Globalization

Have you ever thought about the effects of globalization?  I hadn't given it much though until recently, when I discovered that my understanding of the concept was a little to vague.  Globalization has impacts on nearly every aspect of first world countries.  The impact is felt on levels including, but not limited to: Economic, political, cultural, social, and religious.  The idea of globalization is a huge concept of how most parts of the world have become interwoven, a vast network interconnected by non-physical means.  Hopefully we can discover in what ways, both good and bad, globalization effects us, the common people, today.

Historically people travelled for long periods of time, just to exchange cultural practices, goods, ideas, etc.  Even the idea of missionary work is in a way one of the early effects of globalization, transplanting religions originating on one continent to all different areas of the world.  Beyond people traveling the globe for religious purposes, migration has played a huge role in how certain areas have become a melting pot of different ideas, cultures, and religions.   As we all have learned from our American history classes, migration of the British people to the America's had a very negative effect on the Native Americans, one of the many possible downfalls to the ever increasingly globalized world.

In today's day and age, a person in the United States has numerous opportunities to experience the positive effects of globalization in their daily life.  As far as culture goes, you can often find books in your local library from all different continents of the world.  In most major cities there are restaurants from dozens of different countries and cultures.  If you go to a larger college, the odds are good that you will find dozens of people who speak multiple languages, and/or come from incredibly diverse people groups.  Often times we feel the positive effects of globalization without even realizing it.

In an ideal world, globalization would allow for the blending of cultures, without the loss of any cultural identities.  People would only reap the positive benefits of the idea, sharing culture would be easy etc.  Unfortunately with globalization, there is the argument that individual aspects of culture may be swallowed by the global culture as a whole.  When a dominant culture group comes into a place, where many smaller cultures are thriving, there is a chance, that the dominant culture group will start to envelope the smaller ones making cultural identity seem more uniform.  Of course there is also the chance that the dominant culture group will begin to add aspects of the individual groups to it's identity, but the odds historically have not been in favor of that.

Interdependence becomes an increasing factor in our ever globalizing world.  Not only are cultural ideas being shared, but aspects of everyday life are becoming interdependent on each other.  The successful economy in one state, or nation, can be heavily dependent on other countries and states.  While this has allowed many countries to thrive whereas otherwise they might be struggling, there is the argument that this takes away jobs from local entities.  For instance, large U.S based conglomerates often outsource manufacturing of their goods to one of the countries in which labor is significantly cheaper.  This allows companies half way around the world to provide jobs to thousands of people in poverty stricken areas, where before they may or may not have had the opportunity to work.  Whether or not this is taking advantage of the cheaper wages out of country or not, is an ethical debate which has long been had and will continue to have.

Ultimately, globalization effects us in ways both clear and obtuse.  We may not always know when we are supporting other countries and vice versa, but the interdependence that countries have created is an exciting and often times positive experience.  There are things which we, as a culture, should remain aware of in regards to globalization.  The hope is that the more we become a global economy sharing ideas and cultures, we can learn from one another and create the largest melting pot consisting of the world.

Children and Fire: The Effect of Ethnocentrism

Ursula Hegi's thought provoking novel Children and Fire provides the reader with a fictional yet stark sense of the propaganda effects during Hitler's tyranny.  The book starts by briefly detailing the life of our brave heroine,  given the name of Thekla Jansen, a well meaning and seemingly naive German citizen.

Initially Hegi places the us, squarely in the daily life of Thekla during Hitler's rule in a small fictional town in Germany named Bergdorf.  Thekla is intellectually very gifted, being a teacher of young boys, but her morals soon come into question.  The majority of this novel is based on the day of the one year anniversary of the burning of Reichstag, the parliament building located in Berlin.  This burning was blamed on the Communists, though throughout the book several characters question the validity of that assertion.  This anniversary, February 27, 1934, is a school day in which Thekla must deal with all of the questions of her adolescent students, some of which have some unsavory answers she might wish to avoid.

Thekla inherits her rag tag group of schoolboys from her favorite teacher and mentor who was dismissed due to the Nazi regime.  The author places Thekla in some challenging situations in which she must try and teach the boys while still learning how to maintain her own moral integrity.  At times the book comes across as heavy handed with the message, but seeing how important the message is, it is understandable that moments like that are bound to occur.

Thekla openly challenges traditional morals of the time, considering her personal relationships are not in line with the church.  Later, however, she conforms to the expectations of the time, encouraging her boys to join the Hitler Jugen and conform to a political party in great ethical question for their own good.  Unintentionally, Thekla is becoming part of the Nazi machine encouraging the training of new young Nazis getting swept up in the ethnocentrism so prevalent during the time.  Thekla even goes so far as to start to make her family genealogy, soon to be required by the government when she makes her life changing discovery, she's a illegitimate child and worse, a JEW.

Thekla is an interesting heroine for many reasons, not the least of which being the fact that she is far from perfect.  Thekla remains relatable, even when her decisions make you question her integrity.  To make a perfect protagonist would have made an impossible person, destroying the legitimacy of this thought provoking work.  Thekla remains morally gray throughout much of the book, justifying her no doubt wrong or at the very least questionable actions.  Instead of taking responsibility for her mistakes and wrongdoings, she, like many of us, would prefer to scapegoat anything in sight from politics down to society.

From a social standpoint another excellent point is highlighted by the author, the ethnocentrism that was so highly promoted in that time and area.  Thekla tries to justify the obvious racism that is happening, and ultimately ends up at least acting more ethnocentric and racist than she did in the beginning.  While in the end, while trying to prove her Aryan superiority and submit her family lineage to the government, she finds out that she is the very people she has been singling out.  This fact rocks our heroine to the very foundation, causing her to question her position in her daily life, and in the political and social spheres.

An interesting question this poses is our heroines true moral compass.  If she was to have continued believing that she was a rightful descendant of the Aryan nation would she have ever questioned her ways?  Would she have continued to follow down the path that was slowly and surely turning her into at the very least a Nazi apathatic, if not a supporter?  It is impossible to know considering this is solely fictional, but it proves the point at how surely and slowly the propaganda effected regular and 'good' people in the end.  Was she truly a good person?  Perhaps, or perhaps not, I suppose that is up to the individual to decide.

The content of this book was undoubtedly very informative for a fictional novel, the method by which this was conveyed, however, could have been improved.  The conversation felt realistic, but the jumping around from place to place left me feeling more confused and disoriented, losing my desire to continue reading.  This was my only critique for this otherwise very well done novel.

I take the good with the bad and give this novel a strong thumbs up.  While the characters and hometown may have been fictional, the author made us feel as if we had been transported to twentieth century Germany under Nazi regime.  The book allows for an interesting read with a deeper message and much to analyze. If nothing else, this read can help people to remember that less than a century ago thousands of people were capable of such atrocities.  These people didn't all start out saying they would be haters and evildoers, but ultimately it is easy for group psychology and propaganda to take over. All in all, an informative and worthwhile read that I hope many more people can enjoy and learn from.