by the total size of the group (1 quadrillion x 150).
Each social group, then, has 150 quadrillion neurological connections.
This means that we have 2 thousand social neurons in this modeled 1 CE world (300 million / 150) - maximum (if they would have had our technology for communication).
2 thousand social groups each capable of 150 quadrillion synaptic connections, means a world wide connection of 300 sextillion connections.
300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
By comparison, today’s population is 7 billion instead of 300 million.
That means our social neuron’s combine to make a representative value of 7 septillion social connections.
7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Now, multiply both by the human speed of processing power: 100Hz (parallel)
That’s 30 septillion parallel processes back in 1 CE and 700 septillion parallel processes now.
That’s a 2,233.33~% increase in information processing from then…to now.
And that’s disregarding the rate of change of information exchange capacity over time, and population density affect upon that exchange rate.
Both of which, if factored, would make the 1 CE age look like a neurologically inept dumbass in regards to capacity of information.
Now, this isn’t extremely accurate and I don’t intend it to be.
It just illustrates the differences between then and now in respect to the magnitudes involved in what is the identity of being human and what that community means.
The rate of processing and the shear volume of potential social groups of maximum social size today (46.6 million, as opposed to that 2 thousand social group potential of 1 CE) is so incredible that to think that “individualism” will sustain for a great length of time forward is somewhat futile.
Thanks. Clarification much appreciated. I read too literally 
I totally agree with your take on those who see globalism as some threat to what they believe their “established” mix of cultural and personal identity has to entail. The problem: there seem to me more of those who would kill and die to retain that identity mix than those who are able to see past self.
Yes, that’s why I like the Greek concept of plenitude–a whole comprised of ultimate variety. That seems to make more sense than the, probably necessary, Western excursion into individualism that has resulted in every person for himself/herself. Ecology will balance this out eventually.
Thanks for this, X. I guess right now I see predominant religion in the USA and in Iran as unflinchingly conservative, even to the point of adamantly preserving the worst ideas of each. So, what do they tend to stabilize other than identity based power struggle and its promise of status quo? I agree that religion has worked as a stabilizing influence for societies and individuals and that it has also caused inhuman atrocities.
I’d point out that both Christian and Muslim fundamentalism are modern movements and represent less of a traditional “winnowing and sifting” and more of a radical shift because they are a reaction to other radical shifts so they have co-opted some of their means to remain competitive. For example, look at how the Tea party has adopted the methodology of Alinsky. I’ve written on this subject a little bit before, so I may as well just quote myself. While reading it, keep in mind that it is the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, the new fundamentalist movements that I talk about are driving forces while they may not necessarily represent majority views. Because of the techniques they have co-opted, they are able to very effectively frame the dialogue in a way that older traditions can’t. Mass marketing is incredibly power and we’ve become really good at advertising.
Another, related post that deals with many of the same issues:
I hope those clarify my views somewhat. To Islam, especially Iranian Islam, I’d also add Al-Ghazali as a radical who changed the tradition for the worse. But, you’ll note, in his time what he proposed what quite radical.
TL;DR: Christian and Muslim fundamentalism are incredibly dangerous to society but not because they represent a traditional order, rather they represent a break from that traditional order.
This part I disagree with [unless I misunderstood], there is more diversity now than in ancient times, thus increased volume and connectivity actually equates with greater distinction and individuality.
Equally we feel more pressured to distinguish ourselves from others these days.
Hmm yes plenitude is a good term for it. The need for distinction along with the discovery of evolution has resulted in such self based thinking, its almost as if much of the story was already written.
But that’s fine.
Morally it’s not always fine, but conceptually it is fine.
These are the skins of the cultures.
The skin is the harder layer to break through, and it exists for preservation of the colony.
We’ve always needed a skin layer in our social network as much as at the cellular level.
Without it, organisms just fail to form a cohesive colony of any kind.
When it comes to now, sure, it’s going to get in the way.
Eventually the skins will be worn down enough that a mixture between colonies takes place and a new skin barrier is formed around the newly merged colonies.
So it’s OK.
And really, good that they are there.
We need people that are preservationists.
I’m quite thankful that they exist.
As a radicalist, I wouldn’t be able to do anything that I work on without them standing there holding down the fort.
Yes, you misunderstood.
“Individualism” here was meant in the sense of being not part of any group; “supragroup”.
Such as the idea that “America” is the power of “one”, rather than the power of the whole as one.
Individualism here means that I grab for me and my immediate and you can go fuck off and stop asking for help.
But I do agree, increasing population does equate to increasing individualism, and therefore it was needed.
But once you start to form a density such as we have today?
No, it stops being useful.
Individualism is what is needed when you need to move fast in expansion; like virus cells.
But after you have expanded and plopped all of your “flags” everywhere and all of your little virus cells have taken root and begin to grow and grow colonies of their own and now reach a point of hitting into each other in mass volume, that same individualism needs to curve to rejoin and become a more open mass to each other’s forms and differences so that a supervirus can be formed.
Supergroup as opposed to individualism’s supragroup.
What I was getting at was that we’re nearing the point where being interested in our individual personal interests and of no concern for anything beyond those isn’t cutting it.
America can’t sit around and say, “Fuck it, we’re really only interested in America.
In fact, fuck it.
The Federal Government is only interested in the Federal Government now. The States are now on their own unless it’s a matter of external threat.”
I can’t, equally, just say, “Fuck it, I’m only interested in my family and that’s it. Fuck the rest of my town. What they do doesn’t matter.”
No…it does matter, and it matters because I haven’t any option - even all the way up here in Alaska - to just not bump into a mass of people every day with some part of my family.
I must drive on their roads, I must use their money, I must send my children into their culture too, I must pay for services from them, I must abide by their laws.
I am not an individual free to roam the plains and do endlessly with my land as I want, and live off of my own will and power alone.
I am part of the community and the national level is shifting that view at this point.
Europe united, for instance.
That’s one step closer. Before that, America Federalized itself rather than letting States be united yet independent.
American’s are famous for being geographically and internationally politically inept.
That is changing (all be-it slowly), but more American’s today are more aware of more of the world’s politics and its impact upon America than they were even 20 years ago.
Wikileaks, another example, ignores all boundaries of loyalty to any nation and pushes for a united front of information as a global community.
The list goes on, but generally speaking - we don’t stick to individualism like we once did.
And it is still progressing further.
People fear it and label it things like, “one world order”, or the like.
Either way, no matter how it arrives, it will arrive eventually.
The population of the world will have to face up to the fact that it will have to work together, and not separate, to accomplish survival on a global scale.
Our economic infrastructures, if nothing else, have absolutely ensured that.
The end goal of the globalism espoused by world leaders is a one world religion. They state that quite plainly.
Individuals tend to want to rebel and the goal is control.
If it wasn’t religion, it would be government.
There will always be those in power that want the ring that rules them all.
That fact won’t deter the natural biological requirement for human social evolution to become more reliant on the global community than their independent communities - fuck…they practically already are there as it is.
I’m quite pleased by the thoughtful responses I’m getting here. As y’all know, I’m into biology, into how the physical translates as mental content in brain/minds. So, I’m seeing in these responses ideas that come from the individuation, metamorphosis, homeostasis , synthesis-- aspects of what is experienced as a living organism. it is my belief that these experiences become, through translation, the bases of ethics, politics and philosophy. If this take is accurate, the belief systems will work themselves out to some sort of equilibrium because they are derived from those physical experiences. Globalism is perhaps a threat only those who find comfort in stasis and discomfort in flux. Both stasis and flux are natural experiences, “beyond good and evil”.