Yes, dear people, it's like that, who did not want to travel to the US sometimes and do it anally there? Indeed, everyone has played several times with this thought already.
Many may be deterred now by intensified controls at the airports before flights with US airlines. These would be extremely well suited for anyone wanting to benefit from hard anal sex during the flight.
You may also ask yourself now, what else the USians do, apart from having anal parties? Jaaa, they plug their US flags into their anuses! After that some of them have been astonished, why the stars are suddenly brown instead of white! Oh shit, the USians then cry, and launch a few F-16s to demonstrate they can also do it at supersonic speeds... and from behind!!
This inventor spirit is unique in the world and should be rewarded with a heavy load in the ass. But nevertheless, not here in Germany; why, such a ripped apart USian is a disturbance, and only available to people over 18. In the sales compartment behind the curtain, of course. For the real fanatics there is the same model also with a swastika, tattooed on the balls, if there still are some. And who hasn't experienced an anal orgasm yet? If not, dial into the Telekom network and ask behind the backdoor of the dragon around the corner!
Happy holidays, and keep your eggs warm, it's Easter time soon!
Yes, dear people, it's like that, who did not want to travel to the US sometimes and do it anally there? Indeed, everyone has played several times with this thought already.
Many may be deterred now by intensified controls at the airports before flights with US airlines. These would be extremely well suited for anyone wanting to benefit from hard anal sex during the flight.
You may also ask yourself now, what else the USians do, apart from having anal parties? Jaaa, they plug their US flags into their anuses! After that some of them have been astonished, why the stars are suddenly brown instead of white! Oh shit, the USians then cry, and launch a few F-16s to demonstrate they can also do it at supersonic speeds... and from behind!!
This inventor spirit is unique in the world and should be rewarded with a heavy load in the ass. But nevertheless, not here in Germany; why, such a ripped apart USian is a disturbance, and only available to people over 18. In the sales compartment behind the curtain, of course. For the real fanatics there is the same model also with a swastika, tattooed on the balls, if there still are some. And who hasn't experienced an anal orgasm yet? If not, dial into the Telekom network and ask behind the backdoor of the dragon around the corner!
Happy holidays, and keep your eggs warm, it's Easter time soon!
YOU EUROPEANS WILL NOT CENSOR ME!
on
Palm on a Bicycle
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· Score: -1
Art, whatever the definition, has certain characteristics. It is equivalent to an entity, perpetuating itself across generations. As a result, it is permanent. Art also implies certain value claims, about the precedence of accumulative creativity over destruction. Permanence and accumulation cannot be ethically legitimised. In practice, there is a stable geo-cultural structure, of ethnic and national art. This structure is not ethically legitimised. The best response is a territorial separation of art.
KABUL, March 1 2001 (AFP via Yahoo News)
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban authorities said Thursday they have started destroying all statues in the country, including the world's tallest standing Buddha statue in the central province of Bamiyan.
"The work started about five hours ago but I do not know how much of it (the Bamiyan Buddhas) has been destroyed," Taliban Information and Culture Minister Qudratullah Jamal told AFP.
"It will be destroyed by every means. All the statues are being destroyed."
The poor, the weak and the oppressed do not speak in defence of art. The voice of art is the voice of privilege. But if that was the only defect of art, then equality would legitimise art. There is not just privilege, there is eternal privilege, for art continues. Art is ancient tradition: worse than privilege. Is it not time to destroy it?
Art is wrong because it is the past, because it perpetuates itself, because it is transgenerational, because it is culture, and because it requires the suppression of anti-art to exist.
People argue about what art is. High art is still contrasted to popular culture. In the 1970's some class theories opposed elitist art. However, in Britain, where Art an Enemy of the People was published in 1978, the response to "high art" was not rejection. It was the demand for subsidies - for community art, minority art, women's art, or art of colour. A similar pattern applies all over western Europe. The existence of art is not an issue. Policy simply accepts art: this is true for artists, for individual governments, and for the European Union. A policy consensus implies a definitional consensus.
Despite the apparent disunity about what constitutes high art or authentic art, there is a deep negative consensus about its nature. This negative consensus is common to all modern societies. Some things are not art, never:
a trans-Sahel railway state formation justice a single European currency.
Seen from this perspective, it is the agreement about Art which is remarkable. Evidently there is something called art: and so to its defects.
The first defect of art is the antiquity of art. Some art is recent, of course, but there is no planned future art. In urban planning, for instance, there are those who plan cities which are not yet built, and those who study urban history. In art, however, there is only art history: art is past-oriented, almost by definition. Art is tens of thousands of years old. There is an immense volume of art from the past, even though most works of art are destroyed deliberately (of that, more later). The sacrality of art is a sacrality of the past.
Art perpetuates itself. True, this is a reification, but it is an accurate one. It is the actions of people which perpetuate art: but the effect for the opponents of art is as if art defended itself. I will use here exactly the same metaphor and analogy, that I used to describe the defects of sustainability, the ethic of eternal structures.
Compare the lives of two twins, born in identical circumstances. However, one is pro-art, the other is anti-art. The pro-art twin can go to art school, or study art history. There is no equivalent for the anti-art twin: no school of art incineration. Great social pressure to accept art is applied to one twin. No similar pressure to accept art-destruction is applied to the other twin. Because art is a core value in all existing societies, the social and employment opportunities of the anti-art twin will be limited. It is also the pro-art twin who is more likely to be elected or appointed to political office.
The value attached to art limits the opportunity of its opponents to take action against it. In this way art is a self-preserving structure. It is like a religion, whose adherents systematically discriminate non-believers: if such a religion is in a majority, it will constantly improve its position of power.
The strength and functioning of this self-preserving structure can be appreciated, by imagining that there was no art, and no pro-art structures. Transferring from an art-free world into the existing world, can be compared to transferring from this world, into a world objectionably different. Cannibalism is a useful characteristic for this comparison, because it is almost universally taboo. Being transferred into a cannibal world, from this world, would be extremely unpleasant for most people. They would be forced to accept that something they abhor is a normal part of society: that there is apparently no possibility of reform, since everyone accepts it as normal. This is the situation for opponents of art in the existing world.
Art also perpetuates itself in a more indirect way. Art is often described as human endeavour or achievement, and it is indeed a product of human activity. People are encouraged to consider art as a valued activity, to the exclusion of other activity. In many cultures it is regarded as a high form of achievement: that in itself is a valuing of conservatism. Artists strive to produce good art, but what they produce is art, because the activity takes place only in an art framework, a framework that already exists. It is accurate to say that art is conformity in itself, since artists must conform to the norm of what art is. That norm will vary across cultures and in time, but only in the limiting case that everything is accepted as art, does it cease to be restrictive. In practice, creative approaches to non-art areas are often socially un-accepted, or considered strange.
Art is transgenerational and open-ended. It perpetuates itself in the structural form described above, but art cannot be otherwise. So long as art is in opposition to iconoclasm, for instance, then there is a difference in the value socially ascribed to activities. In almost all cases (and certainly in modern societies) the accepted pattern is, that creation takes place by accumulation only. Iconoclasm (in the broad sense of art destruction) is defined as a non-creative act.
There is no inherent logical basis for the restriction of creativity to accumulation. However, it is the form art takes, and that form is socially accepted. Although there are millions of paintings already, painting a new one is defined as a creative activity. Reducing the existing stock is not. Destruction is not considered of equal value to creation.
On the contrary, destruction of art is considered a crime, and a sign of mental illness. Entering a museum and destroying a painting is considered shocking. Such acts are widely reported in the media, if they affect well-known works of art. This cannot be logically derived from a sacred status. In religious activity, sacred is not always permanent. Sacrificial animals were killed in some religions, offerings were burnt. It would be logically possible to treat art like this, but that does not occur. Art is not just sacred, its own accumulation is sacred, its permanence is sacred.
The continuance of art is therefore inherent in art. Art is for ever. That which can not end, is wrong, and must be ended. Permanence of any entity constitutes a claim to all time for its existence, specifically against its non-existence. Claims to time are contra-ethical or morally arbitrary: one state (existence of art) is favoured over another (non-existence of art) merely because it happened to exist first. It is possible to claim value for firstness or primacy (as nationalist organisations of indigenous peoples do), but this cannot be logically derived. It is itself an arbitrary value.
The transmission of art also requires, that injustice be done to done who oppose it. Their opposition is valid, since there is no moral ground for the permanence of art, yet they are discriminated against, as indicated above. Some employers, perhaps almost all, would refuse a job to anyone who openly advocated the destruction of art. If such injustice is a necessary condition of art, and there is no other legitimation of its existence, then the existence of art is an injustice, and should be terminated.
Just or unjust, self-perpetuating cycles and transgenerational structures, are contra-ethical. Art perpetuates itself, by accumulation, and the transmission of the value of this accumulation. Cultures include, over generations, reverence for the permanence of art. More than this, art perpetuates the transmission of culture including itself. Art is a central aspect of many cultures.
This permanence of art has been described here in abstract terms. In practice some real destruction of art does take place. The place of art in culture determines this: real art is ethnic art, or national art. Art that disappears, has lost its central place in an existing culture - usually because that culture itself has disappeared. The second part of this article, about cultures and art, is less abstract and more political.
There exists a geo-cultural structure, approximately corresponding to geopolitical structures. In practice, people refer daily to English culture, or French culture, to ancient Egyptian art, to Brazilian art, or to the art of the Islamic world. The entities of this geo-cultural structure may be cultures of nation states, of ethnic groups, of regions, or of larger entities called world-cultures or civilisations. They may overlap, in fact they usually do, but that does not mean there is no structure.
The complexity of culture is sometimes used to deny its rigid and structural nature. However, internal complexity can be great, and yet exclude external complexity. The possible moves in a game of chess are astronomically large, yet all chess games are chess games.
Consider a simple model, with unitary cultures of tribes. Tribe A invades the land of tribe B. Soon, within culture B there are pro-A collaborative cultural tendencies, there are anti-A "B nationalists", there are A+B "multi-culturalists", their opponents in A, and B, who oppose cultural mixing, and B revanchists. The land of A+B then invades the land of C. Now, in this land C, there pro-A collaborators, pro-B collaborators, pro A+B collaborators. There are anti-A "C nationalists", anti-B "C nationalists", and anti A+B "C nationalists". And more: even at this level, the multiplying combinations exceed simple factorials.
In the past there were thousands of cultures, associated with thousand of peoples. By some estimates, there still are. Combinations of their interactions can generate an immense diversity of culture. Yet, none of that culture will be anything other than a combination of unitary cultures of geopolitical entities.
There is every reason to believe that this is an accurate model of human culture and art: apparent diversity is hiding a huge range of possibilities which do not fit the existing geo-cultural model. This applies to art as well. The implication of this is, that the models of culture developed in anthropology in the 1940's and 1950's are accurate. (In fact these models reflect the general use of national or ethnic terms to describe culture).
These models were often linked to the idea of culture growth and decay, and similar organic or life-cycle metaphors. Their basis, however, was the idea of a unitary culture corresponding to some geopolitical entity. A. L. Kroeber's 1944 Configurations of Culture Growth is a classic work of this kind. In 1959 Rushton Coulborn could still take this approach to cultures or civilisations:
The style of a civilization is perceived as its aesthetic aspect: it is exhibited in everything the society produces and does, pre-eminently in its arts, but also in its thought, its politics, its institutions, its traditions, and in all its ways. It is possible to qualify a society's style, to comment upon it, to judge it even, yet hardly to describe it. It is the Chineseness" of what is Chinese, the "Egyptianness" of what is Egyptian, the "Westernness of what is Western. Since that time, this approach has disappeared from mainstream anthropology, only to reappear in the last 10 years, under the influence of ethnic studies. An Afro-centric approach to art history, for instance, implies almost by definition a geo-cultural structure.
Why pretend, that there is no such a thing as African art, or English art? Partly because such approaches were discredited by their association with Nazi Germany, or at least with Oswald Spengler and organic-social models of cultural history. But it was a common approach to history in the 1920's and 1930s, and is now "rehabilitated" by the interest in ethnicity and identity. The model is cyclically in and out of academic fashion.
In any case, this approach is still, and always has been, the accepted approach in art history. Any introduction to art history (for students in Europe) will present the standard sequence of styles in Europe: Romanesque, gothic, renaissance, baroque, rococo, neo-classicism. After that comes a section on Islamic Art, or Oriental Art, which are assumed to have their own style sequence. In this case, the academic wisdom seems to be right.
In the end it cannot be proved that there is a geo-cultural structure of this kind: that is too much a question of interpretation. However, it does seem extremely difficult to take the opposite position, that no culture or art is in any way associated with any particular people, culture, or territory.
In turn, this suggests an explanation of art: it is hyper-ethnic. Art is that within a culture which most approaches the core of that culture, and is least accessible to outsiders. Art is the visible soul of the people, just as nationalists say. The question is, whether that gives it existence rights. It is here that the manipulation of art-historical theory in defence of art must be noted. If art is associated with peoples, it can be associated with their state, and so with the policies of that state - which may be unacceptable for many. Yet art never suffers from attribution of guilt by association: definitions are manipulated, to absolve it.
If a person who is clearly a German Nazi, insists on the existence of a German art, and indicates clearly which works of art are German, what is in that circumstance anti-Nazism? The non-Nazi defenders of art deny the truth of the claims: they say the possession of art must be disputed. They would probably say, that in this case anti-Nazism consists in claiming that art belongs to all humanity: that it is universal. This opposition between Nazism and universality cannot, however, justify the existence of art.
The alternative anti-Nazi position is to accept the claims as true, and destroy the German art, which the Nazi person has so conveniently listed. Not just Nazi Germans produce such specifications: there are official lists of national art heritage, in most states in Europe. They are not intended for the convenience of anti-nationalist iconoclasts, but they can serve that purpose.
If art is national, then it can have no legitimacy other than within the values of nationalism. If all art is national then it is legitimate to destroy it, if anti-nationalism is itself legitimate. This legitimacy of destruction extends beyond nation states, to a geo-cultural structure in general. A geo-cultural structure is merely one of many possible structures. The present structure is complex, but not self-legitimising. It is legitimate to oppose pan-Africanism as a form of nationalism, and for instance, to destroy African art for that goal. Equally, it is legitimate to oppose a geo-cultural planetary structure that includes all art, and in doing so to destroy all art.
Why not? Art is being destroyed all the time. So long as there has been art, it has been destroyed. In reality, the sacrality of art applies mainly to "our art", not to "their art". If pan-Africanism, in 10 years time, is regarded as a form of imperialism oppressing the regional identities of the continent, then perhaps people will burn portraits of Nkrumah. 20 years ago, statues of Lenin were art in part of Berlin. Now they are considered "propaganda of the unjust SED state". 60 years ago, statues of Hitler were art in Berlin: now public display of any Nazi symbol is illegal. Today, art in Germany means for instance statues of Konrad Adenauer, the pro-western post-war Chancellor.
The only constant seems to be, that art serves privilege, the nation state, the powerful, the established, the unjust. In general, art serves the existing, which is exactly what is consistent with a self-perpetuating social structure.
It is acceptable to oppose art in general, and specific national, regional, world-cultural, or civilisational art. However, there is no wide support for the break-up of the geo-cultural structure. The values of that structure itself are incompatible with its reform or abolition. It can however be limited in its effects.
I therefore propose territorial separation of art. Formally, the best course would be to destroy existing art, then choose if the planet was to be art-provided or art-free. However, there is no prospect of any global agreement on this. Art will be in opposition to non-art, inherently.
Specifically, I propose that the United States of America should become a zone of art. The existing cultural preference in the USA for collecting art, (especially from Europe) should be expanded into a prime function of state.
Art should be transferred from Europe to the USA, beginning with the art listed in national heritage lists, and with recognised European heritage. I propose as an initial step, the transfer of the Mona Lisa, the best known European artwork, to the USA. The Mona Lisa is old, and heritage. It is better, that the past should burden the USA, than burden Europe. All artists, and those who wish to continue employment in the art sector, should be transferred to the USA.
Any attempt at such a transfer would probably result in military intervention in support of art, perhaps by the USA. However, the nature of such a military intervention is outside the scope of this article. In any case, it is probably true that, given the fundamental opposition between art and its destruction, military conflict is inevitable in the long term.
Taylor, R. Art an Enemy of the People. Hassocks: Harvester 1978.
Kroeber, A. L. Configurations of Culture Growth. Berkeley: University of California Press 1944. Coulborn, R. The Origin of Civilized Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1959. (Quote, p. 22).
Logically, there can be no process of globalisation in a world order of nation states. A world order is already global, by definition. The logic of 'globalisation' is false, but the idea has become an ideology. For different reasons, different people claim that there is globalisation. The word "globalisation" started as an academic and media hype. Just when it was going out of fashion, the 1999 Seattle summit revived media attention for the issue. Pro-globalisation and anti-globalisation ideologies (and movements) have emerged. That fact remains, that the underlying 'globalisation' process simply does not exist. People are often talking about something else - about neoliberalism or about normative globalism, for instance.
