Judging Globalization
Posted : June 27, 2005 at 11:30 am [America/Los_Angeles]
Globalization is often seen as global Westernization. On this point, there is substantial agreement among many proponents and opponents. Those who take an upbeat view of globalization see it as a marvelous contribution of Western civilization to the world…From the opposite perspective, Western dominance–sometimes seen as a continuation of Western imperialism–is the devil of the piece…Is globalization really a new Western curse? It is, in fact, neither new nor necessarily Western; and it is not a curse.
To illustrate, consider the world at the beginning of the last millennium rather than at its end. Around 1000 A.D., global reach of science, technology, and mathematics was changing the nature of the old world, but the dissemination then was, to a great extent, in the opposite direction of what we see today. The high technology in the world of 1000 A.D. included paper, the printing press, the crossbow, gunpowder, the iron-chain suspension bridge, the kite, the magnetic compass, the wheelbarrow, and the rotary fan. A millennium ago, these items were used extensively in China–and were practically unknown elsewhere. Globalization spread them across the world, including Europe.
When a modern mathematician in Boston invokes an algorithm to solve a difficult computational problem, she may not be aware that she is helping to commemorate the Arab mathematician Mohammad Ibn Musa-al-Khwarizmi, who flourished in the first half of the ninth century. (The word algorithm is derived from the name al-Khwarizmi.)…Not only is the progress of global science and technology not an exclusively West-led phenomenon, but there were major global developments in which the West was not even involved. The printing of the world’s first book was a marvelously globalized event. The technology of printing was, of course, entirely an achievement of the Chinese…
To see globalization as merely Western imperialism of ideas and beliefs (as the rhetoric often suggests) would be a serious and costly error, in the same way that any European resistance to Eastern influence would have been at the beginning of the last millennium.
— “How to Judge Globalism”, Amartya Sen
Must say that this is an extremely well researched and balanced article. Not an easy read, but valuable nonetheless.
- Anand
Category: Our world