I talked before about fragmentation and loss of identity. These two things can be linked to a phenomenon called globalization. Globalization is the.....construction of a worldwide community. Basically, it is the breaking down of national borders. This has been happening for the last...well, number of years, and is only growing stronger. The strongest ties for people used to be to their local region. Village, or whatever. Then, in the early and mid-twentieth century, regional ties loosened, and national identity became more important. We are now losing this sense of nationalism. Nations mean less. Particularly in a society where corporations are dominating more and more. Corporations have the goal of maximizing profit. This means cutting costs and maximizing revenue. To do this, corporations typically stop at nothing, including national borders. They will go where the labour and materials are cheapest, and they will sell to anybody at all. Corporations have been steadily gaining power in government since the early part of the century. In fact, they can be traced all the way back to the late nineteenth century, with the Andrew Carnegie's and the his western European counterparts. In any case, corporate power is on the rise. Evidence of this can be seen in the amount of money controlled by such hands. Also, the pro-business atmosphere of various governments show that government is wrapped around business' little finger. Put two and two together, and voila! Instant degradation of national boundaries!
Now what does this all mean? It means that people don't know what they are anymore! One set of identity is now losing its importance. But what is it replaced with? Nothing concrete yet. Not many people think of themselves as citizens of the world, which of course is the logical thing in globalization. So what takes over that blank identity spot? Instead of reaching out for something else, many people look to within for inspiration. They withdraw into their homes. Why go out? They've got satellite tv. They've got internet. Through such media, they link to the outside world, while keeping themselves hidden.
In fact, such media are in reality, filters. Everybody knows that tv is in the hands of those big corporations -- those big corporations started from tv in the first place! The internet though, is supposed to be totally free, without limits or boundaries. Well, this is not true at all. For one thing, the internet (and the tv for that matter) is not really a connection to the outside world, it is a pseudo-connection. Users think that they are connecting to the internet. To the world. World wide web, right? Well, wrong. What people are connecting to is an online world, that has very little to do with the real world.
For some people, going online is not the way. They want to hearken back to the halycon good old days. These people are responsible for the far right wing gaining popularity worldwide. This ultra-conservative trend makes it possible for people to recreate the good old days, and try to re-establish contact with an identity of the past. Perhaps it works, perhaps it doesn't. Either way, this type of thinking is dangerous.
Humanity is approaching a critical point. What happens at this point is impossible to say. But it'll be interesting!