Is there globalisation? Nation states still dominate the social and economic structures of this planet. But nation states are themselves a global order - a specific arrangement of a specific type of state. Globalisation only appears logical, if you see nation states as isolated islands, but that is not the historical reality.
Supporters of the globalisation thesis claim, that a world of isolated nation states existed in the recent past. Perhaps before 1989, or more approximately, before 1950. They claim that these isolated nation states are now being eroded, in a global process. This thesis is often presented as a absolute truth, which globalisation researchers have discovered. Academic snobbism is important in sustaining globalisation research, especially since the thesis appeals to both the right and the left. People are considered stupid, if they question globalisation.
Saskia Sassen, who uses globalisation as a "negative future" to promote a global civil society, summarises the logic. (In: Losing Control: Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization, Columbia University Press 1996).
Economic globalization represents a major transformation in the territorial organization of economic activity and politico-economic power....The sovereignty of the modern state was concentrated in mutually exclusive territories and the concentration of sovereignty in nations...economic globalization has contributed to a denationalizing of national territory... But nations are not mutually exclusive. Every existing nation state, supports the division of the world into nation states. Even a total surrender of national sovereignty to another nation, does not de-nationalise territory. When nations re-unite, for instance, states can completely disappear. At some future date, Moldova (Moldavia) might accede to Romania. That would mean the state Moldova completely ceased to exist: but that would not mean the end of nations. In fact it would be a victory for the nationalistic 'Greater Romania' ideal. Another example: the Republic of Ireland has abandoned its claim to sovereignty over Northern Ireland. However, a future majority in Northern Ireland might wants to accede to the Republic of Ireland. In those circumstances, the United Kingdom has said it will abandon its claim to the territory. Yet, either way, there are still two nation states in the British Isles. The border might shift, but the nation state as such does not disappear in such cases.
The relevant question, at global level, is whether the global order of nation states is disappearing - anywhere. And there is no collapse of the nation state, in the face of globalisation. Nation states have not suffered anything comparable to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman empires. All that remains of these empires, are oversized palaces in Vienna and Istanbul. The rest of their institutions have completely disappeared: there is not a square millimetre of Habsburg or Ottoman territory left in Europe. There is no longer an Austro-Hungarian imperial army, or police, or courts, of universities. The nation states succeeded the multi-ethnic empires, and seized all their territory. The replacement was total.
But where is the so-called 'collapse' of the nation state visible? There are very few places on earth where there are no institutions of a nation state - perhaps in Somalia, but that is not the result of globalization. If the world was truly 'globalised' then it would be full of disused national parliament buildings - and not a national army in sight. The world is not like that, and will not be like that, in the immediate future. In other words, 'globalisation' remains a hype - pure hype and not reality.
Anti-nationalists know this, better than anyone else. So people who claim that 'globalisation' is eroding nations are in any case not anti-nationalists. At worst, the opposite: they are simply nationalists. The globalisation hype can be a form of nationalist propaganda.
The popular globalisation myth
A popular version of the globalisation myth has existed for about 10 years. It claims that until 1989, the world consisted of separate, sovereign, autonomous nation states, with separate histories. Then, borders collapsed, the internet appeared, but also the international Mafia. So now it is a dangerous world, but also perhaps full of opportunities.
You can find this version, almost literally, in Ruud Lubbers' article The Globalization of Economy and Society (now offline):
The term "globalization" implies that the becoming and making worldwide of various phenomena has accelerated at such a pace that it is giving rise to a variety of new phenomena. Globalization entails a quantitative shift of several autonomous national economies to a global marketplace for production, distribution, and technology. All this has resulted in the emergence of a worldwide confrontation of political, societal, and ethical insights...
Lubbers was a former Netherlands premier, and is now UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He filled the time between these posts as a Professor of Globalization Studies at Tilburg University. Lubbers explains what caused the 'quantitative shift'...
The far-reaching integration of electronics and computers on the one hand, and communication technology, on the other, led to what Toffler christened "the third wave." And thus today's world came into being....People everywhere were confronted with the effects of the emergence of modern communication technologies and the Sputnik, Soyuz, and Apollo heralded the birth of a new world. CNN and the Internet, global sourcing, electronic capital flows signalled the emergence of the information and communication age. It has been said that the bits provoke one world, accomplishing the globalization of information/communication and technology.
The language of globalisation claims
The globalisation myth has developed its own slang, related to themes in globalisation research...
turmoil, chaos, breakdown, instability, disorder global, globalised, planetary, planetary order, global governance, world consciousness trans-state, transnational, cross-border, borderlands, transgression, boundary erosion, inter-cultural, transcultural multiple actors, multiplicity, multi-voiced, fragmented, break-up, splitting up flow, space of flows, trade volume, stream, link, network, linked by flows
Here is an example of globalisation-speak from Global Cyberculture Reconsidered: Cyberspace, Identity, and the Global Informational City
There are two forces at work in globalization: the spread of the Net internationally follows urban infrastructures, and nations around the world are cooperating in the creation of a global network economy by creating networks of globalized informational cities that require liberalized financial and trade policies.
And the Globalization and World Cities research group declares:
Our mission is to promote a different metageographical image of the world, a space of flows held together by a network of cities. There are a myriad of networks which make up our contemporary world, the Internet, for example, to which you are currently linked to, is an important example. We have chosen to focus upon the network of world cities because it is the most obvious concrete manifestation of a contemporary space of flows which can challenge traditional metageographies.
This language is self-referential: it exists within the world of globalisation research. That is how they talk to one another. Like all slang, it establishes membership of a social group. It is not a guide to the real world.
The logic and evidence of globalisation claims Suppose there was a global state. Suppose the 'Global Self-Sufficient Villages Party' won the global elections. It would implement its policies: it would make the world self-sufficient at local level. In the end, there would be a world of self-sufficient villages, with no inter-local trade - let alone inter-continental trade.
Is this globalisation? Is this global? The answer must be yes, it is at least global. A global state implementing a global policy is global. It is perfectly logical for a global state or society to exist, without the conventional indicators of globalisation. A fully globalised, homogenous, world can be a world of autarkic communities - if that is the global political culture. That applies to any intermediate between autarky and full interaction. If the global norm is to trade 10% of gross National Product, then a fully globalised planet could exist where all states traded 10% of GNP. If the norm is 90%, then it would be 90%. There is no way to infer from the statistic alone, whether the planet is 'globalised' or not. Indicators such as trade volume and trade policy can even be used in logically contradictory ways.
For example, if I discover that nation states are abandoning protectionist polices, is that evidence of globalisation? Supporters of the globalisation thesis will say, that nation states increasingly compete with all other nation states. Trade increases, and protectionism will be abandoned. So, they will say, the trend is evidence of globalisation. But I could equally claim, that protectionism is caused by increasing competition among nation states. So, I could say, that the abandonment of protectionism shows that globalisation has ended.
But what if I discover a trend to protectionist polices? This time the globalisation fans will say, "logical, increasing competition means more protectionism." The conclusion will be reversed to suit the evidence. But I can do that as well. I could say, that protectionism is a symptom of the end of globalisation - after all, it limits trade.
This is just one example of a large class of paradoxes. Many apparently solid statistical indicators of globalisation, can be used as evidence either way. And other evidence may point to the opposite conclusion. International air traffic is growing - but so are regional airlines. Cultural evidence is equally double-sided. The first books published were all in one language, Latin: since then publishing has become increasingly 'local', not global. The number of published languages has increased, not decreased. In the end, there is no point in detailed argument, about trade volumes, capital flows, and information flows. They will never conclusively establish globalisation.
However, supporters of the globalisation thesis continue to quote fabricated and illogical 'evidence'. Any social or economic phenomenon is treated as possible 'evidence' of globalisation. If there is a Chinese restaurant in a town, it shows global culture. If these is no Chinese restaurant, it shows the town is lagging behind in the globalisation process.
Global processes is deliberately confused with global erosion of borders. Trade among nations may be global: that does not mean nations are dissolving in trade. Recent trade flows are used as evidence of recent globalisation, but inter-continental trade has existed for thousands of years. Even the present pattern of all-continent trade is 200 years old. The supporters of the globalisation thesis use nominalist arguments: the label "globalisation" is attached to any cross-border phenomenon. If you call all animals 'Martians', then every day you will see evidence that the Martians have landed.
The claim that there is a globalisation process is endlessly repeated, ignoring historical context. The claimed 'instrument of globalisation' varies from one decade to the next. Some people said the hot air balloon would end borders. But people said the same thing about the telegraph, the railway, the steam ship, wireless telegraphy, the airship, radio, air travel, television, pictures of the world from space, satellite television, CNN, and the Internet. Borders are still here: there are probably more border guards, than at any previous time in history.
So belief in globalisation is like any other belief system. Facts are not necessarily relevant. Some adherents of globalisation share the characteristics of religious cults, especially cults which believe in the end of the world. These apocalyptic cults sometimes announce a date for the end of the world. When the world does not end, their members are not disillusioned: often their belief is reinforced. For the 'true believers' of globalisation, any event can reinforce the belief in globalisation - and nothing can contradict it. Those who do not believe in globalisation, are seen as inferior. Several times people called me "blind", for not believing in globalisation.
The belief / myth / hype of globalisation is probably here for a long time. Belief systems disappear only slowly. As political legitimation, 'globalisation' is useful to many groups: its factual existence is certainly irrelevant in politics.
The nation state
Nation states are one of many possible forms of state. The very existence of a world of nation states, indicates some form of global order of nation states. What these nation states do - trade or no trade, flows or no flows - is irrelevant to that issue. What is already global can not logically be globalised: therefore there is no globalisation. The 'false premise' in the globalisation thesis is the nationalist claim, that nations are separate and particular entities. In fact they are a global and universalist structure: the functional equivalent of a nationalist world state.
The world functions as if a nationalist world government had seized power in the last century, led by Mazzini and Garibaldi and friends. Most existing states were indeed established by nationalist groups. The idea presented in Structures of Nationalism is simple. Nationalists are not competing. They co-operate to maintain one (nationalist) world order and exclude others. The nation state is not a particularity, existing by itself in isolation, but part of a global design.
Consider the issue of sovereignty and multinational corporations (TNC's). A world run by 180 global corporations would mean: no national sovereignty, no national parliaments, no national laws, no national armies. But equally, a world run by 180 nation states means: no women's sovereignty, no women's parliaments, no women's laws, no women's armies. A world run by global corporations is alternative to the world order of nation states. But that order itself is alternative, to a possible world order of gender states. A national parliament could be closed - just as the Austro-Hungarian imperial parliament closed - and replaced by gender parliaments.
Of course, that idea is offensive to nationalists. For them not gender, but the nation, is the fundamental human social order. Therefore, they claim, it should be the unit of state formation: "one people, one government". This claim has no inherent validity - the slogan "one gender, one government" would be equally valid, in logical terms. But historically, nation states were established by logic anyway. Usually, they were a reaction against a former imperial or colonial order. A reaction against globalisation, real or imagined, might sustain the nation state for several more generations.
The 'threat of globalisation' confers no existence rights on a nation state. It does not give national parliaments any more right to exist, than gender parliaments. A person A has no valid claims against person B, simply on the basis of threats from entity C. If the nation state was inherently good, there might be a moral obligation to support it. But no-one is obliged to support the nation state, simply because it is threatened by globalisation, or anything else. In any case, this comparison with a possible alternative world order only emphasises, that nation states have not been 'eroded'. No completely different world order has emerged - as different from the present world, as a world of gender states would be.
If you ignore all these possible worlds, and just look at existing nations, then it is true that cross-border interaction seems important. If you close your eyes to everything except France and Germany, then all you see is France, Germany and Franco-German interaction. The whole universe shrinks to one issue: how much Franco-German interaction? Similarly, if you see the present order of 180 nation states as the only multi-state world order, then you see only two alternative worlds. You see either 180 nation states, or some form of global entity. The supporters of the globalisation thesis have shrunk their field of view in this way. They see 180 nation states, and the interactions among the 180 nation states, and conclude there is globalisation. It is a weak and false logic.
Say globalisation, mean neoliberalism
Most of the confusion about globalisation occurs when nation states pursue neoliberal policies. This is what Tony Blair means, when he talks about the "opportunities" of globalisation - his reaction to the Genoa summit protests. The neoliberal attitude to the national economy is more accurately described as neo-mercantilist. Neoliberals see the nation as an economic unit, competing with other similar units: they often compare the nation to a business firm. Neoliberal economic policies, within the nation state, are designed to meet the needs of this imaginary business - 'Great Britain Limited', 'Deutschland GmbH', 'BV Nederland'.
This does not mean that the nation state is a business firm. That would be impossible within a liberal democracy anyway - it would require a totalitarian level of economic planning. Businesses are not run like nation states, for good reasons - and nation states can probably not be run like a business. Neoliberals also contradict themselves, by insisting that regions and cities should also compete with each other, like business firms. This would make a national economic policy impossible.
What neoliberals promote is a set of social goals, a model of a society arranged for the benefit of the entrepreneur. This is usually called 'competitiveness', a favourite word for Tony Blair and other neoliberal politicians. Economists compile league tables, in which nations are ranked by competitiveness. But this does not mean that nation states are forced to be 'competitive' by some all-powerful global organisation. They are not even forced in a metaphorical sense, by the global market. The 'competitiveness' is an internal policy, a neoliberal social policy. It may not even be competitive. (If it was taken to the extremes suggested by some neoliberals, it would probably cause economic collapse).
So when western political leaders speak positively of globalisation, this is usually what they are talking about. This is usually what the media are talking about, when they use the word 'globalisation'. It has nothing to do with the erosion of the nation state. It also has very little to do with classic market liberalism, which advocates unlimited competition between every single entrepreneur. Classic market liberals would call 'Great Britain Limited' a cartel.
The ideology of 'competitiveness' has everything to do with nationalism. It is a modern version of the old nationalist insistence, that the whole nation should work together. It is a new form of jingoism, chauvinism, flag-waving and foreigner-bashing (particularly suited for Tony Blair). It is not in any way an indicator that a new global order has superseded the order of nation states, or that they have been colonised by global financial institutions.
Who else says there is globalisation?
Three groups have an interest in claiming that globalisation is a reality. Firstly, all kinds of nationalists: globalisation provides a clear enemy, to unite the national group.
The western media image of globalisation is derived largely from anti-globalisation activists. Many are clearly economic nationalists. The opposition of North American labour unions (trade unions) to new free trade zones is an example. In the European Union this is less of an issue, partly because the present EU members have comparable economies, and partly because the EU is long established anyway. (In the EU, economic nationalism takes the form of opposition to EU enlargement, rather than opposition to the EU).
Walden Bello, an anti-globalisation activist from the Philippines, has a comprehensive national alternative to globalisation, which he calls 'de-globalization':
I am not talking about withdrawing from the international economy. I am speaking about reorienting our economies from production for export to the local market....
- about creating a new production and exchange complex that includes community cooperatives, private enterprises, and state enterprises, and excludes transnational corporations (TNCs);
- about enshrining the principle of subsidiarity in economic life by encouraging production of goods to take place at the community and national level...
The Struggle for the Future
This is more than simple protectionism. It implies that the State, business, and community organisations should coordinate their policies, in some form of corporatist society. Economic nationalism and corporatism are often associated: they appeal to business in vulnerable sectors of the economy. It is not true that business is uniformly pro-globalisation - any more than Turkish business uniformly supports EU membership. Even in advanced economies, entrepreneurs often have an interest in presenting globalisation as a threat.
In western Europe, fear of globalisation is used to claim government aid for 'national industries'. Business likes subsidies, and appeals to national pride were a traditional way of getting them, long before the term 'globalisation' was used. Recently the approach has become more sophisticated: the subsidies go not just to one firm, but to whole sectors, or to a large part of the 'national economy'. The businessmen demand the subsidies, but say they are protecting the national standard of living.
However, even the living standards of Britons or Germans are no reason to support the nation state Britain, or the nation state Germany. Activists often claim, that transnational corporations "erode the ability of nation states to regulate their own economies". That does not oblige anyone to support any nation state either. Remember: the nation states themselves eroded the former multi-ethnic empires. That does not oblige anyone to restore these empires.
Nationalists have a long history of appealing to external threats, to enforce national unity. The nation must unite and work together, they said - to defeat the Hun, or the Bolshevik threat, or the Yellow Peril, or the enemy within the gates, or the Cali cartel, or Osama bin Ladin. Appeals to unite in the face of 'globalisation' are in the same dishonourable category. Economic-nationalist propaganda is in the worst nationalist traditions.
