Global Down-turn

A few months ago, I attended a lecture from Miroslav Volf, a very well-known theologian from Yale. The title of the lecture was, "The Intersection of Faith and Globalization," a lecture he's given a number of times in many places (see here as one example). The basic assumption of the lecture was something like this: globalization is here to stay, so we have to adapt to it. Now, I like where he goes on the basis of this assumption, but that's not where my problem lies. 


My problem lies in the widespread belief that we should embrace a globalized world. 


Globalization, as it currently stands, doesn't exactly resemble the democratic, egalitarian utopia that many proponents of globalization want us to believe. More importantly, even should every country and culture in the world get on board with living in a global community, even then we wouldn't live in a world governed by mutual consent and characterized by mutual prosperity. The reason for this isn't an outright cynicism on my part regarding human nature; it has to do with my cynicism regarding the forces that are leading to our increasingly globalized world.


Let's reflect for a moment on these forces (after the jump...)