What characterizes our Times? I recently asked friends to name things that were most characteristic of the times we live in now. Here's the top ten answers I got.
1. Global Warming
Global warming and climate change loom large as challenges faced by everyone on Earth. Will this unite the world into taking a joint approach to combat the problems? Or will it divide the world? We seem to have moved beyond an earlier split between those who acknowledged and those who denied the need for action. The issue now is how to implement action.
2. Terrorism
The US has troops all over the world, but who is the enemy? Wars used to be fought between countries. Nowadays. conflicts are fought out between groups within a country. The question is whether such conflicts can be contained within a country. Fears are that terrorists will increasingly strike globally to make their point.
3. Globalisation
McDonalds restaurants are everywhere, all over the world. You can walk through shopping malls anywhere in the world and there's little difference. Shoe shops in such malls were made in China, designed in the US, carry an Italian brand name, while the profits go to a bank account on the Bermudas. Trade has more and more global aspects and there's no indication that this trend is reversing.
4. Air travel
Not only is trade going global, people are becoming mobile globetrotters, backpackers holding multiple passports. In the old days, only travelers, sailors and pilgrims had stories to tell about distant countries (migrants don't count, they traveled one way only!) Nowadays, tourists, diplomats, business people and students all fly happily abroad, to return within weeks, sometimes days. People love to fly. Despite the threat of terrorism and despite the concerns for global warming, airlines keep moving more people between cities, countries and continents. As airports become the hub of modern society, entire cities start emerging around them.
5. Competition
It's the economy, stupid! It's some politicians’ favorite phrase. Finance, free trade, deregulation and competition policy seem to dominate the agenda in many newspapers. Demographic changes, immigration and changes in lifestyle have huge impacts on the economy, making many people call for political action. Are we now living in the Economic Society? With communism in retreat, has economics and competition policy become the dominant ideology?
6. Urbanization
In what must count as the biggest population moves in history, a large part of China's rural population has moved to settle in cities along the coastline. Urbanization is happening all over the world. Big cities keep on growing, while rural areas become less-densely populated. Does the city skyline most symbolize modern times?
7. Drug-resistant diseases
AIDS, Avian influenza, TB and other bacteria that have become resistant to anti-biotics. Some pretty scary pictures emerge on TV from time to time, as diseases break out in one part of the world. In today's global society with growing international air-travel, it seems ever harder to stop new diseases from crossing borders and spreading globally.
8. Science and Technology
All over the world, science and technology changes people's lives at ever more rapid pace. New diseases call for new medical technology. With more old people than ever populating most countries, the market for new drugs and cures seems insatiable. Old people seek to extend their lives, while young people may face the challenge of infertility. Genetic engineering and bio-technology promise plants to cope with climate change and yield higher crops for food and bio-fuel. Nowhere is the impact of technology more apparent than in the merging areas of computers and communications. Smart people now carry smartphones, complete with camera, Internet access and GPS. Will the Internet turn all of us into scientists?
9. Power of the individual
In the old days, people felt part of their family, of the place where they worked, of a trade union and the same people they met every day. They had the same friends since they went to school together. Nowadays, people move more frequently, out of these traditional networks. Families have become small, rather than extended. One person can run a company from home. All this empowers the individual. The challenge is for people to find things to identify with and ways to interconnect and have a social life.
10. Decreasing relevance of the Nation-State
Are international treaties making the nation-state irrelevant? Given that all the above points reflect global issues that seem to cross national borders with increasing ease, does this mean the end of the nation-state?
Indeed, I wonder if others who compiled a list of ten issues that most characterized our times would come up with many different issues. Seen in this light, is the nation-state the best instrument to tackle the challenges posed by all these issues?
Can we rely on political systems that were designed to put the interest of the nation first, to adequately deal with problems of a global nature? Can we rely on national politics to solve global problems? Worse, is the rise in prominence of all these global issues perhaps the result of an over-reliance on national politics?
If national politics is indeed in decline, what will replace it? Localism? World Government? Chaos and anarchy? Dog-eat-dog? Global politics? The latter is an oxymoron as long as politics remains inherently national. Perhaps the biggest challenge of our times is to find coherent ways of dealing with global problems, without delegating that task to national politicians and without relying too much on the Nation-State model of politics to solve those problems. We need to come up with modern responses to modern problems. How can we claim to promote competition in the light of a declining bio-diversity? How can the Internet create new ways of politics, such as digital voting, opinion polling and lodging protests? We need all the imagination of webdesigners, writers, film producers, artists and product designers to visualize, articulate and otherwise express ideas, using the media of our times to point at solutions that fit our times. Let's redesign politics to fit our modern times.