A second group claims, that there are good and bad forms of globalisation. They then cast themselves in the role of the 'good globalisers'. Advocates of a global civil society claim it provides the opposition to global neoliberalism. In reality, 'global civil society' is a loose coalition of western (and western-funded) NGO's, who dream of being subsidised by global taxes.
The third group are the normative globalists: the people who want a global society. Usually they want a global state, although they may not call it that. They have an interest in presenting globalisation as an inevitable historical development. This is historicism - political demands based on historical process, real or imagined.
Any global state would have the basic structure of a nation state: unified constitution, laws, parliament, administration, and executive powers. This normative globalism is simply a form of pan-nationalism. For now, the exact form of world government remains a hobby for International Relations theorists: but the claimed process of globalisation can be used to legitimise the idea.
Art, whatever the definition, has certain characteristics. It is equivalent to an entity, perpetuating itself across generations. As a result, it is permanent. Art also implies certain value claims, about the precedence of accumulative creativity over destruction. Permanence and accumulation cannot be ethically legitimised. In practice, there is a stable geo-cultural structure, of ethnic and national art. This structure is not ethically legitimised. The best response is a territorial separation of art.
KABUL, March 1 2001 (AFP via Yahoo News)
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban authorities said Thursday they have started destroying all statues in the country, including the world's tallest standing Buddha statue in the central province of Bamiyan.
"The work started about five hours ago but I do not know how much of it (the Bamiyan Buddhas) has been destroyed," Taliban Information and Culture Minister Qudratullah Jamal told AFP.
"It will be destroyed by every means. All the statues are being destroyed."
The poor, the weak and the oppressed do not speak in defence of art. The voice of art is the voice of privilege. But if that was the only defect of art, then equality would legitimise art. There is not just privilege, there is eternal privilege, for art continues. Art is ancient tradition: worse than privilege. Is it not time to destroy it?
Art is wrong because it is the past, because it perpetuates itself, because it is transgenerational, because it is culture, and because it requires the suppression of anti-art to exist.
People argue about what art is. High art is still contrasted to popular culture. In the 1970's some class theories opposed elitist art. However, in Britain, where Art an Enemy of the People was published in 1978, the response to "high art" was not rejection. It was the demand for subsidies - for community art, minority art, women's art, or art of colour. A similar pattern applies all over western Europe. The existence of art is not an issue. Policy simply accepts art: this is true for artists, for individual governments, and for the European Union. A policy consensus implies a definitional consensus.
Despite the apparent disunity about what constitutes high art or authentic art, there is a deep negative consensus about its nature. This negative consensus is common to all modern societies. Some things are not art, never:
a trans-Sahel railway state formation justice a single European currency.
Seen from this perspective, it is the agreement about Art which is remarkable. Evidently there is something called art: and so to its defects.
The first defect of art is the antiquity of art. Some art is recent, of course, but there is no planned future art. In urban planning, for instance, there are those who plan cities which are not yet built, and those who study urban history. In art, however, there is only art history: art is past-oriented, almost by definition. Art is tens of thousands of years old. There is an immense volume of art from the past, even though most works of art are destroyed deliberately (of that, more later). The sacrality of art is a sacrality of the past.
Art perpetuates itself. True, this is a reification, but it is an accurate one. It is the actions of people which perpetuate art: but the effect for the opponents of art is as if art defended itself. I will use here exactly the same metaphor and analogy, that I used to describe the defects of sustainability, the ethic of eternal structures.
Compare the lives of two twins, born in identical circumstances. However, one is pro-art, the other is anti-art. The pro-art twin can go to art school, or study art history. There is no equivalent for the anti-art twin: no school of art incineration. Great social pressure to accept art is applied to one twin. No similar pressure to accept art-destruction is applied to the other twin. Because art is a core value in all existing societies, the social and employment opportunities of the anti-art twin will be limited. It is also the pro-art twin who is more likely to be elected or appointed to political office.
The value attached to art limits the opportunity of its opponents to take action against it. In this way art is a self-preserving structure. It is like a religion, whose adherents systematically discriminate non-believers: if such a religion is in a majority, it will constantly improve its position of power.
The strength and functioning of this self-preserving structure can be appreciated, by imagining that there was no art, and no pro-art structures. Transferring from an art-free world into the existing world, can be compared to transferring from this world, into a world objectionably different. Cannibalism is a useful characteristic for this comparison, because it is almost universally taboo. Being transferred into a cannibal world, from this world, would be extremely unpleasant for most people. They would be forced to accept that something they abhor is a normal part of society: that there is apparently no possibility of reform, since everyone accepts it as normal. This is the situation for opponents of art in the existing world.
Art also perpetuates itself in a more indirect way. Art is often described as human endeavour or achievement, and it is indeed a product of human activity. People are encouraged to consider art as a valued activity, to the exclusion of other activity. In many cultures it is regarded as a high form of achievement: that in itself is a valuing of conservatism. Artists strive to produce good art, but what they produce is art, because the activity takes place only in an art framework, a framework that already exists. It is accurate to say that art is conformity in itself, since artists must conform to the norm of what art is. That norm will vary across cultures and in time, but only in the limiting case that everything is accepted as art, does it cease to be restrictive. In practice, creative approaches to non-art areas are often socially un-accepted, or considered strange.
Art is transgenerational and open-ended. It perpetuates itself in the structural form described above, but art cannot be otherwise. So long as art is in opposition to iconoclasm, for instance, then there is a difference in the value socially ascribed to activities. In almost all cases (and certainly in modern societies) the accepted pattern is, that creation takes place by accumulation only. Iconoclasm (in the broad sense of art destruction) is defined as a non-creative act.
There is no inherent logical basis for the restriction of creativity to accumulation. However, it is the form art takes, and that form is socially accepted. Although there are millions of paintings already, painting a new one is defined as a creative activity. Reducing the existing stock is not. Destruction is not considered of equal value to creation.
On the contrary, destruction of art is considered a crime, and a sign of mental illness. Entering a museum and destroying a painting is considered shocking. Such acts are widely reported in the media, if they affect well-known works of art. This cannot be logically derived from a sacred status. In religious activity, sacred is not always permanent. Sacrificial animals were killed in some religions, offerings were burnt. It would be logically possible to treat art like this, but that does not occur. Art is not just sacred, its own accumulation is sacred, its permanence is sacred.
The continuance of art is therefore inherent in art. Art is for ever. That which can not end, is wrong, and must be ended. Permanence of any entity constitutes a claim to all time for its existence, specifically against its non-existence. Claims to time are contra-ethical or morally arbitrary: one state (existence of art) is favoured over another (non-existence of art) merely because it happened to exist first. It is possible to claim value for firstness or primacy (as nationalist organisations of indigenous peoples do), but this cannot be logically derived. It is itself an arbitrary value.
The transmission of art also requires, that injustice be done to done who oppose it. Their opposition is valid, since there is no moral ground for the permanence of art, yet they are discriminated against, as indicated above. Some employers, perhaps almost all, would refuse a job to anyone who openly advocated the destruction of art. If such injustice is a necessary condition of art, and there is no other legitimation of its existence, then the existence of art is an injustice, and should be terminated.
Just or unjust, self-perpetuating cycles and transgenerational structures, are contra-ethical. Art perpetuates itself, by accumulation, and the transmission of the value of this accumulation. Cultures include, over generations, reverence for the permanence of art. More than this, art perpetuates the transmission of culture including itself. Art is a central aspect of many cultures.
This permanence of art has been described here in abstract terms. In practice some real destruction of art does take place. The place of art in culture determines this: real art is ethnic art, or national art. Art that disappears, has lost its central place in an existing culture - usually because that culture itself has disappeared. The second part of this article, about cultures and art, is less abstract and more political.
There exists a geo-cultural structure, approximately corresponding to geopolitical structures. In practice, people refer daily to English culture, or French culture, to ancient Egyptian art, to Brazilian art, or to the art of the Islamic world. The entities of this geo-cultural structure may be cultures of nation states, of ethnic groups, of regions, or of larger entities called world-cultures or civilisations. They may overlap, in fact they usually do, but that does not mean there is no structure.
The complexity of culture is sometimes used to deny its rigid and structural nature. However, internal complexity can be great, and yet exclude external complexity. The possible moves in a game of chess are astronomically large, yet all chess games are chess games.
Consider a simple model, with unitary cultures of tribes. Tribe A invades the land of tribe B. Soon, within culture B there are pro-A collaborative cultural tendencies, there are anti-A "B nationalists", there are A+B "multi-culturalists", their opponents in A, and B, who oppose cultural mixing, and B revanchists. The land of A+B then invades the land of C. Now, in this land C, there pro-A collaborators, pro-B collaborators, pro A+B collaborators. There are anti-A "C nationalists", anti-B "C nationalists", and anti A+B "C nationalists". And more: even at this level, the multiplying combinations exceed simple factorials.
In the past there were thousands of cultures, associated with thousand of peoples. By some estimates, there still are. Combinations of their interactions can generate an immense diversity of culture. Yet, none of that culture will be anything other than a combination of unitary cultures of geopolitical entities.
There is every reason to believe that this is an accurate model of human culture and art: apparent diversity is hiding a huge range of possibilities which do not fit the existing geo-cultural model. This applies to art as well. The implication of this is, that the models of culture developed in anthropology in the 1940's and 1950's are accurate. (In fact these models reflect the general use of national or ethnic terms to describe culture).
These models were often linked to the idea of culture growth and decay, and similar organic or life-cycle metaphors. Their basis, however, was the idea of a unitary culture corresponding to some geopolitical entity. A. L. Kroeber's 1944 Configurations of Culture Growth is a classic work of this kind. In 1959 Rushton Coulborn could still take this approach to cultures or civilisations:
The style of a civilization is perceived as its aesthetic aspect: it is exhibited in everything the society produces and does, pre-eminently in its arts, but also in its thought, its politics, its institutions, its traditions, and in all its ways. It is possible to qualify a society's style, to comment upon it, to judge it even, yet hardly to describe it. It is the Chineseness" of what is Chinese, the "Egyptianness" of what is Egyptian, the "Westernness of what is Western. Since that time, this approach has disappeared from mainstream anthropology, only to reappear in the last 10 years, under the influence of ethnic studies. An Afro-centric approach to art history, for instance, implies almost by definition a geo-cultural structure.
Why pretend, that there is no such a thing as African art, or English art? Partly because such approaches were discredited by their association with Nazi Germany, or at least with Oswald Spengler and organic-social models of cultural history. But it was a common approach to history in the 1920's and 1930s, and is now "rehabilitated" by the interest in ethnicity and identity. The model is cyclically in and out of academic fashion.
In any case, this approach is still, and always has been, the accepted approach in art history. Any introduction to art history (for students in Europe) will present the standard sequence of styles in Europe: Romanesque, gothic, renaissance, baroque, rococo, neo-classicism. After that comes a section on Islamic Art, or Oriental Art, which are assumed to have their own style sequence. In this case, the academic wisdom seems to be right.
In the end it cannot be proved that there is a geo-cultural structure of this kind: that is too much a question of interpretation. However, it does seem extremely difficult to take the opposite position, that no culture or art is in any way associated with any particular people, culture, or territory.
In turn, this suggests an explanation of art: it is hyper-ethnic. Art is that within a culture which most approaches the core of that culture, and is least accessible to outsiders. Art is the visible soul of the people, just as nationalists say. The question is, whether that gives it existence rights. It is here that the manipulation of art-historical theory in defence of art must be noted. If art is associated with peoples, it can be associated with their state, and so with the policies of that state - which may be unacceptable for many. Yet art never suffers from attribution of guilt by association: definitions are manipulated, to absolve it.
If a person who is clearly a German Nazi, insists on the existence of a German art, and indicates clearly which works of art are German, what is in that circumstance anti-Nazism? The non-Nazi defenders of art deny the truth of the claims: they say the possession of art must be disputed. They would probably say, that in this case anti-Nazism consists in claiming that art belongs to all humanity: that it is universal. This opposition between Nazism and universality cannot, however, justify the existence of art.
The alternative anti-Nazi position is to accept the claims as true, and destroy the German art, which the Nazi person has so conveniently listed. Not just Nazi Germans produce such specifications: there are official lists of national art heritage, in most states in Europe. They are not intended for the convenience of anti-nationalist iconoclasts, but they can serve that purpose.
If art is national, then it can have no legitimacy other than within the values of nationalism. If all art is national then it is legitimate to destroy it, if anti-nationalism is itself legitimate. This legitimacy of destruction extends beyond nation states, to a geo-cultural structure in general. A geo-cultural structure is merely one of many possible structures. The present structure is complex, but not self-legitimising. It is legitimate to oppose pan-Africanism as a form of nationalism, and for instance, to destroy African art for that goal. Equally, it is legitimate to oppose a geo-cultural planetary structure that includes all art, and in doing so to destroy all art.
Why not? Art is being destroyed all the time. So long as there has been art, it has been destroyed. In reality, the sacrality of art applies mainly to "our art", not to "their art". If pan-Africanism, in 10 years time, is regarded as a form of imperialism oppressing the regional identities of the continent, then perhaps people will burn portraits of Nkrumah. 20 years ago, statues of Lenin were art in part of Berlin. Now they are considered "propaganda of the unjust SED state". 60 years ago, statues of Hitler were art in Berlin: now public display of any Nazi symbol is illegal. Today, art in Germany means for instance statues of Konrad Adenauer, the pro-western post-war Chancellor.
The only constant seems to be, that art serves privilege, the nation state, the powerful, the established, the unjust. In general, art serves the existing, which is exactly what is consistent with a self-perpetuating social structure.
It is acceptable to oppose art in general, and specific national, regional, world-cultural, or civilisational art. However, there is no wide support for the break-up of the geo-cultural structure. The values of that structure itself are incompatible with its reform or abolition. It can however be limited in its effects.
I therefore propose territorial separation of art. Formally, the best course would be to destroy existing art, then choose if the planet was to be art-provided or art-free. However, there is no prospect of any global agreement on this. Art will be in opposition to non-art, inherently.
Specifically, I propose that the United States of America should become a zone of art. The existing cultural preference in the USA for collecting art, (especially from Europe) should be expanded into a prime function of state.
Art should be transferred from Europe to the USA, beginning with the art listed in national heritage lists, and with recognised European heritage. I propose as an initial step, the transfer of the Mona Lisa, the best known European artwork, to the USA. The Mona Lisa is old, and heritage. It is better, that the past should burden the USA, than burden Europe. All artists, and those who wish to continue employment in the art sector, should be transferred to the USA.
Any attempt at such a transfer would probably result in military intervention in support of art, perhaps by the USA. However, the nature of such a military intervention is outside the scope of this article. In any case, it is probably true that, given the fundamental opposition between art and its destruction, military conflict is inevitable in the long term.
Taylor, R. Art an Enemy of the People. Hassocks: Harvester 1978.
Kroeber, A. L. Configurations of Culture Growth. Berkeley: University of California Press 1944. Coulborn, R. The Origin of Civilized Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1959. (Quote, p. 22).
Logically, there can be no process of globalisation in a world order of nation states. A world order is already global, by definition. The logic of 'globalisation' is false, but the idea has become an ideology. For different reasons, different people claim that there is globalisation. The word "globalisation" started as an academic and media hype. Just when it was going out of fashion, the 1999 Seattle summit revived media attention for the issue. Pro-globalisation and anti-globalisation ideologies (and movements) have emerged. That fact remains, that the underlying 'globalisation' process simply does not exist. People are often talking about something else - about neoliberalism or about normative globalism, for instance.
Is there globalisation? Nation states still dominate the social and economic structures of this planet. But nation states are themselves a global order - a specific arrangement of a specific type of state. Globalisation only appears logical, if you see nation states as isolated islands, but that is not the historical reality.
Supporters of the globalisation thesis claim, that a world of isolated nation states existed in the recent past. Perhaps before 1989, or more approximately, before 1950. They claim that these isolated nation states are now being eroded, in a global process. This thesis is often presented as a absolute truth, which globalisation researchers have discovered. Academic snobbism is important in sustaining globalisation research, especially since the thesis appeals to both the right and the left. People are considered stupid, if they question globalisation.
Saskia Sassen, who uses globalisation as a "negative future" to promote a global civil society, summarises the logic. (In: Losing Control: Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization, Columbia University Press 1996).
Economic globalization represents a major transformation in the territorial organization of economic activity and politico-economic power....The sovereignty of the modern state was concentrated in mutually exclusive territories and the concentration of sovereignty in nations...economic globalization has contributed to a denationalizing of national territory... But nations are not mutually exclusive. Every existing nation state, supports the division of the world into nation states. Even a total surrender of national sovereignty to another nation, does not de-nationalise territory. When nations re-unite, for instance, states can completely disappear. At some future date, Moldova (Moldavia) might accede to Romania. That would mean the state Moldova completely ceased to exist: but that would not mean the end of nations. In fact it would be a victory for the nationalistic 'Greater Romania' ideal. Another example: the Republic of Ireland has abandoned its claim to sovereignty over Northern Ireland. However, a future majority in Northern Ireland might wants to accede to the Republic of Ireland. In those circumstances, the United Kingdom has said it will abandon its claim to the territory. Yet, either way, there are still two nation states in the British Isles. The border might shift, but the nation state as such does not disappear in such cases.
