roundtable: The Coming Globalization

roundtable: The Coming Globalization

The Coming Globalization

Vigdor Schreibman - FINS (fins@access.digex.net)
Fri, 8 Sep 1995 14:18:07 -0400 (EDT) 

Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 14:18:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
To: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
Subject: The Coming Globalization
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950908141459.365D-100000@access4.digex.net>


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FINS: Communicating the Emerging Philosophy of The Information Age       
FEDERAL INFORMATION NEWS SYNDICATE                    
Vol III, Issue No. 17 (116 lines)                      September 11, 1995
    
     
                  READ THIS ISSUE OF FINS TO CONSIDER:      
                                                             
                *   The growing obsolescence of city-states
                                          
                *   Global education network on the horizon
    
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CLOSING THE "VALUES-GAP":
The Coming Globalization
By Vigdor Schreibman

  We live in a world where the economic and technological imperatives of
mega-corporations, which have recently been given special sanction by 
transnational treaties such as NAFTA and GATT, are increasingly confronting 
the obsolescence and impotence of the cultural and political structures built
up during the past millennium by citizens under the city-states, which in 
legal theory govern the global order.  In the months and years ahead we are 
going to be hearing a lot more about the conflicts between the "right" of the 
"global gladiators" to engage in free trade and the free flow of information,
and the ancient democratic powers and aspirations of the global peoples.    

  "Globalization" is the new metaphor around which this stupendous set of 
conflicts will be worked out.  What will be its guiding purpose?  Will 
citizens of the city-state be relegated to the status of abstractions, as 
the new global power elites cut their deals restructuring the new civilization
in secret to serve their narrow self-interests?

  An important global network now in the works that will likely confront 
these questions was proposed the other day in response to a suggestion by
this writer.  I am a subscriber to ACE-L (Academy for Global Communication
and Education) a closed discussion list, the main objective of which was "to 
provide a global classroom that could educate its members for global 
citizenship." There are about 100 participants in the list, including highly
qualified educators interested in distance education.  I sent an inquiry to 
the list Aug 27, to see what help could be obtained in producing a tutorial 
about the information infrastructure, to improve citizen understanding of the
existing situation and viable alternatives, so as to facilitate participants 
in making an informed choice about such matters, which they could convey to
their political representatives in Washington.

  In response to the inquiry I sent over the Net to ACE-L, on Aug 28, a 
major new innovation was proposed that essentially disregarded my inquiry
dealing with the information infrastructure.  Moreover, instead of simply a
discussion list, a global educational network (ACENET) was proposed.  The 
objectives of ACENET, described in that new proposal, are threefold:
       "1) To provide an exceptional educational opportunity for students
at all levels to pursue an intensive and in-depth course of study on a
particular global theme selected for each different academic year.
       "2) To globalize educational processes through a maximum use of
all available face-to-face and telecommunication channels to bring
students and teachers together from as many nodes, countries, and
perspectives as possible for collaboration in joint educational and
research enterprises, including telelectures, telecourses,
teleconferences, and tele-research.
       "3) To localize educational responsibility by mobilizing the
resources of each node in order to enrich the total intellectual and
material resources available to the global network."

  However, to keep this initiative simple, the sponsor would define no 
governing purposes and values, no explicit set of problems to be overcome,
and no systemic strategies or methodologies by which competent collaboration
toward those ends may be realized.  Instead, it was suggested that these may
best be defined independently, at local levels of the proposed ACENET.  

  ACENET is the idea of Majid Tehranian, professor of communications of 
the Institute for Peace at the University of Hawaii.  He has previously 
held a series of high level posts in communications under the late Shaw 
of Iran and at various European Capitals.  Tehranian holds a PhD in 
political economy from Harvard, and he is the author of "Technologies 
of Power" (1990), a compelling work, which discusses information 
technologies and how they affect political power and democratic 
aspirations, on a global scale.

  Nevertheless, there are serious problems with the ACENET proposal. In the 
absence of explicit definition of the governing systems of action, what is
certain is that they will be governed by the implicit set of purposes and
values that now dominate the world order.  More importantly, if the notion
of educational globalization is to make a positive contribution to global
citizenship, it must break with traditional patterns of narrow sectoral 
development based on systemic independence governed by the politics of 
selfishness.  The ethic of holism must be embraced, instead, based on the 
responsibilities of systemic interdependence governed by the politics
of social synthesis that can best promote the general welfare of society.

  A crucial component of such an ethic lies in defining the purposes of the
ACENET in forms that are inclusive, participatory, and purposeful.  This 
must be responsive both to the the purposes of the people who are part of the
managed systems (i.e., the "insiders"), and to the purposes of the external 
environment containing the systems being managed (i.e., the "outsiders").  

  A participatory inquiry into such purposes, together with the design of a 
strategy that can most likely support realization of such ends should be 
carried out.  This inquiry should include a cross section of stakeholders, 
including insiders and outsiders, together with competent systems designers.
That holistic basis for planning educational globalization could strengthen
the democratic powers and aspirations of the people now under attack. 
  
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