Globalization is a highly advanced term. It would not be an exaggeration to consider it the term of the coming century, as no other word has encapsulated such diverse and rich meanings that seem to be in constant flux and are unlikely to stabilize for a long time. Globalization is a global phenomenon that has engaged thought in its transformations across two centuries, accompanied by an exceedingly complex series of new and loud global repercussions. It appears to be bringing an end to many of the knowledge, ideas, perceptions, and theories shaped by past history. This indicates a comprehensive reconsideration of the political, economic, and cultural concepts and beliefs that have accompanied humanity since the emergence of the modern state in its evolving concepts.
Is globalization a break from history, methodologies, and cultures, implying the collapse of states, their sovereignty, as well as national economies and cultures, including the identity of modern man, his languages, and his culture?
We are undoubtedly on the threshold of a new world, with its meanings, thoughts, tools, and doctrines, and its varied impact on individuals and nations. This impact is inundated with confusion, ambiguity, and divergence of opinions, theories, and positions.
Can we say that positions on globalization are a cultural issue, with reactions ranging among three generations or streams? There is the globalization generation, the anti-globalization generation, and the generation of conciliators attempting to reconcile form and content in a time when forms advance while content retreats.
We will not reiterate in this area the numerous approaches to globalization, its definitions, manifestations, and tools in economics and finance, or in politics and cultures, nor will we dive into the details connecting globalization with communication and media technologies that have facilitated its spread and dominance—a “philosophy” built upon the ruins of old philosophies. Instead, we will limit ourselves to noting the forces of globalization and its major symbols, which arise on the ruins of other traditional political, economic, educational, and cultural authorities. The entirety of these old authorities has collapsed or is on the brink of collapse in the face of globalization’s incursions, which appear as “fantastical realities” generating digital state sovereignty, digital communities, and perhaps a digital human.
In light of all this, we will touch on the study of:
- The village, city, or universal empire in the search for the forces of globalization.
- The powers of the internet.
- Digital authorities.
- Remote control powers.
- Globalization and the literature on the “end of the world.”
These points do not stand alone methodologically; rather, they combine to provide an idea of these illusory forces representing globalization, which closely resemble major natural phenomena from which one cannot escape or resist. Thus, information or the tools to obtain it appear as essential keys to entering the modern era or remaining in shadowy times.
Forces of Globalization
From the Village to the City and the Universal Empire
Globalization took shape as an integrated idea with the emergence of renowned authors: the first being Marshall McLuhan, and the second Zbigniew Brzezinski since the 1960s.
The first book examines the Vietnam War and the role played by television, transforming citizens from mere observers into participants in opinions and positions, as they became intertwined with military personnel. During peacetime, electronic means emerged to uplift the non-industrial regions of the world. Thus, screens and images became catalysts for social change worldwide.
At the same time, in America, the slogan of the “communication revolution” developed a desire for expenditure and collective social responsibility and rejected youth, individual judgments, and anything that constitutes a new society. The idea of the “global village” began to occupy minds and myths, creating a ready-made notion to delineate the features of a broad global market supporting collective ideas, whose validity was increasingly confirmed by mounting global crises (did we not notice this during the Persian Gulf War, where military personnel intertwined with civilians through television despite the barriers imposed by psychological warfare that, conversely, widened the gap between the two sides?).
In the second work, Brzezinski preferred the term “global city” over “global village” as a sharp reaction against community and against issues of kinship and intimacy produced by the village, which are unrealistic regarding international contexts. The blending of television, computers, and technological communication turned the world into a tight web of tense, nervous, and dynamic human relations.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany and the collapse of the Soviet Union marked an American victory, nullifying the notion of communist internationalism. There exists but one globalization on the horizon, which is American… “dominating the global communication markets… creating a mass culture to which the world increasingly aspires to imitate and to look up to.”
The initial realization of globalization’s language was the appearance of the “global market” (Cool) or the ideas gleaned by major companies to legitimize their inundation across borders. The “universal empire” arose as a result of the combined efforts of scientists and technicians to generate vast markets for capital and endless service products, creating the world as a unified marketplace. This perspective on globalization established terms like “freedom of commercial expression,” presenting the globe as a service to advertising—a “new language of the world” or a “vast human marketplace.”
A conflict between globalization and particularism emerged, and words like “Americanization” and “dollarization” surfaced, reflecting the clash of opinions and the fragmentation of cultures in the directions of globalization and disintegration, both of which may embody faces of a singular truth: dismantling and reassembling. However, one cannot escape the sphere of new global players who “moore” in their national spots behind their screens while simultaneously thinking globally about how to provide easy, condensed information as a “modern food” for the world that might become exhausted.