The relevant question, at global level, is whether the global order of nation states is disappearing - anywhere. And there is no collapse of the nation state, in the face of globalisation. Nation states have not suffered anything comparable to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman empires. All that remains of these empires, are oversized palaces in Vienna and Istanbul. The rest of their institutions have completely disappeared: there is not a square millimetre of Habsburg or Ottoman territory left in Europe. There is no longer an Austro-Hungarian imperial army, or police, or courts, of universities. The nation states succeeded the multi-ethnic empires, and seized all their territory. The replacement was total.
But where is the so-called 'collapse' of the nation state visible? There are very few places on earth where there are no institutions of a nation state - perhaps in Somalia, but that is not the result of globalization. If the world was truly 'globalised' then it would be full of disused national parliament buildings - and not a national army in sight. The world is not like that, and will not be like that, in the immediate future. In other words, 'globalisation' remains a hype - pure hype and not reality.
Anti-nationalists know this, better than anyone else. So people who claim that 'globalisation' is eroding nations are in any case not anti-nationalists. At worst, the opposite: they are simply nationalists. The globalisation hype can be a form of nationalist propaganda.
The popular globalisation myth
A popular version of the globalisation myth has existed for about 10 years. It claims that until 1989, the world consisted of separate, sovereign, autonomous nation states, with separate histories. Then, borders collapsed, the internet appeared, but also the international Mafia. So now it is a dangerous world, but also perhaps full of opportunities.
You can find this version, almost literally, in Ruud Lubbers' article The Globalization of Economy and Society (now offline):
The term "globalization" implies that the becoming and making worldwide of various phenomena has accelerated at such a pace that it is giving rise to a variety of new phenomena. Globalization entails a quantitative shift of several autonomous national economies to a global marketplace for production, distribution, and technology. All this has resulted in the emergence of a worldwide confrontation of political, societal, and ethical insights...
Lubbers was a former Netherlands premier, and is now UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He filled the time between these posts as a Professor of Globalization Studies at Tilburg University. Lubbers explains what caused the 'quantitative shift'...
The far-reaching integration of electronics and computers on the one hand, and communication technology, on the other, led to what Toffler christened "the third wave." And thus today's world came into being....People everywhere were confronted with the effects of the emergence of modern communication technologies and the Sputnik, Soyuz, and Apollo heralded the birth of a new world. CNN and the Internet, global sourcing, electronic capital flows signalled the emergence of the information and communication age. It has been said that the bits provoke one world, accomplishing the globalization of information/communication and technology.
The language of globalisation claims
The globalisation myth has developed its own slang, related to themes in globalisation research...
turmoil, chaos, breakdown, instability, disorder global, globalised, planetary, planetary order, global governance, world consciousness trans-state, transnational, cross-border, borderlands, transgression, boundary erosion, inter-cultural, transcultural multiple actors, multiplicity, multi-voiced, fragmented, break-up, splitting up flow, space of flows, trade volume, stream, link, network, linked by flows
Here is an example of globalisation-speak from Global Cyberculture Reconsidered: Cyberspace, Identity, and the Global Informational City
There are two forces at work in globalization: the spread of the Net internationally follows urban infrastructures, and nations around the world are cooperating in the creation of a global network economy by creating networks of globalized informational cities that require liberalized financial and trade policies.
And the Globalization and World Cities research group declares:
Our mission is to promote a different metageographical image of the world, a space of flows held together by a network of cities. There are a myriad of networks which make up our contemporary world, the Internet, for example, to which you are currently linked to, is an important example. We have chosen to focus upon the network of world cities because it is the most obvious concrete manifestation of a contemporary space of flows which can challenge traditional metageographies.
This language is self-referential: it exists within the world of globalisation research. That is how they talk to one another. Like all slang, it establishes membership of a social group. It is not a guide to the real world.
The logic and evidence of globalisation claims Suppose there was a global state. Suppose the 'Global Self-Sufficient Villages Party' won the global elections. It would implement its policies: it would make the world self-sufficient at local level. In the end, there would be a world of self-sufficient villages, with no inter-local trade - let alone inter-continental trade.
Is this globalisation? Is this global? The answer must be yes, it is at least global. A global state implementing a global policy is global. It is perfectly logical for a global state or society to exist, without the conventional indicators of globalisation. A fully globalised, homogenous, world can be a world of autarkic communities - if that is the global political culture. That applies to any intermediate between autarky and full interaction. If the global norm is to trade 10% of gross National Product, then a fully globalised planet could exist where all states traded 10% of GNP. If the norm is 90%, then it would be 90%. There is no way to infer from the statistic alone, whether the planet is 'globalised' or not. Indicators such as trade volume and trade policy can even be used in logically contradictory ways.
For example, if I discover that nation states are abandoning protectionist polices, is that evidence of globalisation? Supporters of the globalisation thesis will say, that nation states increasingly compete with all other nation states. Trade increases, and protectionism will be abandoned. So, they will say, the trend is evidence of globalisation. But I could equally claim, that protectionism is caused by increasing competition among nation states. So, I could say, that the abandonment of protectionism shows that globalisation has ended.
But what if I discover a trend to protectionist polices? This time the globalisation fans will say, "logical, increasing competition means more protectionism." The conclusion will be reversed to suit the evidence. But I can do that as well. I could say, that protectionism is a symptom of the end of globalisation - after all, it limits trade.
This is just one example of a large class of paradoxes. Many apparently solid statistical indicators of globalisation, can be used as evidence either way. And other evidence may point to the opposite conclusion. International air traffic is growing - but so are regional airlines. Cultural evidence is equally double-sided. The first books published were all in one language, Latin: since then publishing has become increasingly 'local', not global. The number of published languages has increased, not decreased. In the end, there is no point in detailed argument, about trade volumes, capital flows, and information flows. They will never conclusively establish globalisation.
However, supporters of the globalisation thesis continue to quote fabricated and illogical 'evidence'. Any social or economic phenomenon is treated as possible 'evidence' of globalisation. If there is a Chinese restaurant in a town, it shows global culture. If these is no Chinese restaurant, it shows the town is lagging behind in the globalisation process.
Global processes is deliberately confused with global erosion of borders. Trade among nations may be global: that does not mean nations are dissolving in trade. Recent trade flows are used as evidence of recent globalisation, but inter-continental trade has existed for thousands of years. Even the present pattern of all-continent trade is 200 years old. The supporters of the globalisation thesis use nominalist arguments: the label "globalisation" is attached to any cross-border phenomenon. If you call all animals 'Martians', then every day you will see evidence that the Martians have landed.
The claim that there is a globalisation process is endlessly repeated, ignoring historical context. The claimed 'instrument of globalisation' varies from one decade to the next. Some people said the hot air balloon would end borders. But people said the same thing about the telegraph, the railway, the steam ship, wireless telegraphy, the airship, radio, air travel, television, pictures of the world from space, satellite television, CNN, and the Internet. Borders are still here: there are probably more border guards, than at any previous time in history.
So belief in globalisation is like any other belief system. Facts are not necessarily relevant. Some adherents of globalisation share the characteristics of religious cults, especially cults which believe in the end of the world. These apocalyptic cults sometimes announce a date for the end of the world. When the world does not end, their members are not disillusioned: often their belief is reinforced. For the 'true believers' of globalisation, any event can reinforce the belief in globalisation - and nothing can contradict it. Those who do not believe in globalisation, are seen as inferior. Several times people called me "blind", for not believing in globalisation.
The belief / myth / hype of globalisation is probably here for a long time. Belief systems disappear only slowly. As political legitimation, 'globalisation' is useful to many groups: its factual existence is certainly irrelevant in politics.
The nation state
Nation states are one of many possible forms of state. The very existence of a world of nation states, indicates some form of global order of nation states. What these nation states do - trade or no trade, flows or no flows - is irrelevant to that issue. What is already global can not logically be globalised: therefore there is no globalisation. The 'false premise' in the globalisation thesis is the nationalist claim, that nations are separate and particular entities. In fact they are a global and universalist structure: the functional equivalent of a nationalist world state.
The world functions as if a nationalist world government had seized power in the last century, led by Mazzini and Garibaldi and friends. Most existing states were indeed established by nationalist groups. The idea presented in Structures of Nationalism is simple. Nationalists are not competing. They co-operate to maintain one (nationalist) world order and exclude others. The nation state is not a particularity, existing by itself in isolation, but part of a global design.
Consider the issue of sovereignty and multinational corporations (TNC's). A world run by 180 global corporations would mean: no national sovereignty, no national parliaments, no national laws, no national armies. But equally, a world run by 180 nation states means: no women's sovereignty, no women's parliaments, no women's laws, no women's armies. A world run by global corporations is alternative to the world order of nation states. But that order itself is alternative, to a possible world order of gender states. A national parliament could be closed - just as the Austro-Hungarian imperial parliament closed - and replaced by gender parliaments.
Of course, that idea is offensive to nationalists. For them not gender, but the nation, is the fundamental human social order. Therefore, they claim, it should be the unit of state formation: "one people, one government". This claim has no inherent validity - the slogan "one gender, one government" would be equally valid, in logical terms. But historically, nation states were established by logic anyway. Usually, they were a reaction against a former imperial or colonial order. A reaction against globalisation, real or imagined, might sustain the nation state for several more generations.
The 'threat of globalisation' confers no existence rights on a nation state. It does not give national parliaments any more right to exist, than gender parliaments. A person A has no valid claims against person B, simply on the basis of threats from entity C. If the nation state was inherently good, there might be a moral obligation to support it. But no-one is obliged to support the nation state, simply because it is threatened by globalisation, or anything else. In any case, this comparison with a possible alternative world order only emphasises, that nation states have not been 'eroded'. No completely different world order has emerged - as different from the present world, as a world of gender states would be.
If you ignore all these possible worlds, and just look at existing nations, then it is true that cross-border interaction seems important. If you close your eyes to everything except France and Germany, then all you see is France, Germany and Franco-German interaction. The whole universe shrinks to one issue: how much Franco-German interaction? Similarly, if you see the present order of 180 nation states as the only multi-state world order, then you see only two alternative worlds. You see either 180 nation states, or some form of global entity. The supporters of the globalisation thesis have shrunk their field of view in this way. They see 180 nation states, and the interactions among the 180 nation states, and conclude there is globalisation. It is a weak and false logic.
Say globalisation, mean neoliberalism
Most of the confusion about globalisation occurs when nation states pursue neoliberal policies. This is what Tony Blair means, when he talks about the "opportunities" of globalisation - his reaction to the Genoa summit protests. The neoliberal attitude to the national economy is more accurately described as neo-mercantilist. Neoliberals see the nation as an economic unit, competing with other similar units: they often compare the nation to a business firm. Neoliberal economic policies, within the nation state, are designed to meet the needs of this imaginary business - 'Great Britain Limited', 'Deutschland GmbH', 'BV Nederland'.
This does not mean that the nation state is a business firm. That would be impossible within a liberal democracy anyway - it would require a totalitarian level of economic planning. Businesses are not run like nation states, for good reasons - and nation states can probably not be run like a business. Neoliberals also contradict themselves, by insisting that regions and cities should also compete with each other, like business firms. This would make a national economic policy impossible.
What neoliberals promote is a set of social goals, a model of a society arranged for the benefit of the entrepreneur. This is usually called 'competitiveness', a favourite word for Tony Blair and other neoliberal politicians. Economists compile league tables, in which nations are ranked by competitiveness. But this does not mean that nation states are forced to be 'competitive' by some all-powerful global organisation. They are not even forced in a metaphorical sense, by the global market. The 'competitiveness' is an internal policy, a neoliberal social policy. It may not even be competitive. (If it was taken to the extremes suggested by some neoliberals, it would probably cause economic collapse).
So when western political leaders speak positively of globalisation, this is usually what they are talking about. This is usually what the media are talking about, when they use the word 'globalisation'. It has nothing to do with the erosion of the nation state. It also has very little to do with classic market liberalism, which advocates unlimited competition between every single entrepreneur. Classic market liberals would call 'Great Britain Limited' a cartel.
The ideology of 'competitiveness' has everything to do with nationalism. It is a modern version of the old nationalist insistence, that the whole nation should work together. It is a new form of jingoism, chauvinism, flag-waving and foreigner-bashing (particularly suited for Tony Blair). It is not in any way an indicator that a new global order has superseded the order of nation states, or that they have been colonised by global financial institutions.
Who else says there is globalisation?
Three groups have an interest in claiming that globalisation is a reality. Firstly, all kinds of nationalists: globalisation provides a clear enemy, to unite the national group.
The western media image of globalisation is derived largely from anti-globalisation activists. Many are clearly economic nationalists. The opposition of North American labour unions (trade unions) to new free trade zones is an example. In the European Union this is less of an issue, partly because the present EU members have comparable economies, and partly because the EU is long established anyway. (In the EU, economic nationalism takes the form of opposition to EU enlargement, rather than opposition to the EU).
Walden Bello, an anti-globalisation activist from the Philippines, has a comprehensive national alternative to globalisation, which he calls 'de-globalization':
I am not talking about withdrawing from the international economy. I am speaking about reorienting our economies from production for export to the local market....
- about creating a new production and exchange complex that includes community cooperatives, private enterprises, and state enterprises, and excludes transnational corporations (TNCs);
- about enshrining the principle of subsidiarity in economic life by encouraging production of goods to take place at the community and national level...
The Struggle for the Future
This is more than simple protectionism. It implies that the State, business, and community organisations should coordinate their policies, in some form of corporatist society. Economic nationalism and corporatism are often associated: they appeal to business in vulnerable sectors of the economy. It is not true that business is uniformly pro-globalisation - any more than Turkish business uniformly supports EU membership. Even in advanced economies, entrepreneurs often have an interest in presenting globalisation as a threat.
In western Europe, fear of globalisation is used to claim government aid for 'national industries'. Business likes subsidies, and appeals to national pride were a traditional way of getting them, long before the term 'globalisation' was used. Recently the approach has become more sophisticated: the subsidies go not just to one firm, but to whole sectors, or to a large part of the 'national economy'. The businessmen demand the subsidies, but say they are protecting the national standard of living.
However, even the living standards of Britons or Germans are no reason to support the nation state Britain, or the nation state Germany. Activists often claim, that transnational corporations "erode the ability of nation states to regulate their own economies". That does not oblige anyone to support any nation state either. Remember: the nation states themselves eroded the former multi-ethnic empires. That does not oblige anyone to restore these empires.
Nationalists have a long history of appealing to external threats, to enforce national unity. The nation must unite and work together, they said - to defeat the Hun, or the Bolshevik threat, or the Yellow Peril, or the enemy within the gates, or the Cali cartel, or Osama bin Ladin. Appeals to unite in the face of 'globalisation' are in the same dishonourable category. Economic-nationalist propaganda is in the worst nationalist traditions.
A second group claims, that there are good and bad forms of globalisation. They then cast themselves in the role of the 'good globalisers'. Advocates of a global civil society claim it provides the opposition to global neoliberalism. In reality, 'global civil society' is a loose coalition of western (and western-funded) NGO's, who dream of being subsidised by global taxes.
The third group are the normative globalists: the people who want a global society. Usually they want a global state, although they may not call it that. They have an interest in presenting globalisation as an inevitable historical development. This is historicism - political demands based on historical process, real or imagined.
Any global state would have the basic structure of a nation state: un
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SHOULD ART BE DESTROYED?
by Paul Treanor
Art, whatever the definition, has certain characteristics. It is equivalent to an entity, perpetuating itself across generations. As a result, it is permanent. Art also implies certain value claims, about the precedence of accumulative creativity over destruction. Permanence and accumulation cannot be ethically legitimised. In practice, there is a stable geo-cultural structure, of ethnic and national art. This structure is not ethically legitimised. The best response is a territorial separation of art.
KABUL, March 1 2001 (AFP via Yahoo News)
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The poor, the weak and the oppressed do not speak in defence of art. The voice of art is the voice of privilege. But if that was the only defect of art, then equality would legitimise art. There is not just privilege, there is eternal privilege, for art continues. Art is ancient tradition: worse than privilege. Is it not time to destroy it?
Art is wrong because it is the past, because it perpetuates itself, because it is transgenerational, because it is culture, and because it requires the suppression of anti-art to exist.
