• The Information of Globalization New Values

The Information of Globalization New Values… or Withdrawal into Self?

This world divides us in spite of ourselves into those who possess information and those who are deprived of it. This threatens the democratic principles that globalization claims it has come to achieve. Even if countries that are deprived of information can provide the modern technological equipment they need, the cultural gap is still wide open.

The dream of the global village which will unite the world has turned into a nightmare. The world is becoming increasingly disparate, not equal

The information media not only change social values; they also turn them upside down

The worst thing in contemporary culture is that it promotes image rather than reality, and everything light and entertaining at the expense of what is serious

With the discovery of the unlimited possibilities of short waves, which enabled broadcasting programs to be conveyed across the borders of states and continents, Marshall McLuhan made his famous comment that the Earth has become like a global village. With the appearance of television, the area of human contact narrowed and people became isolated within the borders of the countries where they lived. When video was invented, human contact retreated further so that people became confined to their houses. With the spread of the personal computer and the appearance of the Internet, people became secluded in their rooms. An image emerged which embodies the contradictions of the information age and the technological revolution: the image of a person secluded in his room, interconnected through cyberspace in a single global village with his associates who are also secluded in their rooms.

This image reminds us of one of the most famous science fiction novels through the ages, 451 Fahrenheit written by Ray Bradbury in 1951, of which a well-known film was made in 1966, directed by Francois Truffaut. In this novel, which was written directly after the appearance of television and the computer, people cling tightly to electronic screens, hate reading and cheer joyfully when the fire brigade burns books.

When we read Bradbury s novel today, no one would think that it is about events in the future, but rather today and here. The fact is that it is impossible for any impartial observer, or even for a specialized scientist, to know where information technology will take us.

Thus these radical, unexpected turns of fate upset the history of technological change. Gothenburg s aim in inventing the printing press was to encourage virtue and worship through wider reading of the Bible, not to arouse baser instincts through pornographic publications or books like Mein Kampf . Strowger regarded his first telephone exchange specifically from the angle of improving his business activity, not as the most effective instrument of social change. The Wright Brothers could not have imagined that their little aircraft which made the human dream of imitating the birds come true would develop into the Stealth bomber, or that it would become one of the main factors that would shrink the area of the global village. Mr. Benz would not have imagined the accidents, death and misery, or the freedom of movement if that is the name we give to traffic jams which the car would bring about. The fact of the matter is that Benz, Ford and the first nuclear scientists devoted themselves to the quest for cheap and efficient energy, not for Chernobyl, leukemia, Hiroshima and the balance of terror.

Dream Village or Nightmare Village?

Some people imagined that the miraculous solution of the global village would change the world, and make people more aware of the world’s problems and more able to help in solving them. According to this conception, the world of the future would be without frontiers, in that anyone could know everything about anyone else. Since knowledge means understanding, we would all share our worries and unite to relieve them. In terms of international relations, the world would become something else!

In such an environment, in which most people would be interested in and concerned with international affairs because of the free international flow of information, which would bring peoples closer to each other, the conduct of foreign policy of states is supposed to become open, responsible and responsive to the wishes of ordinary people.

But what is happening in fact is not a dream, it is closer to a nightmare. Any painstaking analysis of the present exchange of foreign news around the world reveals a clear contradiction. The astonishing increase in the ability to produce news from long distances is balanced by a clear contradiction in its consumption. This phenomenon exists in both the United States and in the developed and developing worlds.

There are wide regions of our world which cannot be covered by news gatherers, because of the high cost of the news gathering process on one hand, and as a result of the existence of a number of tyrannical regimes which will not allow that on the other.

The fact is that the world has not become interconnected in the manner promoted by the myth of the global village. The best supposition is that our knowledge of it is disparate and unequal.

One cannot discuss the effect of the information age and the information and technological revolution on various societies, particularly our Arab countries, without dealing with the subject of globalization. The fact is that, if the discovery of the machine was responsible for transforming agricultural society into industrial society, credit is due to the scientific and technological revolution for transforming industrial society into the age of globalization and merging the corners of the whole world into one global village of knowledge. In this merged or globalized world time shrinks and distances disappear. Capital, commodities, information, concepts, ideas, news and tastes are transferred at astonishing speed and complete freedom, not recognizing government censorship, national borders or ideological rejection. The fact is that globalization and the scientific and technological revolution are two sides of the same coin, indeed they are in accord in that they are both in the process of formation, although we feel their results in every aspect of our life today.

Perhaps there is no concept in the human sciences which encompasses problems like the concept of values. Value is a term of pivotal importance in all human sciences like economics, philosophy and sociology, but we shall concentrate here on social values, which are the basic general criteria by which members of society are bound and which help to achieve integration between them. Values in this sense are the principles acquired from social circumstances, which an individual absorbs, by which he regulates himself and determines the spheres of his thought and behavior, and which affect his learning. Every value has two meanings: an objective one related to society or the collective intellect according to which the value is worth following, taking as a model and respecting; and a subjective one related to the individual, in that the value may differ from one person to another according to his needs, tastes and social background.

