Now then, Ian, just how long have you been listening in the background?
Surely we need an updated list of subscribers with photographs attached so
that even if we cannot see faces of our conversant as we type our piece we
can conjure up an image of an "Ian", a "Fred" et al - curiously as yet we
have had no female contributors. (Beethoven knew the faces of the
contributors to his "conversation book", and, one suspects, in reading
their words would imagine their "talk" and see the "character" of their
thoughts.) Be that how it may, 

>having said in one way or another that the task of identifying of the
>subject of 'globalization' presupposes the actuality of the phenomenon
>(even if only until the moment of falsification), I'm curious as to why
>consistently throughout your post you give this illusive concept the
>dignity of a capital letter.
.....
>   I share at least with others the caution of being too sure, too soon,
>about the actuality of 'globalization'.  Let's leave it - for the moment -
>to negotiation.

but it is not such an illusive concept, and, I for one cannot support your
desideratum of "leaving it to negotiation" - whose? If ours, then let us
negotiate! If not ours, why not? 

The use of capital G is intended to help underline the claim that it is a
necessary development, so to speak, the next stage in the progress of
Imperialism, closely related to the Enlightenment and the Idea of Progress.
It was fascinating to note that the President of Uganda was clear about it,
even if no one else understood the point, when, at the World Economic Forum
at Davos, he claimed that Globalisation came to Africa in 1444! (The Times,
3/2/98) The project of the Enlightenment is yet to come to proper fruition,
and the perceived direction of its progress is that of Globalisation. But
we can only know that it has arrived as a matter of historical fact, when
difference will no longer be different enough, and this means when it
really is too late. Now, approaching the subject in this way, we also see
the necessity of having to distinguish between Imperialism properly
speaking and its closely related, often collateral, yet distinct idea and
practice of "Empirialism". The point is that, mutatis mutandis, both these
components are also present in Globalisation, but remain undifferentiated,
much in the way in which they remained undifferentiated in erstwhile
theories of Imperialism. Of course this makes the conversation less
glamorous, less urgent, and, presumably, less attractive: in short, not
politics, but only academic talk about it. On the other hand, 

>    The actual problem you point to is an important one of course: that of
>confirming our assumptions about social reality by looking for certain
>features, as we would the features of our own faces in a mirror.  As we
>step before the glass we will usually look first at our own eyes, gaining
>for a moment only a peripheral view of the total form.  Yet in that split
>second our imaginations fill-in the blanks, giving us reassurance ahead of
>time of the integrity of our familiar 'appearance'.  With the study of
>social relations this 'moment of suspension' can outlast its name, giving
>way indeed to a kind of historical blindness, or willful illusion.  As our
>own century has taught us (I have in mind Cassirer's thesis regarding the
>'myth of the state'), hundreds, thousands, millions of people can be ripped
>up and scattered, suppressed or passed over, mobilized and militarized,
>depending upon the nature of the illusion in question.  And thus it is with
>'globalization'.  And so it seems to me that your question comes too late.
>For having arrived at the stage of suspension already, we are faced with a
>kind of historical blindness, where in the meantime - whether we like it or
>not - globalization is becoming as deeply embedded as any such concept has
>been prior.  I have doubts as to whether we can overcome this suspension,
>this possible blindness, by identifying only the circularity that called it
>forth.  In a sense that would demand we travel back in time!  It would seem
>to me then that some other gesture is necessarily (perhaps, as I have
>argued, a kind of 'active forgetting', in the Nietzschean sense).  Instead
>of projecting our minds forward until falsified, we might make the effort
>to 'forget'; in a sense (though this sounds rediculous) looking in the
>mirror to find something and someone other than oneself.  Interesting
>indeed - if we take forward the analogy - to be caught looking for someone
>other in the attempt to *escape* the anonymity of the 'suspension in
>history' that so clearly runs hand-in-hand with the telelogy and mythology
>of globalization!
>   These are just thoughts: no doubt other techniques can be found for the
>cure of blindness.

social scientist cannot claim blindness. I have much enjoyed your comments
about perception, historical blindness, etc.: it brings back memories of
misspent youth instead of having fun - much serious talk, over endless cups
of cheap coffee, about perception and related concepts, the meaning of
freedom, even the necessity of "collective amnesia" for the sake of peace,
international specialisation of labour and free trade, etc. ad nausea, all
in the name of building a better to morrow. The irony was that, in fact, we
could not see beyond the tip of the nose: the subject was there, and the
evidence was in the cup; coffee, and the coffee industry, and all that that
meant, but, alas, the obvious was never the question.