People argue about what art is. High art is still contrasted to popular culture. In the 1970's some class theories opposed elitist art. However, in Britain, where Art an Enemy of the People was published in 1978, the response to "high art" was not rejection. It was the demand for subsidies - for community art, minority art, women's art, or art of colour. A similar pattern applies all over western Europe. The existence of art is not an issue. Policy simply accepts art: this is true for artists, for individual governments, and for the European Union. A policy consensus implies a definitional consensus.
Despite the apparent disunity about what constitutes high art or authentic art, there is a deep negative consensus about its nature. This negative consensus is common to all modern societies. Some things are not art, never:
a trans-Sahel railway
state formation
justice
a single European currency.
Seen from this perspective, it is the agreement about Art which is remarkable. Evidently there is something called art: and so to its defects.
The first defect of art is the antiquity of art. Some art is recent, of course, but there is no planned future art. In urban planning, for instance, there are those who plan cities which are not yet built, and those who study urban history. In art, however, there is only art history: art is past-oriented, almost by definition. Art is tens of thousands of years old. There is an immense volume of art from the past, even though most works of art are destroyed deliberately (of that, more later). The sacrality of art is a sacrality of the past.
Art perpetuates itself. True, this is a reification, but it is an accurate one. It is the actions of people which perpetuate art: but the effect for the opponents of art is as if art defended itself. I will use here exactly the same metaphor and analogy, that I used to describe the defects of sustainability, the ethic of eternal structures.
Compare the lives of two twins, born in identical circumstances. However, one is pro-art, the other is anti-art. The pro-art twin can go to art school, or study art history. There is no equivalent for the anti-art twin: no school of art incineration. Great social pressure to accept art is applied to one twin. No similar pressure to accept art-destruction is applied to the other twin. Because art is a core value in all existing societies, the social and employment opportunities of the anti-art twin will be limited. It is also the pro-art twin who is more likely to be elected or appointed to political office.
The value attached to art limits the opportunity of its opponents to take action against it. In this way art is a self-preserving structure. It is like a religion, whose adherents systematically discriminate non-believers: if such a religion is in a majority, it will constantly improve its position of power.
The strength and functioning of this self-preserving structure can be appreciated, by imagining that there was no art, and no pro-art structures. Transferring from an art-free world into the existing world, can be compared to transferring from this world, into a world objectionably different. Cannibalism is a useful characteristic for this comparison, because it is almost universally taboo. Being transferred into a cannibal world, from this world, would be extremely unpleasant for most people. They would be forced to accept that something they abhor is a normal part of society: that there is apparently no possibility of reform, since everyone accepts it as normal. This is the situation for opponents of art in the existing world.
Art also perpetuates itself in a more indirect way. Art is often described as human endeavour or achievement, and it is indeed a product of human activity. People are encouraged to consider art as a valued activity, to the exclusion of other activity. In many cultures it is regarded as a high form of achievement: that in itself is a valuing of conservatism. Artists strive to produce good art, but what they produce is art, because the activity takes place only in an art framework, a framework that already exists. It is accurate to say that art is conformity in itself, since artists must conform to the norm of what art is. That norm will vary across cultures and in time, but only in the limiting case that everything is accepted as art, does it cease to be restrictive. In practice, creative approaches to non-art areas are often socially un-accepted, or considered strange.
Art is transgenerational and open-ended. It perpetuates itself in the structural form described above, but art cannot be otherwise. So long as art is in opposition to iconoclasm, for instance, then there is a difference in the value socially ascribed to activities. In almost all cases (and certainly in modern societies) the accepted pattern is, that creation takes place by accumulation only. Iconoclasm (in the broad sense of art destruction) is defined as a non-creative act.
There is no inherent logical basis for the restriction of creativity to accumulation. However, it is the form art takes, and that form is socially accepted. Although there are millions of paintings already, painting a new one is defined as a creative activity. Reducing the existing stock is not. Destruction is not considered of equal value to creation.
On the contrary, destruction of art is considered a crime, and a sign of mental illness. Entering a museum and destroying a painting is considered shocking. Such acts are widely reported in the media, if they affect well-known works of art. This cannot be logically derived from a sacred status. In religious activity, sacred is not always permanent. Sacrificial animals were killed in some religions, offerings were burnt. It would be logically possible to treat art like this, but that does not occur. Art is not just sacred, its own accumulation is sacred, its permanence is sacred.
The continuance of art is therefore inherent in art. Art is for ever. That which can not end, is wrong, and must be ended. Permanence of any entity constitutes a claim to all time for its existence, specifically against its non-existence. Claims to time are contra-ethical or morally arbitrary: one state (existence of art) is favoured over another (non-existence of art) merely because it happened to exist first. It is possible to claim value for firstness or primacy (as nationalist organisations of indigenous peoples do), but this cannot be logically derived. It is itself an arbitrary value.
The transmission of art also requires, that injustice be done to done who oppose it. Their opposition is valid, since there is no moral ground for the permanence of art, yet they are discriminated against, as indicated above. Some employers, perhaps almost all, would refuse a job to anyone who openly advocated the destruction of art. If such injustice is a necessary condition of art, and there is no other legitimation of its existence, then the existence of art is an injustice, and should be terminated.
Just or unjust, self-perpetuating cycles and transgenerational structures, are contra-ethical. Art perpetuates itself, by accumulation, and the transmission of the value of this accumulation. Cultures include, over generations, reverence for the permanence of art. More than this, art perpetuates the transmission of culture including itself. Art is a central aspect of many cultures.
This permanence of art has been described here in abstract terms. In practice some real destruction of art does take place. The place of art in culture determines this: real art is ethnic art, or national art. Art that disappears, has lost its central place in an existing culture - usually because that culture itself has disappeared. The second part of this article, about cultures and art, is less abstract and more political.
There exists a geo-cultural structure, approximately corresponding to geopolitical structures. In practice, people refer daily to English culture, or French culture, to ancient Egyptian art, to Brazilian art, or to the art of the Islamic world. The entities of this geo-cultural structure may be cultures of nation states, of ethnic groups, of regions, or of larger entities called world-cultures or civilisations. They may overlap, in fact they usually do, but that does not mean there is no structure.
The complexity of culture is sometimes used to deny its rigid and structural nature. However, internal complexity can be great, and yet exclude external complexity. The possible moves in a game of chess are astronomically large, yet all chess games are chess games.
Consider a simple model, with unitary cultures of tribes. Tribe A invades the land of tribe B. Soon, within culture B there are pro-A collaborative cultural tendencies, there are anti-A "B nationalists", there are A+B "multi-culturalists", their opponents in A, and B, who oppose cultural mixing, and B revanchists. The land of A+B then invades the land of C. Now, in this land C, there pro-A collaborators, pro-B collaborators, pro A+B collaborators. There are anti-A "C nationalists", anti-B "C nationalists", and anti A+B "C nationalists". And more: even at this level, the multiplying combinations exceed simple factorials.
In the past there were thousands of cultures, associated with thousand of peoples. By some estimates, there still are. Combinations of their interactions can generate an immense diversity of culture. Yet, none of that culture will be anything other than a combination of unitary cultures of geopolitical entities.
There is every reason to believe that this is an accurate model of human culture and art: apparent diversity is hiding a huge range of possibilities which do not fit the existing geo-cultural model. This applies to art as well. The implication of this is, that the models of culture developed in anthropology in the 1940's and 1950's are accurate. (In fact these models reflect the general use of national or ethnic terms to describe culture).
These models were often linked to the idea of culture growth and decay, and similar organic or life-cycle metaphors. Their basis, however, was the idea of a unitary culture corresponding to some geopolitical entity. A. L. Kroeber's 1944 Configurations of Culture Growth is a classic work of this kind. In 1959 Rushton Coulborn could still take this approach to cultures or civilisations:
The style of a civilization is perceived as its aesthetic aspect: it is exhibited in everything the society produces and does, pre-eminently in its arts, but also in its thought, its politics, its institutions, its traditions, and in all its ways. It is possible to qualify a society's style, to comment upon it, to judge it even, yet hardly to describe it. It is the Chineseness" of what is Chinese, the "Egyptianness" of what is Egyptian, the "Westernness of what is Western. Since that time, this approach has disappeared from mainstream anthropology, only to reappear in the last 10 years, under the influence of ethnic studies. An Afro-centric approach to art history, for instance, implies almost by definition a geo-cultural structure.
Why pretend, that there is no such a thing as African art, or English art? Partly because such approaches were discredited by their association with Nazi Germany, or at least with Oswald Spengler and organic-social models of cultural history. But it was a common approach to history in the 1920's and 1930s, and is now "rehabilitated" by the interest in ethnicity and identity. The model is cyclically in and out of academic fashion.
In any case, this approach is still, and always has been, the accepted approach in art history. Any introduction to art history (for students in Europe) will present the standard sequence of styles in Europe: Romanesque, gothic, renaissance, baroque, rococo, neo-classicism. After that comes a section on Islamic Art, or Oriental Art, which are assumed to have their own style sequence. In this case, the academic wisdom seems to be right.
In the end it cannot be proved that there is a geo-cultural structure of this kind: that is too much a question of interpretation. However, it does seem extremely difficult to take the opposite position, that no culture or art is in any way associated with any particular people, culture, or territory.
In turn, this suggests an explanation of art: it is hyper-ethnic. Art is that within a culture which most approaches the core of that culture, and is least accessible to outsiders. Art is the visible soul of the people, just as nationalists say. The question is, whether that gives it existence rights. It is here that the manipulation of art-historical theory in defence of art must be noted. If art is associated with peoples, it can be associated with their state, and so with the policies of that state - which may be unacceptable for many. Yet art never suffers from attribution of guilt by association: definitions are manipulated, to absolve it.
If a person who is clearly a German Nazi, insists on the existence of a German art, and indicates clearly which works of art are German, what is in that circumstance anti-Nazism? The non-Nazi defenders of art deny the truth of the claims: they say the possession of art must be disputed. They would probably say, that in this case anti-Nazism consists in claiming that art belongs to all humanity: that it is universal. This opposition between Nazism and universality cannot, however, justify the existence of art.
The alternative anti-Nazi position is to accept the claims as true, and destroy the German art, which the Nazi person has so conveniently listed. Not just Nazi Germans produce such specifications: there are official lists of national art heritage, in most states in Europe. They are not intended for the convenience of anti-nationalist iconoclasts, but they can serve that purpose.
If art is national, then it can have no legitimacy other than within the values of nationalism. If all art is national then it is legitimate to destroy it, if anti-nationalism is itself legitimate. This legitimacy of destruction extends beyond nation states, to a geo-cultural structure in general. A geo-cultural structure is merely one of many possible structures. The present structure is complex, but not self-legitimising. It is legitimate to oppose pan-Africanism as a form of nationalism, and for instance, to destroy African art for that goal. Equally, it is legitimate to oppose a geo-cultural planetary structure that includes all art, and in doing so to destroy all art.
Why not? Art is being destroyed all the time. So long as there has been art, it has been destroyed. In reality, the sacrality of art applies mainly to "our art", not to "their art". If pan-Africanism, in 10 years time, is regarded as a form of imperialism oppressing the regional identities of the continent, then perhaps people will burn portraits of Nkrumah. 20 years ago, statues of Lenin were art in part of Berlin. Now they are considered "propaganda of the unjust SED state". 60 years ago, statues of Hitler were art in Berlin: now public display of any Nazi symbol is illegal. Today, art in Germany means for instance statues of Konrad Adenauer, the pro-western post-war Chancellor.
The only constant seems to be, that art serves privilege, the nation state, the powerful, the established, the unjust. In general, art serves the existing, which is exactly what is consistent with a self-perpetuating social structure.
It is acceptable to oppose art in general, and specific national, regional, world-cultural, or civilisational art. However, there is no wide support for the break-up of the geo-cultural structure. The values of that structure itself are incompatible with its reform or abolition. It can however be limited in its effects.
I therefore propose territorial separation of art. Formally, the best course would be to destroy existing art, then choose if the planet was to be art-provided or art-free. However, there is no prospect of any global agreement on this. Art will be in opposition to non-art, inherently.
Specifically, I propose that the United States of America should become a zone of art. The existing cultural preference in the USA for collecting art, (especially from Europe) should be expanded into a prime function of state.
Art should be transferred from Europe to the USA, beginning with the art listed in national heritage lists, and with recognised European heritage. I propose as an initial step, the transfer of the Mona Lisa, the best known European artwork, to the USA. The Mona Lisa is old, and heritage. It is better, that the past should burden the USA, than burden Europe. All artists, and those who wish to continue employment in the art sector, should be transferred to the USA.
Any attempt at such a transfer would probably result in military intervention in support of art, perhaps by the USA. However, the nature of such a military intervention is outside the scope of this article. In any case, it is probably true that, given the fundamental opposition between art and its destruction, military conflict is inevitable in the long term.
Taylor, R. Art an Enemy of the People. Hassocks: Harvester 1978.
Kroeber, A. L. Configurations of Culture Growth. Berkeley: University of California Press 1944.
Coulborn, R. The Origin of Civilized Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1959. (Quote, p. 22).
I am not a troll, I am a (THE!) Crapflooder! And I don't care about your Toll Library, because it does not even exist!!!!
No Globalisation
by Paul Treanor
Logically, there can be no process of globalisation in a world order of nation states. A world order is already global, by definition. The logic of 'globalisation' is false, but the idea has become an ideology. For different reasons, different people claim that there is globalisation. The word "globalisation" started as an academic and media hype. Just when it was going out of fashion, the 1999 Seattle summit revived media attention for the issue. Pro-globalisation and anti-globalisation ideologies (and movements) have emerged. That fact remains, that the underlying 'globalisation' process simply does not exist. People are often talking about something else - about neoliberalism or about normative globalism, for instance.
Is there globalisation? Nation states still dominate the social and economic structures of this planet. But nation states are themselves a global order - a specific arrangement of a specific type of state. Globalisation only appears logical, if you see nation states as isolated islands, but that is not the historical reality.
Supporters of the globalisation thesis claim, that a world of isolated nation states existed in the recent past. Perhaps before 1989, or more approximately, before 1950. They claim that these isolated nation states are now being eroded, in a global process. This thesis is often presented as a absolute truth, which globalisation researchers have discovered. Academic snobbism is important in sustaining globalisation research, especially since the thesis appeals to both the right and the left. People are considered stupid, if they question globalisation.
Saskia Sassen, who uses globalisation as a "negative future" to promote a global civil society, summarises the logic. (In: Losing Control: Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization, Columbia University Press 1996).
Economic globalization represents a major transformation in the territorial organization of economic activity and politico-economic power....The sovereignty of the modern state was concentrated in mutually exclusive territories and the concentration of sovereignty in nations...economic globalization has contributed to a denationalizing of national territory... But nations are not mutually exclusive. Every existing nation state, supports the division of the world into nation states. Even a total surrender of national sovereignty to another nation, does not de-nationalise territory. When nations re-unite, for instance, states can completely disappear. At some future date, Moldova (Moldavia) might accede to Romania. That would mean the state Moldova completely ceased to exist: but that would not mean the end of nations. In fact it would be a victory for the nationalistic 'Greater Romania' ideal. Another example: the Republic of Ireland has abandoned its claim to sovereignty over Northern Ireland. However, a future majority in Northern Ireland might wants to accede to the Republic of Ireland. In those circumstances, the United Kingdom has said it will abandon its claim to the territory. Yet, either way, there are still two nation states in the British Isles. The border might shift, but the nation state as such does not disappear in such cases.
The relevant question, at global level, is whether the global order of nation states is disappearing - anywhere. And there is no collapse of the nation state, in the face of globalisation. Nation states have not suffered anything comparable to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman empires. All that remains of these empires, are oversized palaces in Vienna and Istanbul. The rest of their institutions have completely disappeared: there is not a square millimetre of Habsburg or Ottoman territory left in Europe. There is no longer an Austro-Hungarian imperial army, or police, or courts, of universities. The nation states succeeded the multi-ethnic empires, and seized all their territory. The replacement was total.
But where is the so-called 'collapse' of the nation state visible? There are very few places on earth where there are no institutions of a nation state - perhaps in Somalia, but that is not the result of globalization. If the world was truly 'globalised' then it would be full of disused national parliament buildings - and not a national army in sight. The world is not like that, and will not be like that, in the immediate future. In other words, 'globalisation' remains a hype - pure hype and not reality.
Anti-nationalists know this, better than anyone else. So people who claim that 'globalisation' is eroding nations are in any case not anti-nationalists. At worst, the opposite: they are simply nationalists. The globalisation hype can be a form of nationalist propaganda.
The popular globalisation myth
A popular version of the globalisation myth has existed for about 10 years. It claims that until 1989, the world consisted of separate, sovereign, autonomous nation states, with separate histories. Then, borders collapsed, the internet appeared, but also the international Mafia. So now it is a dangerous world, but also perhaps full of opportunities.