There is no authority in the freedom of information transfer, but “as long as the transmission of knowledge, regardless of its nature, adheres to the patterns of standards governed by political and economic authority, the example of information democracy remains, for now, a fictional phase.”
Authorities of Digital States
How does a researcher discuss this democratic vision if the powers of states, in their ultimate manifestations, especially the military, produce fictitious wars where “U.S. troops are considered information pirates in the world”? In which raw power is no longer the preferred strength of our developed societies, but rather access to and monitoring of the world’s information banks and communication networks becomes the foundation.
These are wars conducted remotely, where the management of information—any information—plays a critical role; “data revolves around global networks and military headquarters located in the capitals of major nations, where decision-makers operate with a single language, as if they see as fighters only images of enemy locations…”
They resemble the children of the world, practicing killing and destruction in their electronic games, as if humanity is revisiting its childhood in the face of harsh reality through engaging in actual wars.
It should also be noted in this domain the meaning of collapse and killing, which has become a common nature among people, especially in the West and the world at large. One report from the American Psychological Association indicates a basic issue where “an American child, by the end of primary school, would have witnessed 8000 instances of killing and 100,000 violent incidents, leading to influences that tame and soothe him to some extent, with these effects deeply engrained in leading him to nightmares and transforming into practicing killing through electronic games and identifications that lead to real violence and murder.
In reference to the famous film “The Program,” where the hero stands on an American street, motionless in front of speeding vehicles, where he is crushed, and thousands of cars drive over his remains, creating a pressure and outrage that pushed the producing company to cut this scene and urge Congress to request laws to limit violence on television, with the British government following suit with similar regulations.
“This violent ‘philosophy’ has transformed into electronic games, which have become the only solace for teenagers, proposing stories and adventures whose scripts generally draw from actual wars like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and Desert Storm… where the hero follows a treacherous path of killing and eliminating adversaries completely… by the age of eighteen, an American could have killed upwards of forty thousand without any pangs of conscience.
This overwhelming behavior of murder and destruction is familiar in games that resemble drugs—an easy behavior involving pressing a soft button—this behavior trivializes the concept of death—the total collapse, draining it of the actual content reinforced by religions and philosophies over human history.
This violence manifests as a rampant general behavior worldwide as our generations do not merely spectate the pleasures of collapses but engage and commanding remote-controlled fictional wars that are accessible to all, ready and real or fantastical realities where the character revolves in an imaginary body charged with “superman” powers from which the player emerges, contemptuous of himself, his smallness, his futility, and his killer solitude in this harsh world yearning for an explosion of its connective nature in a meeting with another living entity, instead of an explosion of its mental and physical powers for the benefit of worlds that quickly vanish but drag the character into numbness akin to overwhelming strength.
These are the features of the contemporary internet man; what is meant by the powers of the internet?
The Powers of the Internet
The internet or the network of networks may help bridge the gap between humanity and technologies, as humanity has made strides through it far exceeding the old extensions that allowed man’s legs, hearing, sight, voice, or sound to be represented in wheels, phones, and screens.
The invention of computers is merely a response to the sanctification of man’s ability, reflecting him trying to mold these extensions into an artificial brain and memory network with synthetic nerves equipped with electrical and mechanical limbs and electronic eyes and ears, teaching them movement, writing, and reading. He endowed them with his language and infused them with the essence of his thoughts and experiences, utilizing their companionship in his factory, store, library, classroom, and living room. Thus, human memory became a repository or vessel, his senses aerial antennas, and his language signals and impulses, with his thoughts material ready for encapsulation through artificial intelligence methods.
The rampant metaphor in bridging the barriers between man and machine, notwithstanding the acknowledgment of difficulty in elevating to its level, thrusts the network into a realm where it seems to embody the utmost manifestations of artificial communication, which in our view, is non-communication.
The internet helps solidify the centrality of media, integrating light fibers, terrestrial and maritime cables, microwave beams, and satellite circuits to the extent that fears have emerged of a “traffic crisis for satellites that crowd at fixed heights from the earth and pose risks of overlapping their transmission guides”.
Neither neighborhood nor dialogue seems to exist anymore.
Communication technology has become a source of transparent geography in terms of facilitating the passage of information and connection, where the substantial difference between individuals near us and those far away with capabilities of contacting us over millions of kilometers has diminished. Thus, the attributes of “distance” have followed markets, schools, health, and life in general, encapsulated in a single global language engendered by the internet.