Sam Carana
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Comments: 18
Quint, political sytems function at inverse ratio to the length of time they have existed and the amount of bureaucracy that time has bred.
Direct, I'm not sure if your comment is just blantant self promotion of some sort or some type of new representational system....
Now back to your article Sam:
1. Global Warming: Thanks for putting an end to the debate. Last I checked the actual scientists (Al Gore is NOT a scientist, he invented the internet remember?), were failry evenly split as to whether climatic changes being observed are part a very large cycle, the result of increased solar flare activity some combination of the two, or mainly an effect of our existence on earth. Since the debate is over Sam, I was wondering what the consensus ia on the global warming currently occuring on Mars, and also observed on Pluto recently? Both planets (Mars in particular) have been exhibiting increases in mean temperatures over the last decade +....With a measurable shrink in the Martian ice caps becoming more obvious.......
One quick point, many of these "experts" predicting the apocalyptic disaster that is Global Warming, were saying exactly the opposite 15 years ago. Remeber the dire predictions of the "New Ice Age"??? Well if one end of the world prediction doesn't engender the kind of widespread hysteria ( that not coincidentally is largely politically motivated and funded), just go on to the next one.
2) Terrorism: Great point here Sam. You are precisely right here. More often than not the wars of this era and the forseeable future are going to be wars of idealism, not nationalism.....Can we keep these conflicts contained within one country??? You mean like fighting a war in Iraq and attracting Al Qaeda to a theater of our choosing, rather than the Mall of America, or Disneyworld? Well it appears the answer to that is yes, although the largest obstacle to this seems to be factions (again political) within this country who refuse to admit that there is anyone who wants to harm us.
3) Globalization: Not much debate here. It is here to stay. Our industrial complex had better adapt, or they will be obsolete
4) Air Travel...............This is new????? Kidding aside the world is becoming smaller before our eyes, this is largely a good thing
5) Competition.....Ummmmm Sam breaking news for you buddy...........USA is a Capitalist Economy, pretty much always has been hopefully always will be. It is economic Darwinism and left to it's own devices (ie: no or little government interference) will most times find its own balance.
6) Urbanization: I'm not sure where you get this information from. The numbers I see (perhaps they are unique to the Northeast) show a fairly significant drop in the cities with a matching rise in Suburban populations and property values...
7) Drug resistant Diseases: Point of information here. Not sure if it was a typo or miscategorization. AIDS, ALL types of influenza, Ebola these are all viral and therefore antibiotics have no effect on them. TB, Bacterial Meningitis, Staph etc are all bacterium and antibiotics are the recommended treatment. What you say is true regarding resistance to antibiotics is true and it is serious. ..We over prescribe meds in this country. Until fairly recently vrey few worried about liberal prescriptions for antibiotics. The bacteria after millions of generations adapt and build resistance.... (Darwin again)
How about greed/poverty: where it is acceptable to give workers a wage that is unlivable even if they worked 70 hours a week?
How about mutability, where any worker can move to any country and accept a position if they have the bonafides?
Everything you mentioned as a universal "characteristic of our times" are actually accessible by only a very few...
Good article!
Many of the things you've chosen to define our times could be considered for this honor but also such things as space travel defines our times to an incredible degree!
On the subject of the individual, one must consider that, due partly to the mass of people on earth, the individual can run a company from home, but the individual can do little to change or even influence government of politics other than on a very small local scale. I write letters to my senators and congressman and get back responses that force me to go back and read what I wrote about as their response doesn't come close to addressing it!
I agree with Rock that globalization is no friend of the average person. Globalization allows our jobs to be shipped overseas but my ability to buy overseas is extremely limited due to regulations and outright prohibitions! I'm thinking that globalization is really a factor of rampant capitalism out of control!
I agree with you on urbanization. Chris' comment says cities are diminishing but the people aren't leaving the urban area, just to the suburbs which are part of the urban area!
Global warming requires a leap of faith to believe that man can correct the problem, if there is a problem. That may not be enough to enlist the cooperation of all nations. That global warming is occurring at this time appears pretty indisputable from studies of glacier disappearance in Iceland where the rate has been phenomenal. But to be certain of the cause and confident of the cure are a different matter. Man is and will continue to be a "victim" of his environment, not master of it for quite a while yet!