You can find this version, almost literally, in Ruud Lubbers' article The Globalization of Economy and Society (now offline):
The term "globalization" implies that the becoming and making worldwide of various phenomena has accelerated at such a pace that it is giving rise to a variety of new phenomena. Globalization entails a quantitative shift of several autonomous national economies to a global marketplace for production, distribution, and technology. All this has resulted in the emergence of a worldwide confrontation of political, societal, and ethical insights...
Lubbers was a former Netherlands premier, and is now UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He filled the time between these posts as a Professor of Globalization Studies at Tilburg University. Lubbers explains what caused the 'quantitative shift'...
The far-reaching integration of electronics and computers on the one hand, and communication technology, on the other, led to what Toffler christened "the third wave." And thus today's world came into being....People everywhere were confronted with the effects of the emergence of modern communication technologies and the Sputnik, Soyuz, and Apollo heralded the birth of a new world. CNN and the Internet, global sourcing, electronic capital flows signalled the emergence of the information and communication age. It has been said that the bits provoke one world, accomplishing the globalization of information/communication and technology.
The language of globalisation claims
The globalisation myth has developed its own slang, related to themes in globalisation research...
turmoil, chaos, breakdown, instability, disorder
global, globalised, planetary, planetary order, global governance, world consciousness
trans-state, transnational, cross-border, borderlands, transgression, boundary erosion, inter-cultural, transcultural
multiple actors, multiplicity, multi-voiced, fragmented, break-up, splitting up
flow, space of flows, trade volume, stream, link, network, linked by flows
Here is an example of globalisation-speak from Global Cyberculture Reconsidered: Cyberspace, Identity, and the Global Informational City
There are two forces at work in globalization: the spread of the Net internationally follows urban infrastructures, and nations around the world are cooperating in the creation of a global network economy by creating networks of globalized informational cities that require liberalized financial and trade policies.
And the Globalization and World Cities research group declares:
Our mission is to promote a different metageographical image of the world, a space of flows held together by a network of cities. There are a myriad of networks which make up our contemporary world, the Internet, for example, to which you are currently linked to, is an important example. We have chosen to focus upon the network of world cities because it is the most obvious concrete manifestation of a contemporary space of flows which can challenge traditional metageographies.
This language is self-referential: it exists within the world of globalisation research. That is how they talk to one another. Like all slang, it establishes membership of a social group. It is not a guide to the real world.
The logic and evidence of globalisation claims Suppose there was a global state. Suppose the 'Global Self-Sufficient Villages Party' won the global elections. It would implement its policies: it would make the world self-sufficient at local level. In the end, there would be a world of self-sufficient villages, with no inter-local trade - let alone inter-continental trade.
Is this globalisation? Is this global? The answer must be yes, it is at least global. A global state implementing a global policy is global. It is perfectly logical for a global state or society to exist, without the conventional indicators of globalisation. A fully globalised, homogenous, world can be a world of autarkic communities - if that is the global political culture. That applies to any intermediate between autarky and full interaction. If the global norm is to trade 10% of gross National Product, then a fully globalised planet could exist where all states traded 10% of GNP. If the norm is 90%, then it would be 90%. There is no way to infer from the statistic alone, whether the planet is 'globalised' or not. Indicators such as trade volume and trade policy can even be used in logically contradictory ways.
For example, if I discover that nation states are abandoning protectionist polices, is that evidence of globalisation? Supporters of the globalisation thesis will say, that nation states increasingly compete with all other nation states. Trade increases, and protectionism will be abandoned. So, they will say, the trend is evidence of globalisation. But I could equally claim, that protectionism is caused by increasing competition among nation states. So, I could say, that the abandonment of protectionism shows that globalisation has ended.
But what if I discover a trend to protectionist polices? This time the globalisation fans will say, "logical, increasing competition means more protectionism." The conclusion will be reversed to suit the evidence. But I can do that as well. I could say, that protectionism is a symptom of the end of globalisation - after all, it limits trade.
This is just one example of a large class of paradoxes. Many apparently solid statistical indicators of globalisation, can be used as evidence either way. And other evidence may point to the opposite conclusion. International air traffic is growing - but so are regional airlines. Cultural evidence is equally double-sided. The first books published were all in one language, Latin: since then publishing has become increasingly 'local', not global. The number of published languages has increased, not decreased. In the end, there is no point in detailed argument, about trade volumes, capital flows, and information flows. They will never conclusively establish globalisation.
However, supporters of the globalisation thesis continue to quote fabricated and illogical 'evidence'. Any social or economic phenomenon is treated as possible 'evidence' of globalisation. If there is a Chinese restaurant in a town, it shows global culture. If these is no Chinese restaurant, it shows the town is lagging behind in the globalisation process.
Global processes is deliberately confused with global erosion of borders. Trade among nations may be global: that does not mean nations are dissolving in trade. Recent trade flows are used as evidence of recent globalisation, but inter-continental trade has existed for thousands of years. Even the present pattern of all-continent trade is 200 years old. The supporters of the globalisation thesis use nominalist arguments: the label "globalisation" is attached to any cross-border phenomenon. If you call all animals 'Martians', then every day you will see evidence that the Martians have landed.
The claim that there is a globalisation process is endlessly repeated, ignoring historical context. The claimed 'instrument of globalisation' varies from one decade to the next. Some people said the hot air balloon would end borders. But people said the same thing about the telegraph, the railway, the steam ship, wireless telegraphy, the airship, radio, air travel, television, pictures of the world from space, satellite television, CNN, and the Internet. Borders are still here: there are probably more border guards, than at any previous time in history.
So belief in globalisation is like any other belief system. Facts are not necessarily relevant. Some adherents of globalisation share the characteristics of religious cults, especially cults which believe in the end of the world. These apocalyptic cults sometimes announce a date for the end of the world. When the world does not end, their members are not disillusioned: often their belief is reinforced. For the 'true believers' of globalisation, any event can reinforce the belief in globalisation - and nothing can contradict it. Those who do not believe in globalisation, are seen as inferior. Several times people called me "blind", for not believing in globalisation.
The belief / myth / hype of globalisation is probably here for a long time. Belief systems disappear only slowly. As political legitimation, 'globalisation' is useful to many groups: its factual existence is certainly irrelevant in politics.
The nation state
Nation states are one of many possible forms of state. The very existence of a world of nation states, indicates some form of global order of nation states. What these nation states do - trade or no trade, flows or no flows - is irrelevant to that issue. What is already global can not logically be globalised: therefore there is no globalisation. The 'false premise' in the globalisation thesis is the nationalist claim, that nations are separate and particular entities. In fact they are a global and universalist structure: the functional equivalent of a nationalist world state.
The world functions as if a nationalist world government had seized power in the last century, led by Mazzini and Garibaldi and friends. Most existing states were indeed established by nationalist groups. The idea presented in Structures of Nationalism is simple. Nationalists are not competing. They co-operate to maintain one (nationalist) world order and exclude others. The nation state is not a particularity, existing by itself in isolation, but part of a global design.
Consider the issue of sovereignty and multinational corporations (TNC's). A world run by 180 global corporations would mean: no national sovereignty, no national parliaments, no national laws, no national armies. But equally, a world run by 180 nation states means: no women's sovereignty, no women's parliaments, no women's laws, no women's armies. A world run by global corporations is alternative to the world order of nation states. But that order itself is alternative, to a possible world order of gender states. A national parliament could be closed - just as the Austro-Hungarian imperial parliament closed - and replaced by gender parliaments.
Of course, that idea is offensive to nationalists. For them not gender, but the nation, is the fundamental human social order. Therefore, they claim, it should be the unit of state formation: "one people, one government". This claim has no inherent validity - the slogan "one gender, one government" would be equally valid, in logical terms. But historically, nation states were established by logic anyway. Usually, they were a reaction against a former imperial or colonial order. A reaction against globalisation, real or imagined, might sustain the nation state for several more generations.
The 'threat of globalisation' confers no existence rights on a nation state. It does not give national parliaments any more right to exist, than gender parliaments. A person A has no valid claims against person B, simply on the basis of threats from entity C. If the nation state was inherently good, there might be a moral obligation to support it. But no-one is obliged to support the nation state, simply because it is threatened by globalisation, or anything else. In any case, this comparison with a possible alternative world order only emphasises, that nation states have not been 'eroded'. No completely different world order has emerged - as different from the present world, as a world of gender states would be.
If you ignore all these possible worlds, and just look at existing nations, then it is true that cross-border interaction seems important. If you close your eyes to everything except France and Germany, then all you see is France, Germany and Franco-German interaction. The whole universe shrinks to one issue: how much Franco-German interaction? Similarly, if you see the present order of 180 nation states as the only multi-state world order, then you see only two alternative worlds. You see either 180 nation states, or some form of global entity. The supporters of the globalisation thesis have shrunk their field of view in this way. They see 180 nation states, and the interactions among the 180 nation states, and conclude there is globalisation. It is a weak and false logic.
Say globalisation, mean neoliberalism
Most of the confusion about globalisation occurs when nation states pursue neoliberal policies. This is what Tony Blair means, when he talks about the "opportunities" of globalisation - his reaction to the Genoa summit protests. The neoliberal attitude to the national economy is more accurately described as neo-mercantilist. Neoliberals see the nation as an economic unit, competing with other similar units: they often compare the nation to a business firm. Neoliberal economic policies, within the nation state, are designed to meet the needs of this imaginary business - 'Great Britain Limited', 'Deutschland GmbH', 'BV Nederland'.
This does not mean that the nation state is a business firm. That would be impossible within a liberal democracy anyway - it would require a totalitarian level of economic planning. Businesses are not run like nation states, for good reasons - and nation states can probably not be run like a business. Neoliberals also contradict themselves, by insisting that regions and cities should also compete with each other, like business firms. This would make a national economic policy impossible.
What neoliberals promote is a set of social goals, a model of a society arranged for the benefit of the entrepreneur. This is usually called 'competitiveness', a favourite word for Tony Blair and other neoliberal politicians. Economists compile league tables, in which nations are ranked by competitiveness. But this does not mean that nation states are forced to be 'competitive' by some all-powerful global organisation. They are not even forced in a metaphorical sense, by the global market. The 'competitiveness' is an internal policy, a neoliberal social policy. It may not even be competitive. (If it was taken to the extremes suggested by some neoliberals, it would probably cause economic collapse).
So when western political leaders speak positively of globalisation, this is usually what they are talking about. This is usually what the media are talking about, when they use the word 'globalisation'. It has nothing to do with the erosion of the nation state. It also has very little to do with classic market liberalism, which advocates unlimited competition between every single entrepreneur. Classic market liberals would call 'Great Britain Limited' a cartel.
The ideology of 'competitiveness' has everything to do with nationalism. It is a modern version of the old nationalist insistence, that the whole nation should work together. It is a new form of jingoism, chauvinism, flag-waving and foreigner-bashing (particularly suited for Tony Blair). It is not in any way an indicator that a new global order has superseded the order of nation states, or that they have been colonised by global financial institutions.
Who else says there is globalisation?
Three groups have an interest in claiming that globalisation is a reality. Firstly, all kinds of nationalists: globalisation provides a clear enemy, to unite the national group.
The western media image of globalisation is derived largely from anti-globalisation activists. Many are clearly economic nationalists. The opposition of North American labour unions (trade unions) to new free trade zones is an example. In the European Union this is less of an issue, partly because the present EU members have comparable economies, and partly because the EU is long established anyway. (In the EU, economic nationalism takes the form of opposition to EU enlargement, rather than opposition to the EU).
Walden Bello, an anti-globalisation activist from the Philippines, has a comprehensive national alternative to globalisation, which he calls 'de-globalization':
I am not talking about withdrawing from the international economy. I am speaking about reorienting our economies from production for export to the local market....
- about creating a new production and exchange complex that includes community cooperatives, private enterprises, and state enterprises, and excludes transnational corporations (TNCs);
- about enshrining the principle of subsidiarity in economic life by encouraging production of goods to take place at the community and national level...
The Struggle for the Future
This is more than simple protectionism. It implies that the State, business, and community organisations should coordinate their policies, in some form of corporatist society. Economic nationalism and corporatism are often associated: they appeal to business in vulnerable sectors of the economy. It is not true that business is uniformly pro-globalisation - any more than Turkish business uniformly supports EU membership. Even in advanced economies, entrepreneurs often have an interest in presenting globalisation as a threat.
In western Europe, fear of globalisation is used to claim government aid for 'national industries'. Business likes subsidies, and appeals to national pride were a traditional way of getting them, long before the term 'globalisation' was used. Recently the approach has become more sophisticated: the subsidies go not just to one firm, but to whole sectors, or to a large part of the 'national economy'. The businessmen demand the subsidies, but say they are protecting the national standard of living.
However, even the living standards of Britons or Germans are no reason to support the nation state Britain, or the nation state Germany. Activists often claim, that transnational corporations "erode the ability of nation states to regulate their own economies". That does not oblige anyone to support any nation state either. Remember: the nation states themselves eroded the former multi-ethnic empires. That does not oblige anyone to restore these empires.
Nationalists have a long history of appealing to external threats, to enforce national unity. The nation must unite and work together, they said - to defeat the Hun, or the Bolshevik threat, or the Yellow Peril, or the enemy within the gates, or the Cali cartel, or Osama bin Ladin. Appeals to unite in the face of 'globalisation' are in the same dishonourable category. Economic-nationalist propaganda is in the worst nationalist traditions.
A second group claims, that there are good and bad forms of globalisation. They then cast themselves in the role of the 'good globalisers'. Advocates of a global civil society claim it provides the opposition to global neoliberalism. In reality, 'global civil society' is a loose coalition of western (and western-funded) NGO's, who dream of being subsidised by global taxes.
The third group are the normative globalists: the people who want a global society. Usually they want a global state, although they may not call it that. They have an interest in presenting globalisation as an inevitable historical development. This is historicism - political demands based on historical process, real or imagined.
Any global state would have the basic structure of a nation state: unified constitution, laws, parliament, administration, and executive powers. This normative globalism is simply a form of pan-nationalism. For now, the exact form of world government remains a hobby for International Relations theorists: but the claimed process of globalisation can be used to legitimise the idea.
SHOULD ART BE DESTROYED?
by Paul Treanor
Art, whatever the definition, has certain characteristics. It is equivalent to an entity, perpetuating itself across generations. As a result, it is permanent. Art also implies certain value claims, about the precedence of accumulative creativity over destruction. Permanence and accumulation cannot be ethically legitimised. In practice, there is a stable geo-cultural structure, of ethnic and national art. This structure is not ethically legitimised. The best response is a territorial separation of art.
KABUL, March 1 2001 (AFP via Yahoo News)
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban authorities said Thursday they have started destroying all statues in the country, including the world's tallest standing Buddha statue in the central province of Bamiyan.
"The work started about five hours ago but I do not know how much of it (the Bamiyan Buddhas) has been destroyed," Taliban Information and Culture Minister Qudratullah Jamal told AFP.
"It will be destroyed by every means. All the statues are being destroyed."
The poor, the weak and the oppressed do not speak in defence of art. The voice of art is the voice of privilege. But if that was the only defect of art, then equality would legitimise art. There is not just privilege, there is eternal privilege, for art continues. Art is ancient tradition: worse than privilege. Is it not time to destroy it?
Art is wrong because it is the past, because it perpetuates itself, because it is transgenerational, because it is culture, and because it requires the suppression of anti-art to exist.
People argue about what art is. High art is still contrasted to popular culture. In the 1970's some class theories opposed elitist art. However, in Britain, where Art an Enemy of the People was published in 1978, the response to "high art" was not rejection. It was the demand for subsidies - for community art, minority art, women's art, or art of colour. A similar pattern applies all over western Europe. The existence of art is not an issue. Policy simply accepts art: this is true for artists, for individual governments, and for the European Union. A policy consensus implies a definitional consensus.
Despite the apparent disunity about what constitutes high art or authentic art, there is a deep negative consensus about its nature. This negative consensus is common to all modern societies. Some things are not art, never:
a trans-Sahel railway
state formation
justice
a single European currency.
Seen from this perspective, it is the agreement about Art which is remarkable. Evidently there is something called art: and so to its defects.
The first defect of art is the antiquity of art. Some art is recent, of course, but there is no planned future art. In urban planning, for instance, there are those who plan cities which are not yet built, and those who study urban history. In art, however, there is only art history: art is past-oriented, almost by definition. Art is tens of thousands of years old. There is an immense volume of art from the past, even though most works of art are destroyed deliberately (of that, more later). The sacrality of art is a sacrality of the past.
Art perpetuates itself. True, this is a reification, but it is an accurate one. It is the actions of people which perpetuate art: but the effect for the opponents of art is as if art defended itself. I will use here exactly the same metaphor and analogy, that I used to describe the defects of sustainability, the ethic of eternal structures.
