Yes, Logo: The Upside of Globalization

Yes Logo: The Upside of Globalization
Globalization is the odd duck of American politics. Over the years, opposition to it has drawn the likes of Pat Buchanan and Noam Chomsky into an improbable consensus, while support for it has fallen to George Bush (both of them) and Bill Clinton alike. All this has happened, despite many people being unable to pin down what, exactly, globalization is. Is it corporations taking over the planet? Is it freeing people from the tyranny of rampant nationalism? Is it being able to watch a French movie on a Japanese DVD player in America? Perhaps it’s all of the above, in divided quantities. However, the one thing globalization is not is a force that can, and should, be stopped.
There are various economic arguments in favor and in opposition to the practices associated with globalization. Trade, immigration and labor flow are weighty issues that are given their due and proper by financial gurus with lengthy résumés. But globalization also entails a cultural aspect that, for many, is probably easier to grasp.
Opponents to cultural globalization – that is, the unimpeded flow of media, language, entertainment and other commercial goods – tend to come in two flavors. Social conservatives tend to object to this practice on the grounds that it will erode the American cultural identity and produce a sort of destruction from within. Multicultural naysayers, such as Suzanne Fields, have long forecasted the demolition of cherished values and a freefall into relativism.
This view, however, neglects the historical truth that ours is, by its very nature, an assimilationist culture. We are not drawn wholecloth from the remnants of any one group of people, but instead we absorb the best of what many groups have to offer. For all the endless carping about “Western values,” it’s worth noting that we use Arabic numerals and that Chinese restaurants have become mainstays even in small towns in the reddest of states.
Rather than keep up the pretense of innate superiority and try to protect ourselves from some unlikely hostile takeover, we should recognize that other cultures have things of value to offer us. Besides, cultural protectionism will only result in sharper national divides and increased animosity along national lines. If every nation is concerned with preserving its own national identity, than little constructive cooperation can be achieved.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, social progressives tend to concern themselves with the export end of things. They see globalization as a form of global imperialism, with Western cultural uprooting, destroying and replacing homespun institutions. In the estimation of people like Benjamin Barber, the result of successful globalization will be a homogenous, flavorless McWorld.
Personally, I find this view to be subtly racist, inasmuch as it does not acknowledge the Third World’s capacity for ingenuity. Often, the result is not the Western product replacing the native culture, but the two being blended together to form a new product entirely.
The economist Tyler Cowen once gave a lecture in which he demonstrated this principle by tracing the history of Jamaican music. Starting in the 1950s or so, Jamaicans began receiving radio signals that introduced them to American doo-wop. They then took this newfound curiosity and married it to their native music (itself derived from Africa), thus creating ska in the process. Ska eventually evolved into reggae, the success of which allowed Jamaica to have its own music industry. Reggae was then imported to the U.S., where it became an influence for early rap….and so the cycle goes.
Under this scenario, the implementation of American culture was the motivation for positive cultural change. Had Jamaicans found American music not to their liking, they wouldn’t have listened to it. And had the leftist “cultural imperialism” argument been applied here, nobody today would be listening to Bob Marley.
Ironically, the opposition to globalization has achieved a sort of unintended cultural exchange of its own. Not only have Buchanan, Chomsky and Ralph Nader reached agreement on this issue, but economic nationalists of many backgrounds and denominations have, under the auspices of anti-globalization, formed a quasi-socialist globalized movement of their own. Plus, the 1999 anti-WTO protests in Seattle were enough to draw ex-Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic out of retirement, where he teamed with Jello Biafra and Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil to form the one-off No WTO Combo.
So, in the name of Novoselic, subtitled Jet Li films and being able to eat Big Macs in Kazakhstan, I say to Naomi Klein and other cultural pessimists: yes, logo.

