Whither Goes Globalism?

Abstract

Like the term “the Third World,” the word “globalism” is used so often in speech and in print that it is taken to be a truism, an obvious fact whose basic implications can neither be seriously questioned nor doubted. Like the expression, “the Third World,” it also is used glibly with little if any thought as to the validity, or to the implications of the concept in the first place, and its connotations are most often implied rather than expressed in absolute terms. They usually convey the idea that the values of the modern industrialized world are spreading throughout the globe to the point that many if not most cultures and social systems are becoming almost identical. It is true, as we are frequently reminded by our media outlets, that financial systems and whole national economies are more intertwined than ever before. This reality indeed is abetted by increased communication brought on in large part by the vast computerization of our planet.