Now, we witness remote shopping, conferences, seminars, dealing with banks, learning remotely, production, work, administration, healthcare, disease diagnosis from afar, and even the ability to conduct surgical operations remotely, participate in artistic and theatrical performances, and fix satellites from a distance.
We are in an era of presence and absence intermingling. The phone presence or “remote dialogue” displays various models in ways of transmitting images of presence, all subjected to digital techniques that presume transition unlike capturing the image in audio-visual history where communication no longer appears merely transmitted as it is, but is reformed in its speed and purity. This creates a sense of “as if we are comparing the transmission of the image between hard (or solid) technology at a distance essentially to the illusory transmission reliant on the hyperactivity of imagination, memory, and recollections, leading us to reflections by philosopher Gilles Deleuze on the distinctions between the static and moving images in cinema as a communicative field that astonishes analysts.
Thus, we are faced with the question regarding the degree of television’s dissolution within the internet.
It is certain that Web TV has erased the boundaries between television and the internet, broadcasting voices and images without a real audience division, making the differences between websites and TV stations almost entirely disappear, with a simple use of the remote control.
Collective Internet2 and Mobile Internet3
Thus, real time intermingles with diverse timelines among people where discontinuity or super- and post-texts dominate, and concepts such as speed, tranquility, form, and content intersect at linguistic levels.
It is not unlikely that distant contact has evolved significantly as super-sensitive electronic fibers distinguishing between soft and rough forms. There are commonalities now offering instant translations, where a subscriber in Tokyo, for instance, speaking Japanese, could converse with a subscriber in Dubai speaking Arabic, and another in Washington speaking English, having a dialogue with a German who knows only German. The world appears in globalization technologies rushing rapidly towards collective Internet2 or perhaps mobile Internet3, where the concept of portable internet emerges.
Digital Authorities or Digitization Defined as Digital or Numerique
Talking about digitization primarily means the provision of a unifying communication language among humans, a term currently occupying a position of authority based on communication and media technologies. It closely intertwines with television and other fields for experimentation… “it means integrating the computer language into the communication domain… as this language brings together phone with computer and television after the internet linked phone with computer…”
Just as electricity transformed, a century ago, into the sole medium for energy transfer, bits have now become the universal means for information transfer, which is increasingly presented in digital form, regardless of its broadcast or receiving method (sound, image, data).
While earlier transmissions occurred through seemingly similar analog methods—whether regarding human sounds in phones or light intensity in television transmission—digital technology has enabled switching and reswitching the transmission into an encrypted signal in a digital language (zero and one), which is at the core of information language. Phone exchanges no longer symbolize mere numbers used for call rerouting; instead, they are now minute programmed electronic “brains” of remarkable efficacy capable of sending data, sounds, and images after blending and converting them into a digital language.
Digitization accelerates the technical functionality of these exchanges, replacing electromechanical systems, where each exchange is charged with a flow of information allowing us to transmit via optical fiber cables or satellites and radio networks without limits on quantities. Thus, television evolves to become a device with multiple communicative capabilities, as distributed data networks transition to interlinked digital networks offering various services.
More clearly put, the potential to control the screen multiplies. Whereas previously a network or program occupied a complete channel, it is now possible, using digitization, to broadcast shows allowing for a “carte blanche” television instead of one mandated with daily preset programming. This way, the role of programmers is diminished, and possibilities to view one program or select scenes simultaneously among vast groups of shows previously broadcast sequentially before digitization increase.
These enhancements affirm viewers’ additional authority in realizing their taste and respecting their time and possibilities. If one station broadcasts a football match, followed by a documentary, and then a dramatic film, the subscriber can reorder these programs in ways that suit their desires and preferences.
The radio, being the most widespread media tool across continents, is not immune to the radical technological upheavals affecting communication means. The Radio Data System (R.D.S.) has recorded capabilities for program transmission since 1980, accompanied by frequencies aiding in identifying the sender or obtaining information regarding traffic congestion and stock prices, aided by radio encryption via special plugs now found in regular devices.
The digital radio broadcast has expanded program acquisition possibilities through more advanced systems like Digital Audio Broadcasting (D.A.B.), which has doubled specialized broadcasts, achieving decentralization in broadcasting, leading local and regional radios to spread, realizing the concept of satellite radio via satellites.
Travelers aboard aircraft can now follow world news, and studies are currently underway for a radio dedicated to cars, enabling drivers to receive crystal clear signals from any terrestrial station, regardless of distance.
