Get Over It

Fear sells, and we are forever marketing it. The suspicion that an apocalypse awaits around the next corner shapes our awareness of everything from the aids epidemic, genetically modified foods, and global warming to the more prosaic reality of deepening and proliferating links between people and places around the world. While fearmongers understandably exploit the specter of runaway epidemics, monster mushrooms, and worsening weather, it is less obvious why globalization inspires so much worry. Indeed, a quick review of the chief globalization-inspired phobias suggests there are fewer reasons for worry than many think:

National identities are dead
This proposition is so terrifying — and widely accepted — that nearly every debate about globalization begins by fretting over it. We fear the homogenizing effects of global culture. We worry that immigrants will swamp the natives and doom efforts to protect traditions. But globalization can energize national identity. More people in more parts of the world are expressing their distinct social and cultural traditions than at any time since the dawn of European colonialism 500 years ago. In short, defining a local identity against a global one sharpens the former. National identities have always been elusive, by the way, so having an international nemesis helps. Look at the way French cultural activists have infused vitality into their traditions by repeatedly assailing Disney and McDonald’s.

Strangers all
This is the flip side of the first fear: Won’t immigrants — encouraged by the ability to hold multiple passports and plural allegiances to far-flung countries — lose sight of their own identities? Hardly. For the same reason that U.S. Midwesterners or Singaporean "heartlanders" can open themselves to the world without sacrificing their roots, immigrants too can add "wings," sustaining original ways of thinking and acting while adopting the practices of their new homes. Such is life when roots are portable and wings aren’t the enemy of distinctiveness. The ease of travel and communication, coupled with less government resistance to citizens’ maintaining close ties with their countries of origin, means that a growing number of people can focus on their traditions when they want and participate in international society when that suits them; a Nigerian family can read local newspapers, listen to local radio, consume local foods — all from their home in London. Rather than a symptom of schizophrenia or hypocrisy, this capacity to juggle cultural frames represents a stunning advance.

Kosovo is coming to your neighborhood
The same people who worry about too much sameness are also spooked by too much difference. These alarmists view nations, and indeed the world, as being on the brink of tribal war even as they decry the relentless spread of uniformity. How do these two contradictory forces coexist? They don’t. Tribalism flourishes in places that have had too little contact with the outside world (Serbia and Rwanda), not too much. The intermingling of peoples is the antithesis of tribalism, and it provides the best defense against social conflict. The more diverse a society, the safer it is. Increasingly, the best measure of a society is how it deals with difference. On this, globalizers and localizers ought to agree: Securing difference should be their chief end.

Big fish eat the little fish
The very same technologies of production and delivery that empower rootless multinational corporations also make possible the spread of small producers who can sell to wider markets. Small nations benefit in much the same way as entrepreneurs; indeed, after centuries of lagging, small countries now often outperform large countries economically. How else does one explain why Ireland has one of the fastest growth rates in Europe, Iceland has the lowest unemployment rate in Europe, and Finland has become a world leader in information technology?

Unaccountable global institutions wield supreme power
Excuse me. The World Trade Organization may be elitist, but its inept management has stalled trade liberalization — not created a "New World Order." The International Monetary Fund dares not intervene on a global scale after its uneven handling of the Asian and Russian financial crises. United Nations peacekeepers have flopped spectacularly in one country after another. If national governments are losing power, it isn’t because of the rise of secretive superstates; it is because local politicians (and activists) are gaining clout. Put these five fears into perspective, and globalization doesn’t seem so scary. Worrying is fine. But as a prod for improvement, anxiety works best when directed at the right things.