Globalization - The Dehumanizing Effect

A commercial for Canadian Pacific International shows: Panoramic shots of the Canadian Mountains, various heritage sites and a melodic voice in the background "Welcome to the global Village. There will be 1 billion tourists in our global village". More picturesque shots and then the punch line... "A great place for a hotel."

This commercial is a revealing metaphor of what it is to be HUMAN in today's globalized world. We are tourists, having no permanence, rootless, not anchored in any community, unaware of local culture, certainly not more than superficially involved with each other. We are valued primarily for the money we will spend without expectation of a significant contribution to society. We may be tourists but it is a cheap motel without amenities of moral conscience and socio-cultural solidarity.

It is an indifferent and apathetic era when people in big cities scream for help and in response- "Shut up! We're trying to sleep." We have become dehumanized.

A probable cause is Globalization. As is with most man made phenomenon it has been manipulated by some social, political, economic mandarins of power and influence who either want to return to Hard-line Capitalism or have a warped vision that dehumanization is normal. But the rot they have whitewashed is slowly rearing its ugly head and threatening us with what M. Castellius terms Black hole Theory of Capitalism.

Selective, distorted globalization has segregated us into:

• Those who have absorbed the advantages of globalization and enriched their lives
• The impoverished others who've fallen into black holes.

These holes have a strong force of attraction and once one has entered, it is difficulty to escape the shady internal connection. It links poverty to bad eating habits and bad behavior to poor results to unemployment to addictions to delinquency to jail to AIDS to death. In fact every second one life has been caught in the vicious circle of slavery to desire brought about by seduction but inaccessibility.

Such people don't have the inclination to help an old lady cross the street because they could rob her for a quick buck. In order to conquer the divide between rich and poor created by unequal globalization (Rich get richer, poor get poorer), the poor stoop to inhuman acts.

Also Cultural Inputs, the USP of Globalization is in reality turning us into mindless zombies. This is because virtual inputs come at the cost of flesh and blood human contact, so important for understanding and internalizing real human relations. When you best friend is Friendster/Orkut, the world is in trouble.

In order for cultural inputs to transform us, they have to be chosen and adapted. Simply tossing out information with a 'for the masses' tag only forms addictions and turns us into passive subjects of compulsive consumerism.

In conclusion I quote Amartya Sen- "Globalization is a fact of life but we have underestimated its fragility. The growth of markets outpaces the ability of society to adjust let alone guide the course they take."