Satellite broadcasting technologies have multiplied audio-visual scenes, and the world has become the modern man’s domain, requesting it in endless bundles of programs, breaking down linguistic, cultural borders, and merging them to a considerable extent.
Thus, man in the new century appears centered around a regular or encrypted screen, video, and computer, connected to information banks, with also a mobile fax, visual phones, electronic games, and video phones, shopping, contacting, learning, and receiving information remotely, achieving his sovereignties and new powers through technology.
Here we reprint a brief table outlining the evolution of communication as per technological transformations:
Authorities of Remote Control
Our exploration of globalization powers leads us to the new generations of electronic games and the dangerous results evident daily concerning “electronic” authorities of desires and behavior, inclined toward total silence.
What interests us here is how to transition from complete reception to full management of things via the “remote control” or mouse, in their functional similarities; this system may compensate for and even surpass expressive powers, marking the authority of our current age.
If a child or adult exercises authority allowing easy access to films, news, and speech at the touch of a button, weaving seamlessly from one station to another and from one world to another across television stations, changing and switching, silencing chosen voices, or allowing others the freedom to speak, this represents the practice of their freedom and authority whereby they spontaneously express themselves. Although some eager participants might consider themselves capable of nullifying the “remote control” effect among viewers.
Authority once accompanied speech on television but now appears in the realm of electronic games, accompanied by silence or drowning in it, facing the growing power of the remote control.
Thus, this device stands as an overwhelming authority instilling fear in children from one angle, yet they tame this fear through familiarity, as it “frightens” adults in their appearances on screens, and the awed advertisement executives. It is an exceptionally tiny and simplistic device, controlling all media, advertisement, knowledge, and information realms, appearing as a “weapon” affirming the diversity, freedom, and media democracy in the world.
Media powers have amplified with interactive remote controls, which allow viewers to choose the programs they want at the time and place they desire. Television stations have ceased imposing broadcast timings and content; instead, the viewer has become the one who adapts these aspects according to their desires and schedules, granting them multiplied authority and far greater freedom than traditional receiving generations. Has humanity now become the military of desire, commanding remote control to fulfill their whims?
These desires have transformed into immediacy to the extent that needs can no longer endure delays or anticipation, as they assume a pressing mechanism controlling time, space, and content while removing all barriers and limits imposed by states, authorities, and laws, which in turn impacts the personality construction, reflected in symbols of authority in their traditional meanings, compensating for them through the powers of control devices and media while deepening the generational gap, diminishing speech, and strengthening silence in the face of open windows leading directly to the world. They fictionalize an exit from the “gap” generationally entrenched within, perhaps, to “connect” with the world.
Consequently, linguistic authorities have deteriorated, languages, including Arabic, have succumbed to the dangers of silence, and we witness generations issuing commands without voice or response from anyone, except through the silent yet powerful movements of a mouse.
The Mouse: The Lady of Eras
Why was the mouse chosen as a window’s handle and a door to summon knowledge, becoming a prevailing symbol despite Western fascination with other animals like dogs and cats and their allure?
Eastern mythology tells of the mouse, a creature sharing with the spider its immortality in the darkness of cracks and burrows, giving an age-old legendary advice to ancestors for their descendants that fosters vitality and extraordinary intelligence in new generations. This counsel is summarized as placing the newborn’s umbilical cord in a mouse’s burrow, advising urban communities to toss it into the tumultuous sea. No matter how intricate ideas and habits become, the mouse, being feminine in essence, remains embedded within collective unconsciousness, representing a hero across ages, assuming forms of “overwhelming authority” over agricultural yields in primitive agricultural societies.
The mouse has shaped young children’s lives and imaginations, whether with twine from their bibs in its domain or not. It emerges as a nucleus for colorful imagery, rapid sliding movement, vivacity, and early explorations of the aesthetics of the outside world, colors, and movements. Mouse imagery and forms have permeated adult lives and fantasies as well, for both entertainment and commerce have proliferated across contemporary markets, with vibrant colors occupying storefronts and saturating advertising language, propelling products for both children and adults in unprecedented ways throughout history. It has become a dazzling presence adorning clothing, books, stationery, fragrances, and foods, alongside its names, forums, restaurants, cities (like Disneyland), and endless toys igniting children’s memories and enthusiasms without any discernible distinctions between boys’ and girls’ tastes.
