Globalization refers to technological, cultural, political and economic exchanges worldwide. The concept was first used by
Marshall McLuhan who said that, “ The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.” TV and other electronic media he argues shrink the world and blurs boundaries.
But have the last few years proved Marshall right? Is the world now a melting pot? Lets examine this in the context of technological, cultural, political and economic scenarios.
We can examine the question,” Is the world becoming a global village?’ by keeping the eminent sociologist Emile Durkheim’s concepts of Mechanical and Organic
solidarity in mind. Very interested in the nature of social solidarity, Durkheim stated that primitive societies was based on Mechanical Solidarity with characteristics of a homogeneous culture or similarity, resulting in a strong ‘we’ feeling. Organic solidarity on the other hand was marked by heterogeneity or differences. Due to a similarity of beliefs, language and so on, Mechanical Solidarity, a more primitive society was marked with no ethnic conflict, as there was an element of sameness.
While it’s true that digital technology has created a sameness through the sharing of pop culture amongst teenagers, Paul Saffo feels today’s facts don’t fit Marshall’s observations as the Internet is more of a parochial than a global force.
M. Sid Ahmed in his essay-“ Rethinking the global village.” Also feels that new technologies have shrunk physical distances while highlighting cultural ones. He quotes Samuel Huntington’s ‘clash of civilizations’ theory stating that races are destined to clash due to the strong ‘we’ feeling and that today’s terrorism is a result of this.
For Robert Faires also the Internet is a “ primitive emergent cyberspace,” used as a common platform by ethnic groups to overcome the tyranny of others. Saffo does however state that a single world culture will emerge but more as a patchwork resulting from existing ones.
Politically the idea of a global world is not new. Long ago Socrates said,” I am not an Athenian, or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.” More recently, the fall of Berlin was seen as a symbolic one. But others like Robert Faires in his article-“Virtual Tribe” examines “the increasing irrelevance of national boundaries” by arguing that increased availability of TV and the radio is turning the world into not one, but many global villages. When the UN made ‘
globalization’ its central theme in its 10th annual human development report, globalization was found to have both a positive and a negative impact as it generated global warming and nuclear war.
Economically, the idea of a global economy is not a new one. It has its roots in the East India Company receiving its Charter to trade with what are today third world countries. Not coincidentally the results of a global economy are the same as the Imperialism of that time. This has prompted Edward Answer to question if it was a “ Global Village or global pillage?” Since the increasing competition brought about by a global economy was great for multinationals, but proved suicidal for human rights as third world countries vied with each other to provide the lowest wages. This tendency made the rich richer and the poor countries poorer.
Charles Kern Hagan, the executive director of the National Labor Committee also feels that multinationals are not driven by any moral or humanitarian motives but by blatant self-interest.
So to answer the question-“Is the world turning into a global village?” We can conclude that by highlighting differences due to closer proximity, globalization is leading towards an increase in parochialism rather than universality.