Know Your Job and Do It Right

This was from last month. I'm just a little late in posting it:

The Washington Nationals recently suspended John Moeller, their chapel leader. The suspension came not because prayer was ineffective at lifting the Nationals out of their second-half rut or because Moeller called for the assassination of a South American leader. It came because Moeller did his job.

According to the Washington Post, outfielder Ryan Church approached Moeller and asked if Jews were doomed because they did not accept Jesus. Moeller nodded in reply and thus the fracas began. Jewish groups jumped on the Nationals front office, accusing them of “bringing hate into the locker room.” The Nationals, in turn, did everything they could to distance themselves from Moeller’s nod, claiming it did not in any manner, reflect the views or opinions of the Washington Nationals franchise." All the while, no one bothered to ask if what Moeller did was really wrong.

I consider myself Jewish and I don’t believe the ousted chaplain to be in error. He was approached as a representative of the Christian faith and answered the question honestly in that capacity. Christians believe acceptance of Jesus is necessary to avoid damnation, cut and dried. Why this bothers Jews is beyond me. Aren’t we just as free to dismiss this condemnation as nonsense as they are to condemn us for our nonbelief (I should sure hope so, inasmuch as I wish to remain free to believe Trinitarian Christianity to be polytheistic blasphemy)?

While the answer is a simple “yes,” religious propriety was probably not the key consideration among those doing the complaining. Instead of accepting that Moeller said the right thing religiously, they chose to focus on the fact that Moeller said the wrong thing politically. As a representative of the Nationals, he showed poor judgment. As someone whose views were fit to print, he failed. But John Moeller is not, nor is he expected to be, any of those things. He is just a chaplain and he did his job.

If the above does not illustrate why the separation of church and state is a sound idea, let’s examine the flip side. Asking religious leaders to frame the tenets of their faith in a politically appropriate context is odious, but asking those charged to make laws to do their jobs only in a religiously palatable context is no less so.

When we look at politics, we often make the error of equating political decisions with moral ones. Politics, however, is as inherently amoral as religion is inherently apolitical. A political — or, to use a less maligned term, procedural — question does not ask “is this right or wrong?” Instead, it asks “is this the right thing to do according to the rules of conduct we have laid out for ourselves?” The moral question that is left out of politics is then given to us to decide as individuals, guided by our conscience, our family, our faith, etc. When an attempt is made to merge the two questions into one, the results are often disastrous.

To illustrate the point, I’ll offer the example of sodomy. More so than many other activities, has been maligned by politicians who have been unable to distinguish the jobs they hold from the jobs they do not. As lawmakers, the kinds of questions they should be asking themselves are, “does the government have a legitimate public interest in doing something (severely restrict or ban outright) about this behavior? And, if so, does it have the authority to do so?” The answer, in both cases, would be no.

Acknowledging this ‘no’ does not remove the moral question, it just leaves it to be answered by more appropriate agents. Fundamentalist values groups can still condemn sodomy and be justified in doing so according to their beliefs. And the politicians who opt not to criminalize it for procedurally correct reasons can remain personally opposed to it if they feel it is personally inappropriate.

Alas, what happens far too often is that lawmakers stop making the procedural judgments they are counted on to make and start making moral judgments instead. Thus, we go from “should the government be doing something about this?” to “is this right or wrong?” Once the latter is determined, the authority to act accordingly is often presumed whether it actually exists or not (translation: if something is wrong, acting against it can only be right….right?).

To draw a parallel here, let’s replace a moral issue with a health issue: smoking. The procedural question a lawmaker should ask is whether there is a public interest in banning smoking and whether the government has the authority to do so. In saying “no,” the politician is not saying that smoking is healthy. Rather, he is leaving it to doctors and health advocates to say that it is unhealthy.

Bottom line: inasmuch as politicians continue to usurp the functions of religious leaders, the role religion plays in deciding moral issues will gradually become obsolete. Why would anyone seek out religious guidance when Tom DeLay and Rick Santorum are there to tell them right from wrong (because we all know they are paradigms of virtue, right ;p).