globlizationWritten by fahad sattar
Covering a wide range of distinct political, economic, and cultural trends, term "globalization" has quickly become one of most fashionable buzzwords of contemporary political and academic debate. In popular discourse, globalization often functions as little more than a synonym for one or more of following phenomena: pursuit of classical liberal or "free market" policies in world economy ("economic liberalization"), growing dominance of western (or even American) forms of political, economic, and cultural life ("westernization" or "Americanization"), proliferation of new information technologies (the "Internet Revolution"), as well as notion that humanity stands at threshold of realizing one single unified community in which major sources of social conflict have vanished ("global integration"). Fortunately, recent social theory has formulated a more precise concept of globalization than those typically offered by pundits. Although sharp differences continue to separate participants in ongoing debate, most contemporary social theorists endorse view that globalization refers to fundamental changes in spatial and temporal contours of social existence, according to which significance of space or territory undergoes shifts in face of a no less dramatic acceleration in temporal structure of crucial forms of human activity. Geographical distance is typically measured in time. As time necessary to connect distinct geographical locations is reduced, distance or space undergoes compression or "annihilation." The human experience of space is intimately connected to temporal structure of those activities by means of which we experience space. Changes in temporality of human activity inevitably generate altered experiences of space or territory. Theorists of globalization disagree about precise sources of recent shifts in spatial and temporal contours of human life. Nonetheless, they generally agree that alterations in humanity's experiences of space and time are working to undermine importance of local and even national boundaries in many arenas of human endeavor. Since globalization contains far-reaching implications for virtually every facet of human life, it necessarily suggests need to rethink key questions of normative political theory.For rich and multi-faceted interaction with events once distant from purview of most individuals, abolition of distance tended to generate a "uniform distances" in which fundamentally distinct objects became part of a bland homogeneous experiential mass (Headgear, 1971 [1950]: 166). The loss of any meaningful distinction between "nearness" and "distance" contributed to a leveling down of human experience, which in turn spawned indifference that rendered human experience monotonous and one-dimensional.
| | A SALUTE TO ALL VETERANSWritten by Irvin L. Rozier
I salute all veterans throughout world who have faithfully served their country. November, 11 was established as Veterans' Day to honor former service members who served. Too often we forget them and in today's world, it seems as if sacrifices mean little.I recall my small hometown having a Veterans' Day parade...the high school band would be playing, school children would line Main Street and clap and wave as we veterans proudly marched to beat of drums. Several years ago, this tribute was discontinued although a lightly attended ceremony is held in city park. The children of today are missing out on seeing and supporting patriotism..how sad!
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