Globalization seems to be almost a mythical word. As mentioned by Jerry Mander, media in the West almost unilaterally portray it as another step of ‘progress’ towards a ‘better world.’ [1] Consequently, as a striking opposition to smiling men in suits, media present shots of ‘globalization opponents’ which are portrayed solely as violent anarchists throwing paving stones on some or other demonstration against a meeting of G8, or any Bretton Woods institution for that matter. This inaccurate and misleading approach creates in public the perceived dichotomy of the supporters and opponents of globalization; the first are associated with the ‘educated’ and the latter with the ‘asocial rabble subverting the current effort for a better, liberal world order for all humanity.’
The world is nevertheless never so simple that it could be summarized as a battle of the forces of good against the forces of evil. The academic literature which supports the case against globalization exists, even it is flourishing and is supported by many erudite and distinguished scholars, whose ideas unfortunately, do not seem to fit into the contemporary political state of affairs. Academics like Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel or Charles Taylor [2] are communitarians supporting localized management of political and economic affairs against the globalization, which they accuse of destroying both local culture and economy.
//Update 12 Sept.: Probably the most interesting and commendable proposition of the policy paper that yesterday escaped my attention is that it suggests to add to the existing indicator of the national economic prosperity – GDP – set of new indicators which would better map the real social welfare. The criticism of GDP comes largely from the simple fact that it treats all possible national disasters as ‘positive boosts’ and healthy for the economy. GDP rises when a country is ridden by floods, tornadoes, or even war because of the consequent economic investments.
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The report from the Quality of Life policy group created for the Conservative Party argues and documents by the empirical research that the sole pursuit of material wealth ‘won’t make the British people happy’ (reported by the Independent here, in Czech here). Interestingly, this paper denounces the Conservative Party’s own policy from the years of the Thatcher and Major government as appealing solely to the selfish human nature.
On the other, however, the Conservatives seem to have nothing against globalization and ‘free’ market as such and vehemently stand against any further European integration, that is, the first steps which one should take if he genuinely opposes the current materialism of the West. What is needed is an European framework which would be able to support local businesses as against the domination of trans-national companies who today universalize the whole West and are subject to no other interest than their own – which is obviously to make people buy as much as their products as possible. The resources available to these transnational business players is tremendous – for instance ‘the budget of General Motors ($132 billion) is greater than the GNP of Indonesia; Ford’s ($100.3 billion), greater than the GNP of Turkey; Toyota’s greater than the GNP of Portugal; Unilever’s greater than the GNP of Pakistan; Nestlé’s greater than the GNP of Egypt’ [1]. It is no wonder than that these companies are able to ‘convince’ some politicians that to support their cause is really in their ‘best’ interest.
The Conservatives, however, are and will probably remain silenced with regard to this prime cause of the spread of the materialist propaganda. Their advice to stand against materialism thus sounds nice, but the sincerity of such statement is doubtful since it is not accompanied by any applicable remedy…
[1] http://www.alaindebenoist.com/pdf/confronting_globalization.pdf, p. 122.
It seems there is no limit to stupidity in verdicts of the contemporary British courts. For instance, Daily Mail today reported that a 19-years old teenager who zapped a teacher with a million-volt stun gun and fractured the skull of the teaching assistant who came to the teacher’s aid, received six years in a young offenders’ institution.
I believe there exist today many widely available academic studies that there exist a certain sort of ‘people’ who are born without any ability to feel empathy towards others. These are called psychopaths, sociopaths or newly persons ‘anti-social personality disorder.’ What is important is that they are born such – they cannot be ‘re-educated’ to become law-abiding citizens or cannot be ‘learned’ to feel emotions again.
We would all probably agree that every individual is in some way or another unique. Everyone of us has inside a potential, a certain predisposition, both due to inborn and socially-given qualities. As formulated by the first conservative thinkers as Edmund Burke or even those more radical like Joseph de Maistre, the role of our peers, those closest to us, of our nearest community, is to help us understand and then to develop this potential. This does not serve only to the particular person whose qualities are discovered, but ultimately to the development of the particular community as a whole. An individual as such is ‘nothing,’ only in a process of interaction with his natural and nearest communities he gains the sense of himself. Each fulfills one’s role, each gives his best, according to his qualities, in order to ‘build’ and ‘create’ above himself. One participates in what is interchangeable called ’society’ or ‘community’ (in a sense of daily, journalistic use, while in the academic literature these terms are distinguished, mainly as ‘negative’ in the first case, and positive in the latter – F. Tonnies, O. Spengler, S. Freud). This society or community to call it freely for the moment is truly an organism, as true conservatives rightly for decades pointed out – an intellectual, worker, teacher, politician – all have certain functions, ’social roles,’ as it is in an organism where a brain, muscles, senses, instincts also fulfill certain duties without which the organism could not function. Even those less able are not condemned because they can find their purpose in being a part of a larger whole – in this higher creation of all called community.
This conservative view of the society (not the liberal mutation manifested in the so-called conservatism of Thatcher or Reagan) is opposed by liberalism. Liberalism argues that for atomized society – society of autonomous, self-serving, Benthamite ‘utility maximisers,’ who seek above all else ‘their own way to happiness.’
But is this liberalism really that liberal as it tries to convince by its very name? There is ‘liberal’ democracy, ‘liberal’ market and so on, but what is the real meaning, the real content behind these powerful and bold phrases?