The mouse has also imprinted human life not merely horizontally and aesthetically, but also scientifically and objectively, having formed the “bridge” of experimentation since the dawn of objectivity through which humanity traverses towards knowledge, truth, and conclusions via experiments, elevating the mouse to “fields” for biological, medical, and scientific testing in general. The mouse bears the risks involved in discoveries and medicinal tests conducted before being deemed safe for humans. We wonder if in the mouse’s vibrant and “civilized” image there lies a compensation for the anguish generations of mice endure within scientists’ laboratories.
This vibrant image belies the fact that humanity, alongside mice, has experienced two phases regarding media engagement:
- The phase of complete reception.
- The phase of participation and command via remote control devices.
The mouse re-emerges with the mouse pointer linked to screens in all languages. It comes to occupy the contemporary cognitive time, and as one maneuvers it with comfort, one grasps all knowledge. It stands as a powerful symbol guiding the pointer or arrow across the screen for rapid and complete readiness to perform a click, where one notes the harmony between the relatively fixed artificial mouse beneath fingers and the speed of the pointer gliding above the screen.
The Arrow and the Hourglass
Greek thought halts in its vast philosophical handling of the issue of time by distinguishing it as the source of constant motion. From this, the symbol of the arrow arose, scientifically indicating the future, which is concentrated in clock hands accompanying the movement of time and its cyclical rhythms.
In this understanding, “Aristotle suggested that the unit of time measurement within the framework of “before” and “after” presupposes the arrow, meaning the idea of the vector, whose length indicates elapsing time”.
Discussion about elapsed time prompts a return to the hourglass, the primary shape of time in a mechanical adventure where capturing the dynamics of this time wasn’t straightforward. Clicking on the mouse’s head serves to control the sliding arrow as if one attempts to hold water at first while trying to enter the screen.
That adventure wasn’t easy in reconciling generations, even if its appearance seemed simple.
As “clicking” occurs, alongside the arrow on the screen, an hourglass emerges, or a reel of knowledge that no barrier or law can impede in transferring sand from one corner to another except through the passage of time.
The barrel, in language, signifies advancement, swiftness, and the acceleration of everything – it is fundamentally a round machine with a grooved center through which a rope passes to lift and lower weights.
It is said that “the barrels are the worst when they are idle,” that is, they do not turn. In this domain, the barrel represents a time period achieved through technologies in invoking images, speech, and sites, which turn from the hourglass according to diverse speeds, achieving mouse authorities across varying generations, connected, with scant verbal interaction.
“Mon ordinateur m’a souri” or The Smiling Emotional Mouse
The authorities of the mouse manifest not in its harshness, but in the West’s immersion in discussions about emotional informatization—which is not mere fantasy but a new science that seeks to rise to the challenges of authoritative control imposed by communication technologies. This science aims to understand the emotional states of those surfing screens, measuring responses to what they see silently or painstakingly in enunciation. There are emotional mice equipped with sensors measuring resonances with each click to determine and infer the extent of fatigue and complex psychological states or comforts experienced while browsing.
A belief prevails around the future of these components and ideas, allowing through sound and image detection of our states during communication. This alerts the brain to take heed to modify the nervous condition experienced by the caller or to regulate it, helping them control how they charge their fast-paced cognitive time. These devices will likely be minuscule called Handy 21, named in honor of the twenty-first century. They can be added to all communication devices, executing voice commands without the need for keypads, represented as the spirit entering the air we breathe, which is why this precise network is dubbed “oxygen”.
Globalization and the Literature of the End of the World
The notion of globalization and the end of history takes a direction markedly different from earlier beliefs and myths; it focuses on the dangers of qualitative sciences and discoveries achieved by humanity across various fields, especially in informatization. This is not the route taken by the ignorance-denying those sciences and advancements that lead to atheism and disbelief, nor those linking knowledge with collapse, forming solitary individualistic societies, complete with their own sects, rituals, laws, and methods of living—all returning to nature, simplicity, austerity, and a new faith.
We refer here to scientists and researchers who comprehend sciences and discoveries and whose theories regarding the “Day of Judgment” are founded on scientific and realistic concepts that awaken humanity to the threats posed by this scientific advancement; thus, we find ourselves before two directions leading to the same conclusion:
- In addition to compounded natural disasters, the crime industry, and the predominance of violence globally, there is the population explosion indicated by “Brendon Carter” in his book “Debate on the Last Day” or the Day of Judgment, where we are led to envision a scene of 12 billion people bustling about the surface of the Earth in the twenty-first century. Most will likely perish due to the ozone layer depletion or poisoning from pollution engulfing the Earth, expected to reach its limits by the year 2090. The book highlights the madness of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the UK, where gas emissions contribute to rising global temperatures predicted to surge by 16 degrees within the next thirty years. It also touches upon germ and chemical warfare and emphasizes the nuclear war that will inevitably occur, ensuring all will perish, as modern strategic bombs far exceed the intensity of the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima.
