Years of Poems and Spirits

Sat in COMM561 this evening. I knew I’d likely drop the class but had hoped to audit if it mattered. Boy, the class was a anti-globalization guerilla training camp: the students are partisans full of zeal but void of reason. All are eager to fight but none offers any idea how to run things once triumphed.

Not to say they must not be angry, or reason is the only means to achieve progress. But the problem is the debate develops in a closed sphere: a set of unchallengeable premises defines the boundry of the discussion–a feature that is more common among ideologies than science.

The premises are: globalization is a new form of imperialism; globalization is the source of alienation; globalization is a conspiracy. I tried to challenge those assumptions during discussion but didn’t go very far. Apparently, most of them have made the leap of faith and are beyond recall.

After the class, however, I thought of a new question–one that I like to pose to every globalization bashers: if you can do something to benefit one of your fellow country man who is wealthy, or you can do the same to benefit a poor foreigner (e.g. an indigenous Javanese), who would you choose?

If one is to answer the compatriot, then why anti-globalization? If it is the foreigner, doesn’t one take part in a form of globalization oneself?

The key is again, what one choose to identify with? The country one lives in? If not, how can one not call oneself a globalizationist?