I drew this chart in MS Excel today after having finished reading the Thai translation of Global Civilization: A Buddhist-Islamic Dialogue and the transcript of Thomas Friedman’s talk at the IMF Book Forum about his new book The World is Flat (I haven’t read the actual book yet; I read this transcript because my aunt told me it’s a great summary). Since I think of globalization as the dominant form of materialistic/economic development, and human rights movement as the dominant form of spiritual/social development, I was curious as to how these two movements compare chronologically, when viewed side by side.
The “globalization” bar is based on Friedman’s idea about the different stages of globalization; the “human rights” bar is based on the extension of the three generations of human rights idea as discussed in “Global Civilization” book: to include environmentalist movement as the fourth generation, and hope for the future fifth generation in which the focus will be on spiritual development (or collective social happiness). Friedman provided concrete dates for his three globalization stages; dates for each generation of human rights are my own approximation.
I drew this chart in MS Excel today after having finished reading the Thai translation of Global Civilization: A Buddhist-Islamic Dialogue and the transcript of Thomas Friedman’s talk at the IMF Book Forum about his new book The World is Flat (I haven’t read the actual book yet; I read this transcript because my aunt told me it’s a great summary). Since I think of globalization as the dominant form of materialistic/economic development, and human rights movement as the dominant form of spiritual/social development, I was curious as to how these two movements compare chronologically, when viewed side by side.
The “globalization” bar is based on Friedman’s idea about the different stages of globalization; the “human rights” bar is based on the extension of the three generations of human rights idea as discussed in “Global Civilization” book: to include environmentalist movement as the fourth generation, and hope for the future fifth generation in which the focus will be on spiritual development (or collective social happiness). Friedman provided concrete dates for his three globalization stages; dates for each generation of human rights are my own approximation.
It seems from this chart that human rights movement and globalization have affected each other’s evolution through the ages, and in some respects even depend on each other. When globalization was young, the focus of human rights movement was rightly to promote individual liberty and protect them from “excesses of the state.” This empowered individuals to work hard and encouraged private enterprises, giving rise to the second era of globalization which Friedman called “globalization 2.0,” when globalization was built around companies. The period we are in right now, globalization 3.0, coincides with the fourth generation of human rights movement, when we are expanding the concept of “rights” beyond the human level to the rights of lifeforms everywhere on Earth, via environmentalism.
To me, globalization can be a powerful “tool” for human development just like politics or science or religion. One should not protest the concept but the mismanagement of it. Like all great ideas, poor execution can lead to disastrous results that mislead many people into thinking that ideas themselves are bad. The debate on whether capitalism (with which globalization is basically synonymous now) is the ‘right’ system for us is in my opinion woefully out of date and irrelevant (this is because non-capitalist systems are proven to be much less effective and efficient – something to explore at a later date). The question shouldn’t be “how can we overthrow capitalism?” but “how can we compel people to be more humane under capitalism, so that people will be happier, material benefits are shared more equally around the world, and mankind will become less self-destructive?” Religious teachings can help, but so many people these days are disillusioned with religions and are too impatient or unwilling to interpret religious teachings as metaphors (something that I think is quite narrow-minded. After all, if some people can accept abstract paintings like Picasso’s, why do they have trouble accepting Biblical passages as metaphors also?).
So I’m looking at this chart and I think: maybe it’s not that hopeless after all. Thanks to increasing concerns about the environment, there might be a revival of interest in religions in the near future. Since globalization 2.0 (and 3.0 now) has helped developing countries grow at a breathtaking pace, which requires massive amounts of natural resources, this has created justified concerns for the environment. And since most major religions share the belief that man has the responsibility to protect the environment, it is in everyone’s interest to promote at least the ethical or moral aspects of religions. And that can only help increase our collective quality of life and happiness.
If this comes true, globalization 4.0 might then come to pass as “globalization through community” – when enlightened individuals work not only for their own self-interest, but – thanks to strong ethical values – for the interest of the whole community. This will coincide beautifully with the fifth generation of human rights, which the authors of “Global Civilization” hope is one in which the focus will be on social conscience, to build an ideal society in which we not only achieve material gains, but are also spiritually content.
I’ll post more thoughts once I’ve read the book, especially on Friedman’s recommendations for developing countries on how we can benefit from this movement.
Addendum: I had many “wow” moments when reading Friedman’s speech at the IMF; no doubt I will have a great time reading the actual book when the paperback version comes out (I hardly buy hardcover books anymore – the US$6 difference between the hardcover and paperback versions can pay for 8-10 days worth of lunch noodles here). And I even have a first-hand example of how true his “the world is now flat” idea is: it took less 2 days after I wrote about Jimmy Wales’ Free the Curriculum! idea that my musings got quoted in the BBC magazine. Really amazing.