Compare the lives of two twins, born in identical circumstances. However, one is pro-art, the other is anti-art. The pro-art twin can go to art school, or study art history. There is no equivalent for the anti-art twin: no school of art incineration. Great social pressure to accept art is applied to one twin. No similar pressure to accept art-destruction is applied to the other twin. Because art is a core value in all existing societies, the social and employment opportunities of the anti-art twin will be limited. It is also the pro-art twin who is more likely to be elected or appointed to political office.
The value attached to art limits the opportunity of its opponents to take action against it. In this way art is a self-preserving structure. It is like a religion, whose adherents systematically discriminate non-believers: if such a religion is in a majority, it will constantly improve its position of power.
The strength and functioning of this self-preserving structure can be appreciated, by imagining that there was no art, and no pro-art structures. Transferring from an art-free world into the existing world, can be compared to transferring from this world, into a world objectionably different. Cannibalism is a useful characteristic for this comparison, because it is almost universally taboo. Being transferred into a cannibal world, from this world, would be extremely unpleasant for most people. They would be forced to accept that something they abhor is a normal part of society: that there is apparently no possibility of reform, since everyone accepts it as normal. This is the situation for opponents of art in the existing world.
Art also perpetuates itself in a more indirect way. Art is often described as human endeavour or achievement, and it is indeed a product of human activity. People are encouraged to consider art as a valued activity, to the exclusion of other activity. In many cultures it is regarded as a high form of achievement: that in itself is a valuing of conservatism. Artists strive to produce good art, but what they produce is art, because the activity takes place only in an art framework, a framework that already exists. It is accurate to say that art is conformity in itself, since artists must conform to the norm of what art is. That norm will vary across cultures and in time, but only in the limiting case that everything is accepted as art, does it cease to be restrictive. In practice, creative approaches to non-art areas are often socially un-accepted, or considered strange.
Art is transgenerational and open-ended. It perpetuates itself in the structural form described above, but art cannot be otherwise. So long as art is in opposition to iconoclasm, for instance, then there is a difference in the value socially ascribed to activities. In almost all cases (and certainly in modern societies) the accepted pattern is, that creation takes place by accumulation only. Iconoclasm (in the broad sense of art destruction) is defined as a non-creative act.
There is no inherent logical basis for the restriction of creativity to accumulation. However, it is the form art takes, and that form is socially accepted. Although there are millions of paintings already, painting a new one is defined as a creative activity. Reducing the existing stock is not. Destruction is not considered of equal value to creation.
On the contrary, destruction of art is considered a crime, and a sign of mental illness. Entering a museum and destroying a painting is considered shocking. Such acts are widely reported in the media, if they affect well-known works of art. This cannot be logically derived from a sacred status. In religious activity, sacred is not always permanent. Sacrificial animals were killed in some religions, offerings were burnt. It would be logically possible to treat art like this, but that does not occur. Art is not just sacred, its own accumulation is sacred, its permanence is sacred.
The continuance of art is therefore inherent in art. Art is for ever. That which can not end, is wrong, and must be ended. Permanence of any entity constitutes a claim to all time for its existence, specifically against its non-existence. Claims to time are contra-ethical or morally arbitrary: one state (existence of art) is favoured over another (non-existence of art) merely because it happened to exist first. It is possible to claim value for firstness or primacy (as nationalist organisations of indigenous peoples do), but this cannot be logically derived. It is itself an arbitrary value.
The transmission of art also requires, that injustice be done to done who oppose it. Their opposition is valid, since there is no moral ground for the permanence of art, yet they are discriminated against, as indicated above. Some employers, perhaps almost all, would refuse a job to anyone who openly advocated the destruction of art. If such injustice is a necessary condition of art, and there is no other legitimation of its existence, then the existence of art is an injustice, and should be terminated.
Just or unjust, self-perpetuating cycles and transgenerational structures, are contra-ethical. Art perpetuates itself, by accumulation, and the transmission of the value of this accumulation. Cultures include, over generations, reverence for the permanence of art. More than this, art perpetuates the transmission of culture including itself. Art is a central aspect of many cultures.
This permanence of art has been described here in abstract terms. In practice some real destruction of art does take place. The place of art in culture determines this: real art is ethnic art, or national art. Art that disappears, has lost its central place in an existing culture - usually because that culture itself has disappeared. The second part of this article, about cultures and art, is less abstract and more political.
There exists a geo-cultural structure, approximately corresponding to geopolitical structures. In practice, people refer daily to English culture, or French culture, to ancient Egyptian art, to Brazilian art, or to the art of the Islamic world. The entities of this geo-cultural structure may be cultures of nation states, of ethnic groups, of regions, or of larger entities called world-cultures or civilisations. They may overlap, in fact they usually do, but that does not mean there is no structure.
The complexity of culture is sometimes used to deny its rigid and structural nature. However, internal complexity can be great, and yet exclude external complexity. The possible moves in a game of chess are astronomically large, yet all chess games are chess games.
Consider a simple model, with unitary cultures of tribes. Tribe A invades the land of tribe B. Soon, within culture B there are pro-A collaborative cultural tendencies, there are anti-A "B nationalists", there are A+B "multi-culturalists", their opponents in A, and B, who oppose cultural mixing, and B revanchists. The land of A+B then invades the land of C. Now, in this land C, there pro-A collaborators, pro-B collaborators, pro A+B collaborators. There are anti-A "C nationalists", anti-B "C nationalists", and anti A+B "C nationalists". And more: even at this level, the multiplying combinations exceed simple factorials.
In the past there were thousands of cultures, associated with thousand of peoples. By some estimates, there still are. Combinations of their interactions can generate an immense diversity of culture. Yet, none of that culture will be anything other than a combination of unitary cultures of geopolitical entities.
There is every reason to believe that this is an accurate model of human culture and art: apparent diversity is hiding a huge range of possibilities which do not fit the existing geo-cultural model. This applies to art as well. The implication of this is, that the models of culture developed in anthropology in the 1940's and 1950's are accurate. (In fact these models reflect the general use of national or ethnic terms to describe culture).
These models were often linked to the idea of culture growth and decay, and similar organic or life-cycle metaphors. Their basis, however, was the idea of a unitary culture corresponding to some geopolitical entity. A. L. Kroeber's 1944 Configurations of Culture Growth is a classic work of this kind. In 1959 Rushton Coulborn could still take this approach to cultures or civilisations:
The style of a civilization is perceived as its aesthetic aspect: it is exhibited in everything the society produces and does, pre-eminently in its arts, but also in its thought, its politics, its institutions, its traditions, and in all its ways. It is possible to qualify a society's style, to comment upon it, to judge it even, yet hardly to describe it. It is the Chineseness" of what is Chinese, the "Egyptianness" of what is Egyptian, the "Westernness of what is Western. Since that time, this approach has disappeared from mainstream anthropology, only to reappear in the last 10 years, under the influence of ethnic studies. An Afro-centric approach to art history, for instance, implies almost by definition a geo-cultural structure.
Why pretend, that there is no such a thing as African art, or English art? Partly because such approaches were discredited by their association with Nazi Germany, or at least with Oswald Spengler and organic-social models of cultural history. But it was a common approach to history in the 1920's and 1930s, and is now "rehabilitated" by the interest in ethnicity and identity. The model is cyclically in and out of academic fashion.
In any case, this approach is still, and always has been, the accepted approach in art history. Any introduction to art history (for students in Europe) will present the standard sequence of styles in Europe: Romanesque, gothic, renaissance, baroque, rococo, neo-classicism. After that comes a section on Islamic Art, or Oriental Art, which are assumed to have their own style sequence. In this case, the academic wisdom seems to be right.
In the end it cannot be proved that there is a geo-cultural structure of this kind: that is too much a question of interpretation. However, it does seem extremely difficult to take the opposite position, that no culture or art is in any way associated with any particular people, culture, or territory.
In turn, this suggests an explanation of art: it is hyper-ethnic. Art is that within a culture which most approaches the core of that culture, and is least accessible to outsiders. Art is the visible soul of the people, just as nationalists say. The question is, whether that gives it existence rights. It is here that the manipulation of art-historical theory in defence of art must be noted. If art is associated with peoples, it can be associated with their state, and so with the policies of that state - which may be unacceptable for many. Yet art never suffers from attribution of guilt by association: definitions are manipulated, to absolve it.
If a person who is clearly a German Nazi, insists on the existence of a German art, and indicates clearly which works of art are German, what is in that circumstance anti-Nazism? The non-Nazi defenders of art deny the truth of the claims: they say the possession of art must be disputed. They would probably say, that in this case anti-Nazism consists in claiming that art belongs to all humanity: that it is universal. This opposition between Nazism and universality cannot, however, justify the existence of art.
The alternative anti-Nazi position is to accept the claims as true, and destroy the German art, which the Nazi person has so conveniently listed. Not just Nazi Germans produce such specifications: there are official lists of national art heritage, in most states in Europe. They are not intended for the convenience of anti-nationalist iconoclasts, but they can serve that purpose.
If art is national, then it can have no legitimacy other than within the values of nationalism. If all art is national then it is legitimate to destroy it, if anti-nationalism is itself legitimate. This legitimacy of destruction extends beyond nation states, to a geo-cultural structure in general. A geo-cultural structure is merely one of many possible structures. The present structure is complex, but not self-legitimising. It is legitimate to oppose pan-Africanism as a form of nationalism, and for instance, to destroy African art for that goal. Equally, it is legitimate to oppose a geo-cultural planetary structure that includes all art, and in doing so to destroy all art.
Why not? Art is being destroyed all the time. So long as there has been art, it has been destroyed. In reality, the sacrality of art applies mainly to "our art", not to "their art". If pan-Africanism, in 10 years time, is regarded as a form of imperialism oppressing the regional identities of the continent, then perhaps people will burn portraits of Nkrumah. 20 years ago, statues of Lenin were art in part of Berlin. Now they are considered "propaganda of the unjust SED state". 60 years ago, statues of Hitler were art in Berlin: now public display of any Nazi symbol is illegal. Today, art in Germany means for instance statues of Konrad Adenauer, the pro-western post-war Chancellor.
The only constant seems to be, that art serves privilege, the nation state, the powerful, the established, the unjust. In general, art serves the existing, which is exactly what is consistent with a self-perpetuating social structure.
It is acceptable to oppose art in general, and specific national, regional, world-cultural, or civilisational art. However, there is no wide support for the break-up of the geo-cultural structure. The values of that structure itself are incompatible with its reform or abolition. It can however be limited in its effects.
I therefore propose territorial separation of art. Formally, the best course would be to destroy existing art, then choose if the planet was to be art-provided or art-free. However, there is no prospect of any global agreement on this. Art will be in opposition to non-art, inherently.
Specifically, I propose that the United States of America should become a zone of art. The existing cultural preference in the USA for collecting art, (especially from Europe) should be expanded into a prime function of state.
Art should be transferred from Europe to the USA, beginning with the art listed in national heritage lists, and with recognised European heritage. I propose as an initial step, the transfer of the Mona Lisa, the best known European artwork, to the USA. The Mona Lisa is old, and heritage. It is better, that the past should burden the USA, than burden Europe. All artists, and those who wish to continue employment in the art sector, should be transferred to the USA.
Any attempt at such a transfer would probably result in military intervention in support of art, perhaps by the USA. However, the nature of such a military intervention is outside the scope of this article. In any case, it is probably true that, given the fundamental opposition between art and its destruction, military conflict is inevitable in the long term.
Taylor, R. Art an Enemy of the People. Hassocks: Harvester 1978.
Kroeber, A. L. Configurations of Culture Growth. Berkeley: University of California Press 1944.
Coulborn, R. The Origin of Civilized Societies. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1959. (Quote, p. 22).
No Globalisation
by Paul Treanor
Logically, there can be no process of globalisation in a world order of nation states. A world order is already global, by definition. The logic of 'globalisation' is false, but the idea has become an ideology. For different reasons, different people claim that there is globalisation. The word "globalisation" started as an academic and media hype. Just when it was going out of fashion, the 1999 Seattle summit revived media attention for the issue. Pro-globalisation and anti-globalisation ideologies (and movements) have emerged. That fact remains, that the underlying 'globalisation' process simply does not exist. People are often talking about something else - about neoliberalism or about normative globalism, for instance.
Is there globalisation? Nation states still dominate the social and economic structures of this planet. But nation states are themselves a global order - a specific arrangement of a specific type of state. Globalisation only appears logical, if you see nation states as isolated islands, but that is not the historical reality.
Supporters of the globalisation thesis claim, that a world of isolated nation states existed in the recent past. Perhaps before 1989, or more approximately, before 1950. They claim that these isolated nation states are now being eroded, in a global process. This thesis is often presented as a absolute truth, which globalisation researchers have discovered. Academic snobbism is important in sustaining globalisation research, especially since the thesis appeals to both the right and the left. People are considered stupid, if they question globalisation.
Saskia Sassen, who uses globalisation as a "negative future" to promote a global civil society, summarises the logic. (In: Losing Control: Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization, Columbia University Press 1996).
Economic globalization represents a major transformation in the territorial organization of economic activity and politico-economic power....The sovereignty of the modern state was concentrated in mutually exclusive territories and the concentration of sovereignty in nations...economic globalization has contributed to a denationalizing of national territory... But nations are not mutually exclusive. Every existing nation state, supports the division of the world into nation states. Even a total surrender of national sovereignty to another nation, does not de-nationalise territory. When nations re-unite, for instance, states can completely disappear. At some future date, Moldova (Moldavia) might accede to Romania. That would mean the state Moldova completely ceased to exist: but that would not mean the end of nations. In fact it would be a victory for the nationalistic 'Greater Romania' ideal. Another example: the Republic of Ireland has abandoned its claim to sovereignty over Northern Ireland. However, a future majority in Northern Ireland might wants to accede to the Republic of Ireland. In those circumstances, the United Kingdom has said it will abandon its claim to the territory. Yet, either way, there are still two nation states in the British Isles. The border might shift, but the nation state as such does not disappear in such cases.
The relevant question, at global level, is whether the global order of nation states is disappearing - anywhere. And there is no collapse of the nation state, in the face of globalisation. Nation states have not suffered anything comparable to the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman empires. All that remains of these empires, are oversized palaces in Vienna and Istanbul. The rest of their institutions have completely disappeared: there is not a square millimetre of Habsburg or Ottoman territory left in Europe. There is no longer an Austro-Hungarian imperial army, or police, or courts, of universities. The nation states succeeded the multi-ethnic empires, and seized all their territory. The replacement was total.
But where is the so-called 'collapse' of the nation state visible? There are very few places on earth where there are no institutions of a nation state - perhaps in Somalia, but that is not the result of globalization. If the world was truly 'globalised' then it would be full of disused national parliament buildings - and not a national army in sight. The world is not like that, and will not be like that, in the immediate future. In other words, 'globalisation' remains a hype - pure hype and not reality.
Anti-nationalists know this, better than anyone else. So people who claim that 'globalisation' is eroding nations are in any case not anti-nationalists. At worst, the opposite: they are simply nationalists. The globalisation hype can be a form of nationalist propaganda.
The popular globalisation myth
A popular version of the globalisation myth has existed for about 10 years. It claims that until 1989, the world consisted of separate, sovereign, autonomous nation states, with separate histories. Then, borders collapsed, the internet appeared, but also the international Mafia. So now it is a dangerous world, but also perhaps full of opportunities.
You can find this version, almost literally, in Ruud Lubbers' article The Globalization of Economy and Society (now offline):
The term "globalization" implies that the becoming and making worldwide of various phenomena has accelerated at such a pace that it is giving rise to a variety of new phenomena. Globalization entails a quantitative shift of several autonomous national economies to a global marketplace for production, distribution, and technology. All this has resulted in the emergence of a worldwide confrontation of political, societal, and ethical insights...
Lubbers was a former Netherlands premier, and is now UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He filled the time between these posts as a Professor of Globalization Studies at Tilburg University. Lubbers explains what caused the 'quantitative shift'...
The far-reaching integration of electronics and computers on the one hand, and communication technology, on the other, led to what Toffler christened "the third wave." And thus today's world came into being....People everywhere were confronted with the effects of the emergence of modern communication technologies and the Sputnik, Soyuz, and Apollo heralded the birth of a new world. CNN and the Internet, global sourcing, electronic capital flows signalled the emergence of the information and communication age. It has been said that the bits provoke one world, accomplishing the globalization of information/communication and technology.