Today I have discovered a new journal concerned with European issues – Europe’s World. To my surprise I have found there a very concise and sober analysis of the current progress of the European integration from Pavel Telicka, a former Czech Ambassador to the EU and Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister. I only note that this skilled diplomat would have been also the European commissar for the Czech Republic but he was ousted by my country’s political elite that needed a ‘cozy office’ for the former minister, Vladimir Spidla, a man who even did not speak English at the time. This was very unfortunate, because in my Eurosceptics-ridden country, he was on of a few men who possessed both skills and experiences to serve in this function.
Telicka praises in his article the German Chancellor Angela Merkel who is today, unfortunately, the only person with whom we can today associate the European leadership. Telicka also mentions that other ‘European’ PMs and presidents do not see any incentive why they should become less national and be more ‘European,’ since no clear threat against which they could assert themselves exists.
For such ridiculous populist duo like the Kaczynskis in Poland is therefore much easier to play on the nationalist sentiment of their people instead of explaining the clear benefits of the further European Union integration. Politicians as them, for their lack of a European vision and immediate political gain portray the European Union as ‘the coldest of all monsters’ instead of trying to form the Union through the skilled concerted leadership into what would benefit us all. The European Union can well become a hated supergovernment, but it can also become a harmonic community of European cultures and peoples in which we can overcome the concept of the overdue nation-state (which is today attacked both from above and rightly from below).
Also, there is a very good article from James Rogers on the suggestively called blog ‘Global Power Europe,’ which mentions many reasons why it will be necessary for Europe to unite, if its constituent members want to retain any influence on the international political scene in future.
Daily Mail has published a “historian’s” perspective on how Britain could look like if the Reform Treaty enters into force. When you finally stop laughing after you read those primitive appeals to fear which the British people probably (justifiably) feel, you can read this sober analysis from EUlawblog which refutes the silly ‘arguments’ made in the Daily Mail ‘warning’ one after one.
As I have already noted in my previous articles, neither Britain nor any other contemporary European country can remain an isolated island when new global superpowers like the restored Russia, India and China emerge. European countries on their own have neither military nor economic resources to remain both culturally and politically sovereign.
Quite contrary, European Union is a possibility for long suppressed minorities like North Irish, Welsh, Catalan, Corsican, Basque, South Tyrol and many others to find their own face, values and way of life in the ‘Europe of thousand flags’ we might strive to build. The way is neither the ‘Europe of isolated nation-states’ based only on economic cooperation (as the British Conservative Party naively proposes), which would only retain the status quo and dispel any possibility for Europe of playing a larger role in international politics, nor the bureaucratic and distanced ‘Europe a nation’ that would destroy any cultural characteristics of European peoples.
Building Europe from below, ’organically,’ could allow various European cultural groups to organize their own life in their region, retain as much as political control over as possible and cede their political decision-making rights only where absolutely necessary – that is, mainly in foreign and defence policy.
The Czech daily IHNED.cz reported today (some information in English can be found from BBC here and here) what has been by no means unexpected – two thirds of the Czechs do not want the US radar on their soil. In addition, majority (75%) of the Czech people would invite the referendum to be held on the question whether to allow the Americans to build their radar – or rather not.
The radar tracking system in the Czech Republic should be one of the parts of the American missile defense system in Europe. Neighbouring Poland should host the interceptor rockets.
The problem for us Czechs lies in the troubled past of our country – which had been for 51 years a part of the Soviet bloc and had to endure every whim of the Soviet government. What is now being (rightly) perceived is that we had only changed sides – and instead of the Czechs going their ‘own way’ - they had gone ‘the American way’ – and stepped from one political dominion into another.
In June 2007, after a long and heated debate, the 27 leaders of the EU’s nations agreed on the new draft (‘Reform’) treaty which should be finalised in the next few weeks by the established Intergovernmental Conference. This treaty is expected to be signed in October 2007 in Lisbon, and will enter into force before 2009’s election after being ratified by each member state.
Both in daily news and in blogs on the internet the treaty has stirred some furious discussion. Traditionally, the treaty is opposed mainly from the Right (Torygraph here or here can always give you the idea). The British Conservative Party (and other similar parties across Europe, the Civic Democratic Party from my homeland Czechia takes an almost indistinguishable stance) and it’s supporters claim that the British sovereignty is under the threat and that Tony Blair sold Britain to the European Bureaucrats. However, their urges on Gordon Brown to hold a national referendum will most probably come in vain.
Have you heard about her? She is the hot chick from the video that dominates the YouTube channel of the democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama with more than 3,000,000 views. It is an excellent example how to lead your presidential campaign. Obama of course does not say that he sponsored the clip, however, we might have our suspicions when it seems quite obvious that his public image will not be ‘hurt’ much. Surely, Obama knows how to lead propaganda. Enjoy the video.
I have to thank for this article to my friend Pavel Hait on whose blog I have unwittingly found the inspiration to write about “human intelligence.”
Few hours back, when reading Pavel’s article, I could not have stop to think whether ‘this’ what he is writing about is really what the intelligence consists of. The question is – can we consider the manual worker or some skilled artisan to be geniuses in their respective profession just we often do in the case of the mathematician or the director of a company?
My friend answered that this is indeed possible by distinguishing various types of intelligence like logical, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal… and so on. The logical conclusion of such distinction has to be that the artisan can be genius, even if different than for example the artist.
However, the thing that is not taken into consideration is the actual amount of work or thinking that the artisan compared to some ‘boss’ has to do.