Now, there are really only two points: firstly, in part the problem of
Globalisation is that it has not yet been theorised, not that it is not
"there". For some this means that the question is till open, inviting
arguments about whether it is, or is not, there. But this question - if it
is still open - cannot be determined simplistically by arguing that  

>>The globalisation thesis is only relevant politically, it 
>>seems to me, if it shows that there are things governments used to 
>>be able to do which - because of globalisation - they now cannot 
>>do. To the extent that that is the claim of the globalisation 
>>theorists, the claim is - at best - exaggerated. 
[as circulated in Glen's message of 2/2/98]

Such wonderful nonsense - a claim like this can fill a whole hilarious
conference on methodology - or, revealingly, equating culture with fashion
and taste - is simply dangerous obfuscation: it has a feel of common-sense
truth about it, seemingly inviting nodding and knowing approval. This is a
truly odd and an incredibly static view of the world, not a frozen-picture
point of theoretical departure. In a sense and in some measure I reflect
your scepticism in that - as I would argue it - a good deal of what goes
under the name of Globalisation is only the misbegotten child of hasty -
and, dare one say it, "bad" - social science. This is why the question has
to be put. 

Now, the necessarily mediated (this raises a raft of questions, I know)
perception of social reality/relations is not to be likened to perception
of "objects". "Social reality" is a necessary yet impossible concept, as no
doubt you would agree: of course it is unavoidable, yet "it" cannot be our
starting point; if social reality was palpable, knowable in a direct sense
- capable of giving pain to Dr. Johnson in his toes, rather than to Dr Marx
in his thought - the nature and appearance of social science would have
been far different. What we can see, for instance a "picture" of absolute
poverty, is relativised into insignificance, soon to disappear behind a
cloud of theories, made even more hazy by the aromatic vapour rising from
the hot cup of coffee in our hand - just think of trickle down effect, and
the entirely misleading though inviting image of a stack of champagne
glasses: but both poverty and champagne seem to be permanent fixtures!
Indians seems to have got the idea, and are producing more poverty, along
with dubious Champagne! (but, oddly, excellent beer). To give the point a
slightly different form, all that we do as social scientists is to arrive
at a picture and give an account of social reality: the product of social
science is an account of "what is", in the form of conditional definitions,
always as end-pieces. (Incidentally, only the ignorant would assume that,
on this view, every account is equally good: but that is a different
question.) This is why I put the question and is the reason for the form in
which that question is posed. My view has been, and remains, though I will
listen to arguments to the contrary, that the road to it is via its
historical antecedent - i.e. Imperialism - and by exploding its
historically fossilised form through a deeply theoretical exposition - of
and aimed at what Imperialism in fact means, not how it is defined, or what
Imperialists have done - yielding an outcome that can be offered as a
"methodological" contribution to the analysis of analogous issues: I have
made one such attempt, the message of which is to deny meaning to any
God-like attitude to the world no matter whose. But this is a wonderful
luxury some can afford, and, therefore, the use we make of it is important
in and for our conscience. 

Secondly, your point about the use made of "wilful illusions" such as the
idea of the state and the havoc that adherence to some concepts and ideas
have caused, is, I suspect, not a million miles from the position I hold,
although the list I would give would probably surprise many. However, I
would also add the role of social scientists in this macabre theatre. I
suspect the big difference between me and some is that I mean to shout
about our nakedness. In a recent seminar the speaker ended the sequence of
an argument with the flourish of what was clearly intended to be the
clinching rhetoric when he said: should a democracy tolerate an un-elected
House of Lords to check the Commons? There followed what I thought rather
menacing silence, which I broke by saying: Yes! The release of tension when
hearty laughter broke out from some was simply unbelievable: but quite a
few looked completely lost. In an important sense, social scientists and
their role has to be part of the problem and in the question, especially in
view of regurgitated ideas such as 

>>... if we're interested in 
>>changing the world and not just in cerebration, ...... 
[circulated in Glen's message of 2/2/98] 

or, for that matter, contributions to the "third way" with an implicit
promise of scaling down - presumably the political counterpart to
"down-sizing" in industry - from the "new gurus of today" elevated to that
position by the "new leaders of today" ....this is social scientist as
quasi-politician, although often I think they are only failed politicians
with no fear of future employment: they have a position to resume after the
political dalliance has ended, usually in bequeathing a raft of problems
for the next batch to pick at... 

To emphasise, the role of social scientists, historians, and academic
lawyers, etc., is a prime target. This has two aspects. The first has to do
with reproduction of ideas/knowledge. Here I am reminded that the artistic
satire (avant guard, and a matter of culture) of the 1960s, putting the
skids under traditional institutions and implicitly crying for freedom -
which was vilified as "alternative" culture or dismissed as irrelevant -
have made a second appearance as the latest and up to the minute
theoretical discoveries for which words are coined (respectively,
"detraditionalisation" and "social reflexivity": this recalls Goethe's idea
that when a concept dies, a word is invented to take its place, and is a
counterpart to the claim that we visit museums because culture is dead and
confound it all by calling such a visit "a cultural activity"!). These
wonderful discoveries can only impress an unsuspecting audience, but will
do a lot of good to the fortunes of their inventor and are hailed as the
source of insight into how to proceed - but are belated answers to
yesterdays's problems, and can only feed back into the system in the form
of slogans, such as the euphemism of the "People's" this or that. The
second aspect has to do with the role - well-nigh the responsibility - of
social scientists, especially lawyers, etc. in the education of politicians
and future leaders, who, as a type, act with certainty (as though they knew
the "truth") but on the basis of all that we hold to be subject to argument
(profoundly "profane" qua unhallowed). This points to interesting
questions, two of which deserve highlighting.

It raises question about the meaning of some concepts, such as the
ultimate, sovereign qua irresponsible, power, guided by and subservient to
raison d'etat  (which is increasingly defined on a global scale) which is
essentially the post-Medieval idea of politics as an activity moored only
to the State and government, a "freelance second sword", a "stand-alone
means", free from any other consideration (no wonder one is sick as a
parrot when politicians moralise). Moreover, it raises questions about the
tradition of tribalised social science that very effectively occludes the
raising of difficult questions about the implications of this type of
limitation in fragmented social science. More generally, the role of the
intellectual and "men of letters", so much a part of the eighteenth century
but long since dead, has not been filled, and social science expertise has
proved a poor substitute. 

The judgement that we are too late is pessimistic. Besides too late for
whom?; the human race is not yet extinct, and whether we believe Burke or
not, we do care about the next generation of our species. The projection of
what seems to be the tendency of a raft of leading ideas into a way of life
"to morrow" fills some with horror: those who are not horrified either fail
to understand the meaning of this projection, or do not care about the next
generation. (I know this raises a question about the relationship between
"today" and "yesterday", Utopia, Dystopia, etc., but...) At any rate the
"suspicion" that it is too late - for your evident scepticism about
Globalisation must mean that you cannot be sure about this - is not enough
to stop us from trying: far from it, I take it to mean that we had better
hurry. And, to allude to metaphors in your notes, one of the first things
we must do, probably also the most difficult, is to look into the mirror
intently, not only to see but more to confront ourselves, thus to start a
process whereby we come to understand what it means "to be" "in and for"
ourselves, and replace what you have called the anonymity of 'suspension in
history' with a sense of who we are, an identity. This will call forth, and
may enable us to begin to understand, the fundamental necessity of
"distance" for "difference", but that is a different story. 
 
Fred

PS. re. Paul Treanor (message 5/2/98): hic Rhodus, hic salta! 
PS1. I know these are quintessentially social science arguments: the
paradox is clear to me, and the irony has not entirely escaped my attention.



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