Preview

Jihad vs Mcworld

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
310 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Jihad vs Mcworld
Political scientist Barber (Rutgers; An Aristocracy of Everyone, 1992, etc.) grandly divides the planet into no more and no less than two camps to explain the present universal, sorry mess. The only hope, he says, is democracy, and between the equally malign forces of Jihad and McWorld, the odds for it aren't too good. According to the professor's realpolitik, McWorld means not merely worldwide fast food but all capitalist buccaneering, global marketeering, cyberspace, megamergers, and international corporate incest aimed at nothing but profit. The Japanese motor in your Swiss camera might be made in China and sold by a British ad agency. Borders mean nothing in McWorld; the sun never sets on its flag. Movies, TV, and theme parks like EuroDisney and the local mall are all. Fighting for hegemony, probably without ultimate success according to Barber, is international Jihad. By Jihad he means not merely Hamas or Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. Add neo-Nazis, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, unregulated militia members, and the balkanization of the Balkans. Fundamentalism and nationalism, often drawing sustenanance from imaginary history, are in impassioned battle with infotainment and merchandising. The struggle is not impeded by any government or international agreement. Earth looks like a political Rubik's cube. Jihad receives bomb-making instructions on the Internet. McWorld sells designer jeans to Palestinian and Israeli alike. The paradox hardly enhances the freedom of the individual, and democracy suffers under either banner. And yet, declares Barber, democracy is our only viable choice. The bifurcation of the global village may seem simplistic, but assuredly the dialectic is not. The author's range is, perforce, universal. Certainly he is no optimistic Toffler, Fukuyama, or Pangloss. His concern for the public weal is patent; his impassioned argument is provocative and portentous. This is a generally erudite, copiously detailed synthesis, a polemic long on problems and short on

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Global politics come with many question marks when regarding predicting the future, however many theorists and writers continuously attempt to predict what will end up happening. Samuel P. Huntington, a professor who taught at Harvard University, wrote a thesis titled The Clash of Civilizations, becoming yet another educated theorist attempting to understand future relations among civilizations. However, Huntington creates an interesting hypothesis that person’s cultural and religious beliefs will become the key source of conflict throughout the world post-Cold War. This thesis eventually leads to some of the current scenarios in the modern day world, mainly due to the interaction between Syrian activist group ISIS and the United States.…

    • 393 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Rourke, John T. Taking Sides: Clashing Views in World Politics. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2014. Print.…

    • 1773 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Baylis, J., Smith, S. and Owens P. (eds) (2008), Shapcott, R.in The globalization of world politics: An introduction to international…

    • 3976 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jihad Vs Mcworld Summary

    • 283 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In Jihad vs McWorld, author Benjamin Barber makes an interesting argument about two conflicting forces he believes to be shaping modern society. In the passage, he describes the world as coming together and falling apart at the same time. Barber compares and contrasts the forces by using metaphors such as Babel and Disneyland. He utilizes a number of descriptive phrases to convey what Jihad vs McWorld mean and stand for. Ultimately, Jihad and McWorld represent two opposing concepts within society’s culture.…

    • 283 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In recent history, an international community has proved to be anything but international, nor a community. Internationalism is the prime cause of conflict, as it has caused localized issues to be expanded into worldwide wars, therefore it should only be pursued to the extent of regional communication. Key examples are both world wars, as well as current day conflicts and human rights infringements in Middle Eastern countries. World War 1 was not initially a worldwide war, but a conflict between two neighbouring countries with numerous allies. By extension, World War 2 was started due to failures of internationalism at the end of the first world war, which then resulted in one of, if not the, largest genocide in recent history. Furthermore,…

    • 941 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Clashing Civilization?

    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In Edward Said’s essay “Clashing Civilizations?”, he analyses in detail the arguments of Samuel Huntington in his paper on “Clash of Civilizations”. Edward Said incisively analyzes Huntington’s notion that differences in culture between the ‘West’ and ‘Islam’ will lead to conflicts between the two civilizations. Arguing against large understanding of cultures, Said makes a powerful case for multiculturalism. As he argues in this essay, “A unilateral decision made to undertake crusades, to oppose their evil with our good, to extirpate terrorism and, in Paul Wolfowitz’s nihilistic vocabulary, to end nations entirely, doesn’t make the supposed entities any easier to see; rather, it speaks to how much simpler it is to make bellicose statements for the purpose of mobilizing collective passions than to reflect, examine, sort out what it is we are dealing with in reality, the interconnectedness of innumerable lives, ‘ours’ as well as ‘theirs’.”…