The fact is just as change is a law of existence, it is also a law of social values. As Ibn Khaldun stated in his Introduction: The conditions of the world, nations, their gains and their sects do not do not persist in the same fashion and stable method. There is difference over the days and the ages, and change from one condition to another. As it is with persons, times and perceptions, so it happens with remote regions, countries ages and states. God s established way has occurred before.

Do We Make Values or Do They Make Us?

The information media play a basic and essential role in formulating and changing social values. Most contemporary sociologists agree that the information age technological revolution and globalization have changed not only the nature of the nation-state, but also human beings behavior and social values, if they have not completely turned them upside down.

Yet it must be stressed here that human ability has become increasingly ineffective in controlling the way in which information technology is fashioning our economic, social, political and cultural life. No one can predict the direction in which the present situation will develop. Every development contains its opposite inside itself. This is basically due to the fact that we are living in the beginnings of a new age, and we are still getting to know its first aspects, trying to sense its features and diagnose its characteristics and peculiarities, even if its effects are too strong for anyone to ignore. This is clearly apparent in the controversy going on about the effect of the information age and the technological revolution on the question of democracy.

Some governments, particularly in the developing world, are trying to combine an economic open-door policy with authoritarian policies. These governments may enjoy temporary success, but the flow of information will lead in the long term as is apparent in Taiwan and Chile to encouragement for the transformation to democracy.

However, it is a mistake to imagine that cyberspace always strengthens democracy. A reflective examination of how information media work in the world today shows that information remains liable to manipulation, either by the political authorities, which are moved by transitory selfish interests, or by the economic forces of companies which limit the amount, variety and credibility of information materials.

We must be aware that the power and development of the information media have not come about in a vacuum. They reflect the state of economic, technological, social and cultural development of every society and every country. Consequently, it is not surprising to find information media in despotic countries becoming a service for the political authorities, their purposes and priorities. However, the situation is no better in advanced countries. Ownership of the information media in some of the most deep-rooted democracies has reached what some regard as a dangerous level of concentration and monopoly. In the United Kingdom, Rupert Murdoch s organization accounts for 37% of total daily national newspaper distribution. We also find that the national newspapers owned by Robert Hersaint who was imprisoned for collaboration with the Nazis in the Second World War account for more than a third of national newspapers sold in France and as much as 50% in Poland. In Italy the billionaire Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi owns the three leading television channels, as well as another paid suscription channel and a number of newspapers and magazines. All these media strongly supported his right-wing political party which has come to power. Indeed, the US information system, with its support for a large and varied collection of means of expression, has become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few massive corporations whose links in turn are increasing in joint ventures, many of which are aimed at discovering new forms of communication.

Where Is Unipolar Globalization Taking Us?

We are living today in a unipolar globalization. Technology is not only causing a transformation in the world, it is also creating its own metaphorical world. Television satellites today enable people on both sides of the planet to be exposed regularly to a wide selection of cultural stimulants. Russian viewers are devoted to television plays produced by Latin America, while leaders of the developing world regard CNN as a main source of even local information. The Internet has become an increasingly world-wide phenomenon in the light of effective development in all continents.

The United States dominates this movement of global traffic in the field of information and ideas. American music, American films, American television programs and American computer programs have become extremely dominant, very widespread and very much seen. They are literally found today in every place on earth, and they effectively influence the tastes, life and aspirations of every nation.

The United States is in fact the sole military superpower in the world. It is also the only superpower in the field of information. While Japan has become relatively competitive in the manufacture of components used in the formation of information systems, its influence is negligible as a manufacturer of programs or a force behind the technological revolution. Europe has failed on both counts. Consequently, the United States has come to occupy a superior position at this moment and for the foreseeable future.

The important question remains: where will this world take us? Although nobody can predict the overall effect of the information revolution, we can sense the changes which are happening in our daily lives, although they are happening at a pace that is almost imperceptible.

Before the appearance of the written word, people used to depend on their memories. Before the telephone, people used to know the enjoyment of writing and receiving letters, the joy of receiving an envelope in the post that had the handwriting of a loved one or a friend on it. Before television and the computer, people had a stronger group feeling, and more affection for neighbors and family members.

Television has made us stick to our homes and isolated us from our fellow human beings. Society has become less intimate and more detached, after the age of the computer has provided more games, transactions with the bank from home, electronic shopping, video films on request and many other services. Sessions with friends, the life of cafes and family reunions have disappeared, as have many other social manifestations that were common in societies with warm relationships.

