The title of Zizek's essay should be familiar to most movie fanatics, it is a direct quote of the Matrix when Morpheus takes Neo to the surface of the Earth to show him the destruction across the globe. They view the ruins of Chicago when Morpheus proclaims, "Welcome to the Desert of the Real[,]" and thus we enter the view points of some upon September 11, 2001.
The main points from these two authors is that America has fallen asleep upon itself. History did not take place in the United States but rather everywhere else but in the United States. They argue that the world to the U.S. citizens was only known through the view point of the t.v. set. Thus the destruction caused by the tragedy that became 9/11 invited the United States back into history. I know, what does this have to do with globalization?
The viewpoint became that the attack of September 11th was on symbols, the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, not on the citizens of the United States. They want to prove that terrorism is the world's cure to the plague which is globalization. The theory is that globalization will create a society without classes, a society without differences, a society of singularity, and the globe is divided upon differences therefore it would not allow any type of system disable its differences.
My argument is simple. If terrorism is to be the cure of singularity then why does it not attack religion. Religions are singular, they wish only to unite the globe under one system of faith. Christians believe the redeemer of the world is Jesus Christ who is the King of kings causing all in the world to call each other brother and sister. Is this is not a decrease of social order and a state of singularity? Should religions therefore not be attacked just as roughly as globalization which is not a system that is bent on taking over the world.
Globalization is not an ugly system like communism which has only a few political leaders who wish to rule the world, but rather a system of markets that fluctuate allowing for growth and savings. Globalization allows people from across the globe to better opportunities as well to the destruction of borders disabling the might of modern day governmental hold upon industries. As pointed by so many economists, a t-shirt today that claims to be made in Hong Kong is falsely advertising as all the material used to make the t-shirt is acquired from different places in the world. The truth, the t-shirt is made in Earth. It is a simple truth with no need of further explanations. With the theory of competitive advantage we can see that globalization is not the plague, but it in fact is the answer.
2 comments:
Countries which foster terrorism tend to be highly poor, and therefore unproductive. The U.S. does not trade with them much, aside from oil. And even that money does not often go to the proper place in the economy.
I guess the obvious hypothesis is that terrorists recognize market forces (rather than individual leaders) are pressuring their respective societies to conform to a non-traditional order, and, being the rabid conservatives that they are, oppose this. They want a sort of Marxian freedom from the market.
First, I'm not sure the connection is so easy to recognize; I doubt if you ask any terrorist why he hates America he would tell you, "Those damn free markets, man!" Second, that's all a bit wrapped up in the they-hate-us-because-they're-jealous philosophy which I don't put much stock in. Third, even if globalization matters more than American foreign policy, you still can't discount that policy altogether. Fourth, there are plenty of impoverished countries in Africa whose citizens have anti-American sentiments but do not fly planes into our buildings. Where does culture and religion come into play?
Of course the way activists tell it, globalization exploits poor countries and that's that.
Swimmy, Thanks for the great comment. From this post, I was not trying to show a relation between globalization and terrorism. They were related in a few post 9/11 essays. To tell the truth, this is actually a rebuttal to someone I had an argument with over this topic. The essays state that the American Society likes to watch the Matrix, Independence Day, V For Vendetta, because we like to see the destruction of power. These essays claim that the west has a notion that it was the end to history, and that 9/11 had awakened the west welcoming them back into history. The writers of the essays want to stress that the West sees tragedy only through the media, and that we do not know how life truly is. Enter terrorism, which comes to welcome the west back into the world, and that brought their theory behind terrorism and globalization. The end to singularity brings terrorism. Which leads to my post. If terrorism is an attack on singularity, then why not attack religions?
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