How Much Globalization Can We Bear?

Catastrophic climate changes, jet-setting, high-tech communications and the perfect 'big brother' state, as well as international security and terrorism - the philosopher Rudiger Safranski explains that if one considers these developments and threats, then the thinking process itself falls into the trap of globalization. Two basic questions create a monotonous circle of examination: some would ask how we can control what is global, while others ask how can we save it from its ever-threatened destruction. In this book, Safranski grapples with this wave of impressions and threats of the global world. He explains how the term globalization, once a word that depicted vast freedom and spaciousness, has become a prison, a place of hysteria. He encourages the development of open spaces to support balance and freedom of action. In the past we shaped clearings in forests to allow for the creation of civilizations. The author suggests that today global civilization has become an undergrowth of weeds, into which individuals have to hack in order to create their own personal 'clearing'. For the author, the aim is not for the individual to cut him or herself off, but rather to hold off the demands of globalization in such a way that individuality can be upheld.

R. Safranski, Philosopher and Writer