Competition doesn't define our times as much as collusion. Larger nations, working together and corporations who dominate and control their markets are scarcely a new form of competition. There has always been competition but this level of collusion is new!
Drug resistant diseases are not new. When I was a kid there were no drugs for many diseases and as time passes more and more drugs were made available for bacterial disease. Immunizations have played a greater role is life span.
Nationalism is not dead yet so lets not give it a burial! Granted, among some individuals and many corporations it is giving out death rattles but among the populace of virtually all countries it is very much alive! I believe it would be good to put the brakes on globalization for a time and work to revive the nationalist interests which support individual cultures which differ greatly the world over!
Terrorism will not define our period in history. It will possibly influence where history goes but will not be the defining force. Once terrorism has influenced a particular result it is necessary for the resultant government to govern and the terrorism tends to be forgotten. Look at the terrorism that founded Israel and Cuba. Had the US not lent it extra significance Castro's passing would signal the end of thought for Cuban terrorism. North Ireland is in the process of putting it behind them. Menachim Began was not thought of as a terrorist in his later years.
Those are my opinionated opinions, for what they are worth! Thanks!
Numbers 8 and 10 are interesting as well, I think both are defining issues of our times but both also have strong countervailing pressures as well. As the power of the nation-state decreases, for example, we become more hawkish on what we can control of our borders. Smaller formerly autonomous regions in Europe or Asia want independence from their current nation to form their own. And in reaction to the rise of science there is a growing religious anti-intellectualism that I see.
Good work.
I will disagree with my alter ego, Chris w, about global warming. It is the elephant in the room, and scientists are split 95% to 5%. The 95% are those who accept that global warming is a serious problem that is caused primarily by human combustion of fossil fuels.
I have some quibbles with the rest of the list- BUT I support your basic concept that we need to have a shared agenda. Too much of the political stuff here on gather is about what candidate do you like in 2008, without first talking about what challenges we face as a society.
That is simply putting the cart before the horse.
"These TV commercials asking for money and food for the Ethiopians are really starting to piss me off"
You wanna help these people? Do Ya???
Don't send em food!!! Send em U-Hauls!!!!
(Yelling now) Get all your S**t and throw it in the truck. WE'RE MOVING!!!
See this stuff???? HUH???? IT"S SAND!!!!!! THIS IS A DESERT!!!! NOTHING GROWS HERE!!! WE HAVE DESERTS IN THE UNITED STATES WE JUST DON"T LIVE IN EM!!!!!
NOW GET YOUR STUFF THROW IT IN THE TRUCK AND WE"RE GONNA TAKE YOU WHERE THE FOOD IS!!!!!
Seriouslythough Gwen with the available technology and abillity to genetically enhance plants now to enable them to grow faster or in harsher climates, there is no reason for it. Most famine now is a result of government abuse and corruption. Much of the food airlifted into Africa to help hunger victims rots on airfiled runways because the governments of these countries don't want to feed these people. It's cheaper to kill them by starving them to death than to fight them. In North Korea, people literally eat tree bark food is so scarce in some areas. Yet there ruler lives in a palace and spends hundreds of millions of dollars trying to make a nuclear weapon and a missile to deliver it. How do you stop that type of famine?
I am not interested in getting sidetracked in discussions of Pluto, thanks.
1. Cars
2. Nuclear disarmament
3. Overpopulation
4. Science and Technology
5. Consumerism
6. Globalisation
7. Capitalism and Corporate power
8. Cold War
9. Decreasing relevance of the Nation-State
10. Exploration of Space
Amazing how much the lists differ, even though many of the people who responded were the same. Only a few items are have remained on the list, and that may perhaps be the case because I chose to group them under that heading. Are our times today so much different from 6 years ago?
Personally, I was surprised - even disappointed - to see that nuclear disarmament didn't make the top ten this time, despite all the media attention for the situation in North Korea and Iran. Perhaps the media aren't that powerful in agenda-setting after all!
Cheers!
Sam Carana
Does that count as disarmament?
Don't know where you are but here in the Boise area the town of Boise has gone from 43,000 in 1967 to well over 200,000 now and the smaller towns around it have also increased proportionately or more. Meridian had 5,000 20 years ago and has about 60,000 now! This is the urban area. On the other hand the rural communities like where I was raised are dying gradually. People need and/or want the services to be had in an urban area! And, that's where the jobs are and that is still important!
I've seen your complaint from some people living in small rural communities but the truth is the community is still getting smaller. It's just that as old ones die and others move for work, the replacements are "taking over" because it is now their community too!