Worse than that is that this culture promotes image rather than reality, things that are light and entertaining rather than anything weighty. Whatever we may do, it seems that the electronic element is what represents the future. The Internet is pushing life beyond the ancient natural barriers of time and place. Through it you can travel round the world without leaving your home, you can establish new friendships, contact spacemen as they are orbiting the Earth, or exchange the results of laboratory experiments with a colleague of yours on the other side of the ocean.

Here television and the computer encourage disinclination to read among many people who were not inclined in the first place to read anything detailed and lengthy which requires concentration and depth. There is only abridgement, very short sentences, jumping between channels, instant enjoyment, rapidly moving pictures, constant excitement, shorter attention spans, it is a world whose worst evil is that it is boring.

The fact is that it is no longer the market itself that alone decides television criteria with some exceptions. But we are in fact entering whether we are aware of it or not a new world called the virtual world. The virtual world enables you to explore an imaginary world and actually to be in it. Many of us do not engage in sports, but like to watch great sportsmen with immense physical capabilities. Many who have never engaged in an innocent conversation with a woman and the opposite is true, of course find in the virtual world wonderful female characters, charming, graceful and beautiful or muscular acting naturally and spontaneously as if you were not looking at them, dancing, singing and stripping. Since people are alienated and only have very little inside them, and since their souls have become filled with sterility, they make their own worlds full of virtual characters, virtual intimacy, and indeed virtual love. In the shadow of political tyranny and social pressures related to their living conditions, which have made every one of us live as an isolated island now that he no longer has time even if he has the intention to have contact with other people, and after the rise of extremist currents which reject innocent contact between the two sexes and ban even smiling, we have become fugitives from reality and eavesdroppers on others. In this world each one of us manufactures his own hero or heroine. Without recognizing limits, censorship, language or accent. The danger is that this kind of culture pushes us towards more isolation, and more living in a virtual world full of narcissism, exhibitionism and the desire to seize the attention, interest and satisfaction of others. The culture that is being promoted here is the culture of herd, a directionless culture which lacks anything that could be interpreted as social consciousness or spiritual or human value. Just as in the novel 451 Fahrenheit, people cling tightly to electronic screens, hate reading and cheer joyfully when the fire brigade burns books. The whole of society, willingly or under the influence of brainwashing processes, adopts a hollow, trivial culture which makes people live each moment as if it is a moment suspended in mid-air, without roots, independent of what is before it and after it.

What Is to Be Done?

Dependence on electronic screens is part of a larger thing called the spread of technological culture. Many people are afraid that this culture will produce an overwhelming uniformity that threatens local cultures. This fear of uniformity is due to the absolute domination of the American information, advertising, entertainment and cinema industries.

But human nature resists this uniformity. The place where we live its customs, traditions and history makes a great impression on us. Even if we are not aware of it. When we are told that we are all identical, we automatically go back to our geographical origins and our tribal societies, and barricade ourselves behind them until we find our sense of belonging. This is what helps us to understand the reasons for the revival of ethnic, tribal and sectarian loyalties in the age of globalization, which was originally supposed to remove barriers and borders between countries and human societies.

The fact is that the effect of these uninterrupted developments in developing countries in general, and our countries in particular, is going in two opposite directions. On the one hand it is giving the information media in our countries an unprecedented margin of freedom and democracy. Incidentally, this margin does not indicate a new awareness by our governments, but is required by the need to deal with the nature of the new world order, namely the uninterrupted developments. On the other hand, it is severely deepening our dependence in information and the unipolar domination which is trying to impose its vision and its values on all the peoples of the world.

This contradiction requires us to deal with greater awareness with what is going on around us. Whoever imagines that he can change the world and halt the wheel of progress is under an illusion. And whoever calls for complete surrender to the overwhelming globalization trend is a fool, because this means before all else abandoning the identity of our civilization and our national sovereignty.

If we want to emerge from this dark tunnel with the least possible loss, we can only follow two ways. The first is to work to strengthen joint co-operation between us both bilaterally and collectively, in order to establish a cultural and information bloc that will limit the negative effects of unipolar domination.

The second, which is more important, is for our information to be on the basis of information for the sake of development, with the aim of advancing society and developing it by encouraging the reading, listening and viewing public to be aware of how dangerous and serious the problems of development are, to think about these problems and try to invent the solutions that will enable them to break out of the vicious circle of backwardness in whose bondage most of our societies live. This must not be on the basis of coercion from the top, but rather of professional commitment by the information media based on national free will and arising from their awareness of the conditions and particular circumstances of our societies.

Technology is beckoning to us with its promised paradise, and some of us will certainly cross over to the new world, while others will fall for ever, I repeat forever, into the gloom of backwardness. There is no other way for us to live in this world than to deal with it in its own language. There is no course open to us to achieve any renaissance that we desire except by interacting with this world from the position of free people confident of their culture and of the health and strength of their society, because the movement of history is always forward. It does not recognize the lazy, the weak or those who withdraw into themselves.

Sulaiman Al-Askary

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