Old Meets the New: why, hello there old! and how are you new?

So this is a photo of a 19th century fort in a place called Umm Salal Mohammed in Qatar. I love how it epitomizes a stark but peaceful collision of the old and the new with the satellite dishes in the foreground. It’s a well captured photograph at summarizing the immense and rapid change in the Middle East, especially with the onslaught of modernization in light of recent demands for oil production. Even in the most remote of areas, a T.V. is showing those who had been isolated, something of the world “out there”. People no longer have to travel long distances to be exposed to different aspects of the world and its diversity. Just arrange the antennae or give the dish a little nudge, and flip the channel! While some may see the satellite dishes as a symbol of progress and modernization for the better, others may see an ancient artifact and place of history and culture being desecrated with “Western” influence. The biggest challenge, I believe in our time, is the challenge of finding an equilibrium or point of agreement where both tradition and progressive modernization can meet.

 photo courtesy of Jungle_Boy (http://flickr.com/photos/jungle_boy/)

thanks whoever you are. Tarzan.

What the..?

GLOBALIZATION IS:

the increasing of communication and innterconnectivity between people and institutions across the globe. Globalization affects all aspects of society, economy, politics, and aspects of our day-to-day lives. Globalization levels the playing field for today and the future’s competition in global trade and economy. It also brings major social change and threatens/challenges institutions of power.

THIS definition or explanation of globalization was written before we, as a seminar class came up with an awesome definition that I think best embodies what globalization is:

GLOBALIZATION IS:

A rapidly accelerating process which enables, encourages, and advances connections between both individuals and groups worldwide, allowing for the exchange and influence of cultural, technological, economic, and political ideas and their applications.

 We spent an hour summarizing this global phenomenon and we managed to succinctly explain it in one sentence. We did good.

Go figure

So, Friedman talks about the ten forces that flattened the world, and as I’m reading them, I realize that these forces are recent ones. But I came to realize that this phenomenon of globalization actually began hundreds of years ago. Perhaps even as far back as 1492, yes when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He, as were many other explorers, created a new road through which the world opened and through which the foundation of intercontinental communication began. The Silk Road, also, no doubtedly was also a key event that helped with the spreading of ideas, goods, innovation, and people.

You can also name a bunch of others, such as Alexander the Great’s conquest into India or the extensive system of slave trade that fueled our nation for centuries. Also, let’s not forget the Industrial Revolution in Britain. The Industrial Revolution was a major flattener, if not recent, but important one that revolutionized the social heirarchy and challenged it. the emergence of ideology supported people’s belief that they could take control of their lives and do something about it, to change it. This is where the concept of human rights was born; there was a large movement of thinking and action to bring the peasants, who where once illiterate, to the same level of the higher elite. The social heirarchy was flattened, if you will. 

A similiar flattening of societal stratification was presented in an article I recently read in the Washington Post. In India, the social heirarchy, or caste system, is extremely strong, partly because it is deeply embedded in a false perception of religion and faith (which is another topic in itself). But with times changing, and people of even the lowest caste, or Dalit, are taking their future in their hands. The Dalit have been forced into indentured labor for decades and generations, but the article follows a Dalit man who left his age-old generational home (on someone else’s land, interestingly enough) to work as a brick layer in the city as a free man. He soon worked his way up and then saved enough money to start his own textile business, which is now booming.

But the writer’s point in this article was to show that people are working their way through this social heirarchy. The once god-like caste system’s strict social stratification (try saying that five times fast) is now loosening its grip and whether you might think that this is for the better or for the worse, it is happening.

Just as during the Industrial Revolution when people began to demand their rights and began to see the injustices happening to them, the Dalit people here too are also seeing that they can escape their miserably plight of working underneath a domineering owner and also succeed in the booming economy that India is welcomingly offering.

But does this flattening of the social heirarchy lead to good or bad? Is a social heirarchy a necesity in present day society? After writing a bit and reading a little more, I am beginning to see the double-edged sword that is globalization. Like in this very post. I just spent a good half hour contemplating and writing about one side of the issue, and I now end this post questioning eveything I just wrote. Go figure.