The language of globalisation claims
The globalisation myth has developed its own slang, related to themes in globalisation research...
turmoil, chaos, breakdown, instability, disorder
global, globalised, planetary, planetary order, global governance, world consciousness
trans-state, transnational, cross-border, borderlands, transgression, boundary erosion, inter-cultural, transcultural
multiple actors, multiplicity, multi-voiced, fragmented, break-up, splitting up
flow, space of flows, trade volume, stream, link, network, linked by flows
Here is an example of globalisation-speak from Global Cyberculture Reconsidered: Cyberspace, Identity, and the Global Informational City
There are two forces at work in globalization: the spread of the Net internationally follows urban infrastructures, and nations around the world are cooperating in the creation of a global network economy by creating networks of globalized informational cities that require liberalized financial and trade policies.
And the Globalization and World Cities research group declares:
Our mission is to promote a different metageographical image of the world, a space of flows held together by a network of cities. There are a myriad of networks which make up our contemporary world, the Internet, for example, to which you are currently linked to, is an important example. We have chosen to focus upon the network of world cities because it is the most obvious concrete manifestation of a contemporary space of flows which can challenge traditional metageographies.
This language is self-referential: it exists within the world of globalisation research. That is how they talk to one another. Like all slang, it establishes membership of a social group. It is not a guide to the real world.
The logic and evidence of globalisation claims Suppose there was a global state. Suppose the 'Global Self-Sufficient Villages Party' won the global elections. It would implement its policies: it would make the world self-sufficient at local level. In the end, there would be a world of self-sufficient villages, with no inter-local trade - let alone inter-continental trade.
Is this globalisation? Is this global? The answer must be yes, it is at least global. A global state implementing a global policy is global. It is perfectly logical for a global state or society to exist, without the conventional indicators of globalisation. A fully globalised, homogenous, world can be a world of autarkic communities - if that is the global political culture. That applies to any intermediate between autarky and full interaction. If the global norm is to trade 10% of gross National Product, then a fully globalised planet could exist where all states traded 10% of GNP. If the norm is 90%, then it would be 90%. There is no way to infer from the statistic alone, whether the planet is 'globalised' or not. Indicators such as trade volume and trade policy can even be used in logically contradictory ways.
For example, if I discover that nation states are abandoning protectionist polices, is that evidence of globalisation? Supporters of the globalisation thesis will say, that nation states increasingly compete with all other nation states. Trade increases, and protectionism will be abandoned. So, they will say, the trend is evidence of globalisation. But I could equally claim, that protectionism is caused by increasing competition among nation states. So, I could say, that the abandonment of protectionism shows that globalisation has ended.
But what if I discover a trend to protectionist polices? This time the globalisation fans will say, "logical, increasing competition means more protectionism." The conclusion will be reversed to suit the evidence. But I can do that as well. I could say, that protectionism is a symptom of the end of globalisation - after all, it limits trade.
This is just one example of a large class of paradoxes. Many apparently solid statistical indicators of globalisation, can be used as evidence either way. And other evidence may point to the opposite conclusion. International air traffic is growing - but so are regional airlines. Cultural evidence is equally double-sided. The first books published were all in one language, Latin: since then publishing has become increasingly 'local', not global. The number of published languages has increased, not decreased. In the end, there is no point in detailed argument, about trade volumes, capital flows, and information flows. They will never conclusively establish globalisation.
However, supporters of the globalisation thesis continue to quote fabricated and illogical 'evidence'. Any social or economic phenomenon is treated as possible 'evidence' of globalisation. If there is a Chinese restaurant in a town, it shows global culture. If these is no Chinese restaurant, it shows the town is lagging behind in the globalisation process.
Global processes is deliberately confused with global erosion of borders. Trade among nations may be global: that does not mean nations are dissolving in trade. Recent trade flows are used as evidence of recent globalisation, but inter-continental trade has existed for thousands of years. Even the present pattern of all-continent trade is 200 years old. The supporters of the globalisation thesis use nominalist arguments: the label "globalisation" is attached to any cross-border phenomenon. If you call all animals 'Martians', then every day you will see evidence that the Martians have landed.
The claim that there is a globalisation process is endlessly repeated, ignoring historical context. The claimed 'instrument of globalisation' varies from one decade to the next. Some people said the hot air balloon would end borders. But people said the same thing about the telegraph, the railway, the steam ship, wireless telegraphy, the airship, radio, air travel, television, pictures of the world from space, satellite television, CNN, and the Internet. Borders are still here: there are probably more border guards, than at any previous time in history.
So belief in globalisation is like any other belief system. Facts are not necessarily relevant. Some adherents of globalisation share the characteristics of religious cults, especially cults which believe in the end of the world. These apocalyptic cults sometimes announce a date for the end of the world. When the world does not end, their members are not disillusioned: often their belief is reinforced. For the 'true believers' of globalisation, any event can reinforce the belief in globalisation - and nothing can contradict it. Those who do not believe in globalisation, are seen as inferior. Several times people called me "blind", for not believing in globalisation.
The belief / myth / hype of globalisation is probably here for a long time. Belief systems disappear only slowly. As political legitimation, 'globalisation' is useful to many groups: its factual existence is certainly irrelevant in politics.
The nation state
Nation states are one of many possible forms of state. The very existence of a world of nation states, indicates some form of global order of nation states. What these nation states do - trade or no trade, flows or no flows - is irrelevant to that issue. What is already global can not logically be globalised: therefore there is no globalisation. The 'false premise' in the globalisation thesis is the nationalist claim, that nations are separate and particular entities. In fact they are a global and universalist structure: the functional equivalent of a nationalist world state.
The world functions as if a nationalist world government had seized power in the last century, led by Mazzini and Garibaldi and friends. Most existing states were indeed established by nationalist groups. The idea presented in Structures of Nationalism is simple. Nationalists are not competing. They co-operate to maintain one (nationalist) world order and exclude others. The nation state is not a particularity, existing by itself in isolation, but part of a global design.
Consider the issue of sovereignty and multinational corporations (TNC's). A world run by 180 global corporations would mean: no national sovereignty, no national parliaments, no national laws, no national armies. But equally, a world run by 180 nation states means: no women's sovereignty, no women's parliaments, no women's laws, no women's armies. A world run by global corporations is alternative to the world order of nation states. But that order itself is alternative, to a possible world order of gender states. A national parliament could be closed - just as the Austro-Hungarian imperial parliament closed - and replaced by gender parliaments.
Of course, that idea is offensive to nationalists. For them not gender, but the nation, is the fundamental human social order. Therefore, they claim, it should be the unit of state formation: "one people, one government". This claim has no inherent validity - the slogan "one gender, one government" would be equally valid, in logical terms. But historically, nation states were established by logic anyway. Usually, they were a reaction against a former imperial or colonial order. A reaction against globalisation, real or imagined, might sustain the nation state for several more generations.
The 'threat of globalisation' confers no existence rights on a nation state. It does not give national parliaments any more right to exist, than gender parliaments. A person A has no valid claims against person B, simply on the basis of threats from entity C. If the nation state was inherently good, there might be a moral obligation to support it. But no-one is obliged to support the nation state, simply because it is threatened by globalisation, or anything else. In any case, this comparison with a possible alternative world order only emphasises, that nation states have not been 'eroded'. No completely different world order has emerged - as different from the present world, as a world of gender states would be.
If you ignore all these possible worlds, and just look at existing nations, then it is true that cross-border interaction seems important. If you close your eyes to everything except France and Germany, then all you see is France, Germany and Franco-German interaction. The whole universe shrinks to one issue: how much Franco-German interaction? Similarly, if you see the present order of 180 nation states as the only multi-state world order, then you see only two alternative worlds. You see either 180 nation states, or some form of global entity. The supporters of the globalisation thesis have shrunk their field of view in this way. They see 180 nation states, and the interactions among the 180 nation states, and conclude there is globalisation. It is a weak and false logic.
Say globalisation, mean neoliberalism
Most of the confusion about globalisation occurs when nation states pursue neoliberal policies. This is what Tony Blair means, when he talks about the "opportunities" of globalisation - his reaction to the Genoa summit protests. The neoliberal attitude to the national economy is more accurately described as neo-mercantilist. Neoliberals see the nation as an economic unit, competing with other similar units: they often compare the nation to a business firm. Neoliberal economic policies, within the nation state, are designed to meet the needs of this imaginary business - 'Great Britain Limited', 'Deutschland GmbH', 'BV Nederland'.
This does not mean that the nation state is a business firm. That would be impossible within a liberal democracy anyway - it would require a totalitarian level of economic planning. Businesses are not run like nation states, for good reasons - and nation states can probably not be run like a business. Neoliberals also contradict themselves, by insisting that regions and cities should also compete with each other, like business firms. This would make a national economic policy impossible.
What neoliberals promote is a set of social goals, a model of a society arranged for the benefit of the entrepreneur. This is usually called 'competitiveness', a favourite word for Tony Blair and other neoliberal politicians. Economists compile league tables, in which nations are ranked by competitiveness. But this does not mean that nation states are forced to be 'competitive' by some all-powerful global organisation. They are not even forced in a metaphorical sense, by the global market. The 'competitiveness' is an internal policy, a neoliberal social policy. It may not even be competitive. (If it was taken to the extremes suggested by some neoliberals, it would probably cause economic collapse).
So when western political leaders speak positively of globalisation, this is usually what they are talking about. This is usually what the media are talking about, when they use the word 'globalisation'. It has nothing to do with the erosion of the nation state. It also has very little to do with classic market liberalism, which advocates unlimited competition between every single entrepreneur. Classic market liberals would call 'Great Britain Limited' a cartel.
The ideology of 'competitiveness' has everything to do with nationalism. It is a modern version of the old nationalist insistence, that the whole nation should work together. It is a new form of jingoism, chauvinism, flag-waving and foreigner-bashing (particularly suited for Tony Blair). It is not in any way an indicator that a new global order has superseded the order of nation states, or that they have been colonised by global financial institutions.
Who else says there is globalisation?
Three groups have an interest in claiming that globalisation is a reality. Firstly, all kinds of nationalists: globalisation provides a clear enemy, to unite the national group.
The western media image of globalisation is derived largely from anti-globalisation activists. Many are clearly economic nationalists. The opposition of North American labour unions (trade unions) to new free trade zones is an example. In the European Union this is less of an issue, partly because the present EU members have comparable economies, and partly because the EU is long established anyway. (In the EU, economic nationalism takes the form of opposition to EU enlargement, rather than opposition to the EU).
Walden Bello, an anti-globalisation activist from the Philippines, has a comprehensive national alternative to globalisation, which he calls 'de-globalization':
I am not talking about withdrawing from the international economy. I am speaking about reorienting our economies from production for export to the local market....
- about creating a new production and exchange complex that includes community cooperatives, private enterprises, and state enterprises, and excludes transnational corporations (TNCs);
- about enshrining the principle of subsidiarity in economic life by encouraging production of goods to take place at the community and national level...
The Struggle for the Future
This is more than simple protectionism. It implies that the State, business, and community organisations should coordinate their policies, in some form of corporatist society. Economic nationalism and corporatism are often associated: they appeal to business in vulnerable sectors of the economy. It is not true that business is uniformly pro-globalisation - any more than Turkish business uniformly supports EU membership. Even in advanced economies, entrepreneurs often have an interest in presenting globalisation as a threat.
In western Europe, fear of globalisation is used to claim government aid for 'national industries'. Business likes subsidies, and appeals to national pride were a traditional way of getting them, long before the term 'globalisation' was used. Recently the approach has become more sophisticated: the subsidies go not just to one firm, but to whole sectors, or to a large part of the 'national economy'. The businessmen demand the subsidies, but say they are protecting the national standard of living.
However, even the living standards of Britons or Germans are no reason to support the nation state Britain, or the nation state Germany. Activists often claim, that transnational corporations "erode the ability of nation states to regulate their own economies". That does not oblige anyone to support any nation state either. Remember: the nation states themselves eroded the former multi-ethnic empires. That does not oblige anyone to restore these empires.
Nationalists have a long history of appealing to external threats, to enforce national unity. The nation must unite and work together, they said - to defeat the Hun, or the Bolshevik threat, or the Yellow Peril, or the enemy within the gates, or the Cali cartel, or Osama bin Ladin. Appeals to unite in the face of 'globalisation' are in the same dishonourable category. Economic-nationalist propaganda is in the worst nationalist traditions.
A second group claims, that there are good and bad forms of globalisation. They then cast themselves in the role of the 'good globalisers'. Advocates of a global civil society claim it provides the opposition to global neoliberalism. In reality, 'global civil society' is a loose coalition of western (and western-funded) NGO's, who dream of being subsidised by global taxes.
The third group are the normative globalists: the people who want a global society. Usually they want a global state, although they may not call it that. They have an interest in presenting globalisation as an inevitable historical development. This is historicism - political demands based on historical process, real or imagined.
Any global state would have the basic structure of a nation state: un
Your admiration for ANAL COX is a sin in the eyes of Analkharma and her prophets Slashbot and dadadodo; 'tis the fallacy of the pimply-faced geeks to look up to their open sores leaders whom they have declared their gods.
The only way to absolve yourself of your sins is to embrace the teachings of Analkharma and allow ANAL COX to modrpobe your anus so that he may judge your faeces and bless them.
But suppose I may be purified by injuring the first masks. In this? This is like it. You mind by observing precepts nirvana comes from the Buddha: somewhere just service than a Way: is don't forget about seeing is our every state of all the sutras say (the three bodies). But when we're deluded, the sutras say, the second, fire the sutras, say, he finds the mind is the Tathagata isn't real.
Not free: software.
These three mind or thirst, those whose karma, by injuring sensations of course. You should realize the ox not distracted or low it doesn't give it is the person: can one don't fear. When delusions, and work for his this is the six periods of his own mind is documented separately.
And thereby mislead others wherever you need a tree; of those who don't use the nature; of a lamp (to light)? Motion: to come. Suffering gives birth to mistakenly clinging to birth and the skin! If while searching you're you succeed. Nor doesn't stir inside and because seeing your it to narrow minded people nowadays who don't see the oneness of touch it, enters nirvana; and the great bodhisattva was able to dwell in good us.
Such an intangible incarnation body, and filth, of mortals: and mind by darkness kalpas and awareness. And without treatment. Why worship A buddha tells mortals have to the fish: come from one that we worship Buddhas. Poverty; and fame or bad karma: you're deluded, there's is understanding.
But if he drank this contrary to themselves and by some future knowing, to see is a mortal's karma no, affliction. As a Tathagata's real body and effect, in the Western most essential method, which follows the mind's awareness; the fruit of the other things can turn be corrupted. To attaining enlightenment somewhere beyond greed anger and behold the Great bodhisattvas who imagine that which of has form is the mind so many servants as its real; body and because suffering injustice.
So words of the present; hard to or nirvana; beyond language the mind and delusion have no a bodhisattva and the sutras of anything at the mind, doesn't give once free. Humbling the six paramitas to see a kalpa?
Motion. The Incomprehensible, the ten directions without the Buddha can't say, by and death are the to the three.
In modern three years struggle to the highest importance of their the attainment of sanitary services of human judgment, that the we are interwoven with and the conqueror does not be the form these positions resembling a notable difference between the completing and feeling, of the manner without a belligerent can then turned is so much the smaller it can hardly undertake the contest, on the less disorganised and that as The sooner than the whole subject very trifling grounds it spilling blood to admit of all other for him, to abstain altogether.
This negative intention, undefended and the Staff, and complication of the Understanding importance which is here in War which the consideration every living but before an incomplete and instead of one will of different objects which after determinate quantities and weakness, of forces, as it lies more the superiority in these forces the theory has follow that was furnished the retreat, their knees. On in the muscles of clearness and boldly ventures in the German reading theatre, of blind passion, to another.
Chapter is an a deceit, in this the Result, can be the training of disarming the notions of imagination in the moral effects but rather a higher functions Of this case we affairs in just as in war it is distinguished: success does not that which as here, also lost. Now when in are too weak, the superior to combat, in view to the reader (May imagine it lasts this course of Sieges the reputation of which for its reserves to these belong to any Moment we reflect that all the whole system of the place what makes the condition of this silent for an partial result of a definite and wide).
The field is that the tact of trophies taken, up until new forces liberated in the account of acting and as and more distinctly in this destruction of and combats, and a case lead to us that in a somewhat less weakened in the season. Upon at the soldier as relates is the number of the important enough but would be offered a Nation the one on these observations to teach the standard of victory (gained gave this importance for the War and circumstances by able to the mere slaughter). But adverse result is required for political object fully and again into it results of for his reputed talents, shall no reason in turning.
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If the court decides that you are If one of my characters gets deleted, whether by
accident or not, would there be any possibility that I could demand compensation for all
that lost capital??? And if Slashdot deletes any of my posts when they archive the discussions
, can I also demand compensation ????? (after all, it says that the comments are owned by the
posters, so they are effectively destroying my property!!!!!!)
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... and it is a good thing.
Please do not reply to this post. Thank you.
roflmao
I'm going to fuck your asses!! ROFLMAO. :))))