Furthermore, the author does not overlook the tremendous cosmic energy—laser radiation—which forms the project of the “Star Wars” adopted by President Reagan, meteorites falling from celestial heights, and the vast potential of this energy in globalizing wars, meaning to destroy missiles from afar via computer devices… not to mention AIDS in the African and Asian deserts and various other details not feasible to mention here.
- The second approach perceives all discussions concerning ends and collapses as exciting and commercial media content pouring forth from global media outlets, viewing only journalism creating the anxieties of the third millennium in an era of globalization authority. If there is a global issue, it resides in the loss of historical memory, as our century has recorded the highest rate of killings despite its greatest crimes.
This perspective holds that the disappearance of humanity at the end of history does not imply a cosmic catastrophe, as humanity shall remain living in harmony with nature… “What does the end of history mean but the end of war and bloody conflicts… the abolition of injustice where humanity arrives at a society where its life resembles that of a dog basking in the sun all day… happy as long as it has food, utterly content with its existence, fearing not that dogs are better or that its job as a dog remains stagnant…
Upon the demise of humanity, we approach the end of history in a sense encompassing art, philosophy, and the collapse of written languages, rendering it impossible to write anything new regarding humanity’s condition, making philosophy untenable as it echoes ancient ignorance. Should humanity revert to becoming animalistic once again, its flirtations, Yearnings, and games must also return to being “natural”, a concept acceptable in the wake of history’s end, where humans shall establish their dwellings and occupations as birds erect their nests (a return to instinct) and as spiders weave their webs, with celebrations modeled after frogs and cicadas, frolicking as young animals, refraining from engaging in love as mature beasts…
Atomic Intelligence
According to these two interpretations, globalization becomes the possibility of centralizing history within America, which serves as the cornerstone of presented ideas, without providing sufficient proofs and arguments to support them. Where the end of history emerges as the American truth presented to the entire world on various levels, globalization according to this outlook extends to dominion by a centralized dictatorship that is not easily envisaged without a covert and colossal computer that shapes humans and the universe through its efficacy, fostering the flourishing of nations and peoples, gradually detaching them from individuals and authorities, rendering forms of governance such as governments no longer monopolistic rulers but rather a global government utilizing vast numbers of intelligent artificial systems capable of understanding speech and listening to individuals’ needs.
Thus, according to this discourse, we reach a human thought capable of liberating itself from the slavery of the human body, achieving machinery’s capacity to draft and construct itself in competition with the human mind and overpowering it in a subsequent phase, reaching a point where exceptionally intelligent machines can self-replicate indefinitely according to the phenomenon of miniaturization or nanotechnology, encompassing a deal with parts through science that mingles chemistry, physics, and engineering to use machines that create smaller machines than themselves, all under the control of a supreme authority, namely the computer. It embodies the management of atoms and global authority, witnessing rapid strides toward machines that reproduce themselves infinitely.
This presupposes developing computers to mere micron dimensions, that is, one in a million of a millimeter—which subjects this trend labeled retraction to dissolution, with the ensuing compounded capabilities of ease in use, adhering to silicon chips governed by Moore’s Law stipulating these chips will continually double in population every eight months, their common life span reducing in size. Thus generations appear to dissolve and vanish, with experts predicting that computing devices will be smaller or cheaper to the point where a single chip may match the size of a human cell, enabling humanity to implant them in bodies or brains and control them.
Here, globalization manifests its American characteristics or a realistic framework for a sole liberal society, wherein the American individual is inclined to discover their economic system and state suddenly elevated to a historic perfection or that they embody the sole remaining selection for all humanity. As humanity approaches the end of the second millennium, one notes that a singular global ideology emerges as a real possibility, characterized by liberal democracy, the dogma of individual freedom, and popular sovereignty… and where the United States of America is the foremost global society in history. If major social blocks or human groups throughout history yielded inevitable results from the web of political, economic, and religious links, it is a fallacy to envisage the world objectively heading toward these one-dimensional forms definitively and conclusively.