    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    These keywords are relevant today as well, as contradictions remain intact in many ideologies, and counter hegemonic movements continue to reconstruct traditional structures. We understand how…

    • 1508 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The internet was the biggest invention to affect the international world ever. It created a seamless connection worldwide which let people communicate throughout the world. It opened up paths to a more peaceful world and a more peaceful existence. The internet has been used as a tool which empowers any international civil society. But the Kantian triangle shows the system in which cosmopolitism operates. For those of you that are unaware, Immanual Kant created a theory of perpetual world piece that required all countries to share the same form of government, become economically interdependent, and be apart of a transnational organization which polices all. The Kantian triangle is a famous model for peace that has exponentially grown in popularity since World War II. The idea of fighting wars isn’t popular in democratic run countries and that shift has been seen worldwide. Cosmopolitism and the Kantian triangle work hand in hand in the case of fighting wars. The normative shifts that have developed to support the Kantian triangle include anti-slavery norm in the 19th century, the declination of war norm, anti-colonialism norm, and last but not least the environmental policy norm. All four have been the biggest shifts of the past two hundred years and all show how the world can change its views. If there is ever a cosmopolitan world which is peaceful it must be supported by the…

    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mansbach, Richard. Global Puzzle: Issues and Actors in World Politics. Boston and New York: Houghton Miffin Company, 1995, 402…

    • 2981 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Maiese, Michelle. "Interests, Rights, Power and Needs Frames." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: September 2004. Retrieved from http://www.beyondintractability.org on February 7, 2013.…

    • 1900 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    PREZZI

    • 1629 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The relationship between global cooperation and economic supply chains are so crucially intertwined, that it seems to be the only thing keeping nations from going to war with each other. In Madeline Albright’s essay “Faith and Diplomacy” she talks about using faith-based diplomacy as a way to talk down religious extremist’s groups in the world into ending their violence. The Dali Lama’s essay “Ethics and the New Genetics” explains that we all have a universal human compassion and understanding needed to settle most disputes. Both the Dali Lama and Albright’s essay’s help support what Friedman’s is trying to state in his essay “The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention”. Which states that we live in a flat world where supply chains are used to bring peace through global economics, but extremist groups today uses various methods of terrorism in order to create fear and un-flatten the world. Supply chains can give structure to these countries that are harboring terrorism and stop them from trying to break these chains. Bringing these countries into a world that deals with conflicts of money instead of religion. Economics is what keeps each country afloat in this world, and all three of these essays will work together to show that not only do the nations need economics for global cooperation, but they may need diplomacy and human compassion as well. Therefore, it is through the uses of human compassion and religious understanding that will keep the economic supply chains from breaking, so that government leaders can then achieve global cooperation.…

    • 1629 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    human history should be viewed in terms of a battle of ideologies which has reached its end in the universalization of Western liberal democracy…

    • 595 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The upcoming threat of ISIS in Northern Iraq and Syria is one I have been wanting to investigate further for a while. In the paper below I will discuss five important theories in international relations and discuss how they can be applied to the crisis between ISIS and the West. First, I will approach the conflict with a neorealist view and…

    • 3037 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Explaining the situation about the world he says "-Our world is complex and increasingly influenced by non-state actors – brave civil society activists and advocates, but also violent extremists, transnational criminals, and other…

    • 622 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Since 9-11 attacks, the U.S government announced ‘the war on the terrorism.’ Then, the U.S and other western countries’ troops went to Iraq for the war on the terrorism. Why did they do so? The U.S and other western countries wanted not only to keep their own peace and prosperity but also to assist Middle East countries including Iraq for peace and prosperity. Nowadays, some countries like the United States are in peace and prosperity. On the contrast, some countries like Palestine are in conflict. Peace and prosperity are concerns of all countries and all human beings in this planet. As we can see around us, there are countries or people that are living in peace and prosperity, but there are also many other countries or people that are living in dispute or conflict. Also, even the most peaceful and prosperous country has somewhat conflict. Well, how can we produce maximum peace and prosperity? The book ‘Peace and Prosperity in an Age of Incivility’ suggests the answer to this question while explaining about three critical political values of liberty, order, and equality and how those three values relate to peace and prosperity. To produce…

    • 1347 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays