The way I look at history, there was a period in time over which the way Westerners changed the way they looked at all people. That was the birth of ‘modernism’. Modernism builds upon the premise, long established in monotheism, that every human being has a soul. And because every human being has a soul, that human being has value in the eyes of god. Now if you reject the one true god, then you don’t have a soul worth saving, you will be a heathen and a savage and you will lack any proper moral discipline. There’s a lot to be said about that, but it is tangential here. The point is that since every soul is equal in the eyes of god, what accounts for the differences among men? Well it is their access to and usage of civilization, and in particular obedience to laws and customs which all come from the traditions originally established by religious moral discipline.
This is to say that even if you are born in some mud hut in India, your access to and usage of English civilization will in fact civilize you and make you more worthy in society than before. You can, in fact, earn and deserve the privileges of rank in society. In other words, in a modern society, meritocracy is available to all. Compare this to the caste system of India where once a Dalit, always a Dalit (untouchable). Compare that to various forms of Islam in which the ‘infidel’ is considered unworthy of life.
Today we have gone even further with this notion of modernism. But understand that without modernism, without this idea that humans are all equal at the level of the soul, no meritocracy is possible. We have extended it beyond ethnicity, beyond citizenship to the everyone. It is the fulfillment of an old idea. So yes we do actually have a global economy.
I like to use three examples of modernism. The people of Germany who build BMW automobiles have no idea to whom they are selling. A BMW rolling off the assembly line is built for no one in particular. It is built for anyone who can buy it. That is modernism. The pizzaria in NYC bakes pies and sells them by the slice. The pizza is built for no one in particular. It is built for anyone who can buy it. That is modernism. The people in San Francisco who make Gap jeans. They sell them in every size for everyone in general and nobody in particular.
So you ask the question of what happens to the outliers. By this, I presume you mean people who do not want modernism. Because the opposite of modernism is tribalism. When desire to reject the idea of a single god, a single moral code for all human beings; when you desire to weigh the soul of someone different than you at a greater or lesser value; when you say that things built by one 'kind' of person is not suitable for another 'kind' of person, then you are being tribal. When you first try to figure out the value of a human being by determining their group, you are being anti-modern, you are being tribal.
So the question for today's society is whether or not they trust modern institutions, laws, commerce and governments, or if they would rather go tribal. I think it is self-evident that many people wish to go tribal. Think how many people you know who would tattoo something other than their national flag on their body, and would actually be repulsed by the idea of being a patriotic citizen. Instead they pledge allegiance to something smaller than an ancient religion, or something smaller than a nation. Which way do they go? They go exactly where you think, they try to grow their own food rather than shop at the modern supermarket. They try to participate in everything 'alternative' rather than 'mainstream'. They seek to highlight how they are different from everyone else and how everyone else does not deserve their attention and respect. They have contempt for tradition. They seek what I call 'radical autonomy'.
There are consequences of all sorts when considerable numbers of people abandon national traditions, laws and customs. Some are small and some are critical. What happens when millions of Mexicans abandon Mexico? What happens when millions of Brazilians want to live anywhere but Brazil. What happens when millions call themselves ex-Catholics? What happens when some groups of people decide that a nation's laws don't apply to them? They all become tribes. Sometimes those tribes are elites, sometimes they are refugees. But in the end, they withdraw their support from modernism.
It is possible of course, for modernism to fail. It couldn't happen all at once, but one can certainly see the tides change. The BMW people say "Our cars are not for these people over here". The pizzaria says "You can only have this kind of slice". But essentially for all of modernism to fail, the fundamental idea of Western civilization has to fail. One law for all people has to fail or be erased. The very idea of the soul has to be erased. What are the chances? I say the chances are slim. But we do live in a multipolar world. We live in a world that is not all Western and where countries compete and their ideas and concepts of humanity bump heads.
We may have a global economy, but we do not have a global society. Could go this way, could go that way. Either way it will take generations.
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