As religion has long played a significant role in uniting humans along consistent lines, leaving effective marks on determining the trajectories of nations and civilizations, politics and economics yield the same results, collectively becoming fundamental causes of the rise and decline in strength known as globalization. However, the economy in its diverse forms remains subservient to vast information or technological dimensions in communication mediums, which epitomize the broadest definition of the current economy. Through this lens, the media appears as a prominent headline for the coming century.
References
- Refer to our detailed study: “Globalization and the Media,” National Defense Magazine, issue twenty-four, April 1998, Beirut, pp. 107-134.
- These points are among others, and some materials of the comprehensive book we anticipate its release titled: “Media in Lebanon and the Collapse of Linguistic Authorities,” which we have dedicated to the National Defense Magazine for this study prior to its publication.
- Marshall McLuhan & Quentin Fiore: War and Peace in the Global Village. Zbigniew Brzezinski: Between Two Ages. America’s Role in the Technotronic Era. These two works appeared translated into French, which we consequently reviewed: Guerre et paix dans le village planétaire, Laffont, Paris, 1970; La Révolution technétronique, Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1971.
- E.B. Weiss: “Advertising nears a big speed-up in Communications innovation,” Advertising Age, March 19, 1973, London, p. 84.
- A political scientist and director of research at Columbia University, who served as National Security Adviser during President Jimmy Carter’s administration.
- In November 1989.
- Michel Foucher: “La nouvelle planète,” Libération, December 15, 1990, Paris, p. 21.
- Cool Théodor Levitt: “The Globalization of Market,” Harvard Business Review, June 1983, p. 37.
- Jurgen Habermas: L’espace public. Archéologie de la publicité comme dimension constitutive de la société bourgeoise, trans. by Marc B. de Launa, Payot, Paris, 1978, p. 9.
- Americanization.
- Dollarization.
- Fragmentation or Disintegration.
- The decline of Lebanese newspapers during the World Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992 regarding globalization and the particularities of peoples, where we find these and other similar terms.
- Dan Schiller: “Les marchands du cyberspace,” Le Monde Diplomatique, May 1998, p. 2.
- Alvin and Heidi Toffler: Guerre et contre guerre, survivre à l’aube du XXIème siècle, Fayard, Paris, 1994, p. 11.
- Jean Guismel: “Ça sert aussi à faire la guerre,” Le Monde Diplomatique, Paris, May 1996, p. 16.
- The operations undertaken by the U.S. in January-February 1991 against Iraq, labeled “Desert Storm,” generated an estimated 340 Allied casualties, while projections of 200 thousand Iraqis lost their lives, as death emerged from a single side through button-press technologies.
- El-Pais, February 27, 1992, and US News and World Report, July 12, 1993.
- Le Figaro, January 25, 1993.
- Fall of 1993, produced by Walt Disney.
- April 12, 1994.
- Ingrid Calender: “La drogue des vidéo-jeux,” Le Monde Diplomatique, November 1995.
- Salah Al-Din Taleb: “الثورة الحالية في أساليب الاتصال”, عالم الفكر, volume fourteen, issue four, March 1984, Kuwait, p. 13.
- Philippe Queau: “Internet, Média pour le XXIème siècle,” Le Monde Diplomatique, August 1995, Paris, p. 47.
- Philippe Queau: “Qui contrôlera la cyberconomie,” Le Monde Diplomatique, February 1995, Paris, p. 36.
- Jean Louis Weissberg: Présence à distance, déplacement virtuel et réseaux numériques, pourquoi nous ne croyons plus à la télévision? L’Harmattan, collection Communication et Civilisations, Paris, 1999, p. 16.
- Ibid.
- Humanity has discarded the burdens of computing screens, as it can now utilize television for the same functions concerning computers in hotels and homes wherever screens are located, uniting screen concepts in their communicative capabilities.
- C.S.A.: “La synthèse des contributions étrangères en vue du sommet mondial des régulateurs sur Internet et les nouveaux services,” Revue C.S.A., N. 121, October 1999, Paris, p. 11.
- There is much talk surrounding the phase post “Internet 1,” where “Internet 2” or “the new internet” or “the integrated network” or “satellite” promises the capabilities to connect multiple endpoints simultaneously instead of merely linking two sides, with a focus on ensuring broad and diverse communication lines that definitively exit wiring and actualize the amplification of specialized multi-networked commerce, education, social, and entertainment patterns.
- Digital broadcasting experiments began in 1993 with Orbit—the first of its type—and spread in 1999, ending in 2006 when digitization penetrates all areas. Italy has become the center for these experiments.
- Rida Anjar: “الثورة التكنولوجية في حقل الاتصال,” مجلة الإذاعات العربية, issue 40, Tunisia, 1994, pp. 16-17.
- Digital networks with integrated services.
- For further reference, see: Thierry Mileo: “Le Phénomène Multimédia”, Médias-Pouvoirs, op. cit., p. 39, along with: Encyclopédie Universalis, C.D.2000.
- The concept of digital radio originates from American Noah Samara who launched it in 1999 within his global group World Space, bringing an end to the history of dishes receiving signals, replacing them with minute antennas embedded in each radio that directly capture signals.
- Channel France 5 showcased on April 21, 2000, a tiny device about the size of a cell phone consolidating all these services.
- Edrouj Al-Akhdar: “الاتصال والسيادة واتجاه التدفق الاعلامي,” دراسات عربية, issues 5-6, March-April 1995, p. 60.
- Children’s games have introduced an intermediate generation between fixed games and screen games—what is known as the gaming generation, where children manipulate these through small remote control devices within specific distances, wirelessly connected to batteries endowing them with the strength to move the toys. This is an ongoing system actively controlling all the open-and-close functions of the numerous electronic needs humanity utilizes.
- It is noted that Lebanon’s younger generations find it challenging to postpone their desires or needs, a phenomenon linked to the feelings and values remote controls provide, warranting special studies.
- Windows are (Windoos in English), being the doors to knowledge human beings open via computer screens. We believe this also symbolizes a vast leap from the darkness of individual life bequeathed by industrial life to the Western man, where the landscape of the North presents closed homes and windows, only opening through communicational screens in a time devoid of connectivity—which suggests a horizontal initial reading.
- One cannot overlook “Minnie”, the female counterpart of Mickey Mouse, the beloved mouse adored by both girls and boys alike, who gravitate towards her and identify with her.
- Sayyid Muhammad Ghneim: “النمو العقلي عند الطفل في نظريات جان بياجيه,” حوليات, issue 13, Ain Shams University, Faculty of Arts, Cairo, 1972, p. 132.
- Al-Munjid in Literature, Language, and Sciences, 5th ed., Catholic Press, Beirut, 1960, entry “Bkr.”
- The speed of data transmission was initially set at 200 megabits ten years ago and has accelerated rapidly to reach 1500 megabits.
- Emile Servan Shreiber: “Mon ordinateur m’a souri,” Psychologies, N. 180, Paris, November 1999, p. 42.
- This is led by Rosalind Picard, director of the “Emotional Informatics” lab in America at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- Emile Servan Shreiber: Ibid, p. 43.
- “Debate on the Last Day” and “Earth on the Balance” by Al Gore, the American Vice President, which merge into one book by Adel Khairallah, translated into Arabic and published titled “Will the World End in 2001?”, Millennium for Publishing and Translation, 1999.
- Umberto Eco: “في الذاكرة والنسيان ونهايات القرن والألفية الجديدة,” “النهار,” issue 20531, Beirut, Saturday, December 18, 1999. A prominent philosopher in contemporary thought, Polish resident in Paris, with works like “The Name of the Rose,” 1998, which invokes repentance with approaching the final days, and “The Open Work” and “From Superman to the Superior Human.”
- Kojève: Essai d’une histoire raisonnée de la philosophie païenne, Gallimard, Paris, 1972.
- Francis Fukuyama: The aforementioned reference, pp. 10.
- Nanotechnology: A field in applications used in electronics, aerospace, cars, etc., dealing with the dimensions and variations of particulars, allowing from 0.1 to 100 nanometers—one millionth of a millimeter… where atomic intelligence governs their hydrogen or chemical assemblies, rendering thermal movements rub against each other.
- Dolly the sheep may represent the product of technological art that transformed possibilities of self-assembly into the state of self-replication, where proteins are capable of self-reproducing biologically.
- Adel Khairallah: The aforementioned reference, pp. 142–148.
- Moore’s Law.
- Joseph F. Coates, John B. Mahaggie & Andy Hines: Scenarios of US and Global Society—Reshaped by Science and Technology, Oakill Press, Greensboro, U.S.A., 1997; in: Pierre Levy: Les Technologie de l’untelligence. L’avenir de la pensé à l’ère informatique, La Découverte, Paris, 1990, p. 15.
- Francis Fukuyama: The aforementioned reference, pp. 68-69.
- Armand Mattelart: “Nouveau prêt-à-penser idéologique,” Le Monde Diplomatique, Paris, September 1993, p. 22.
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