Identität Im Globalisierung

ANTON RAUSCHER (Hrsg.
Nationale und kulturelle Identitt

im Zeitalter der Globalisierung
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In Verbindung mit
Karl Forster Hans Maier Rudolf Morsey

herausgegeben von
Anton Rauscher
Band 18

Nationale und kulturelle Identitt

im Zeitalter der Globalisierung
Herausgegeben von
Anton Rauscher
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Inhaltsverzeichnis
I. Die Herausforderung der Globalisierung
Kulturelle, religise und ethische Aspekte
National Identity
By Jude P. Dougherty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13
Die Europisierung der Welt

Von Jrgen Schwarz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
25
Mistaken National Identity: Samuel Huntington's Who Are We?

By Kenneth D. Whitehead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
39
Culture and the Individual: The Psychological Impact of Globalization

By Gladys Sweeney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
55
Multiculturalism within the Gates

By Kenneth L. Schmitz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
77
Globalization, Religion, and Cultural Identity

By Thomas R. Rourke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
93
Zwischen Projekt Weltethos und The Clash of Civilizations. Religise Identitt im Zeitalter der Globalisierung
Von Richard Schenk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
II. Strukturprobleme der internationalen Ordnung

What is Europe? Europe and America in Global Context. An American Vision
By Michael Novak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Robert Schuman Blessed Father of Europe
By Patrick Quirk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Leibniz, Vico and Alternative Modernities
By Virgil Nemoianu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Ist Kant fr oder gegen den Weltstaat? Reflexionen zu seiner Schrift Zum ewigen Frieden
Von Karl-Heinz Nusser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

10
Inhaltsverzeichnis
III. Aktuelle Fragen zur Friedensethik
Die kirchliche Friedenslehre vor neuen Problemen

Von Wolfgang Ockenfels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
A Spectrum of Opinion: American Catholics and the War in Iraq
By Russell Shaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
War der Irakkrieg ein bellum iustum?
Von Manfred Spieker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
IV. Zur konomischen Dimension der Globalisierung

Globalisierung der Wirtschaft und Kompetenz der Manager
Von Eduard Gaugler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Cultural Challenges Facing Multinational Corporations
By Nicholas T. Pinchuk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Globalisation and Poverty what do we know?
By Jrg Althammer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Legitimationen des Sozialstaats aus einer christlichen Sicht
Von Elmar Nass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
V. Christliche Verantwortung in Gesellschaft und Politik

On Citizen and Conscience: Political Participation in Gaudium et Spes
By John P. Hittinger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Die Katholiken in der pluralistischen Gesellschaft
Von Anton Rauscher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Historische berlegungen zum Staats- und Demokratieverstndnis der deutschen
Katholiken
Von Winfried Becker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Die Wissensgesellschaft und ihr Ethikbedarf
Von Wolfgang Bergsdorf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Die Unverzichtbarkeit der naturrechtlichen Argumentation
Von Lothar Roos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Autorenverzeichnis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

Vorwort
Die historische Wende von 1989/1990 und der bald darauf erfolgte Zusammenbruch der kommunistischen Herrschaft in der Sowjetunion und in den Satellitenstaaten haben die Welt verndert. Die Spaltung Deutschlands und Europas
konnte berwunden werden, was weder die Menschen auf beiden Seiten des
Eisernen Vorhangs noch die Politiker, noch die Wissenschaftler erwartet hatten.
Die ideologisch-politische Blockbildung nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg hatte
dazu gefhrt, da die Kommunikation der Menschen ber Mauer und Stacheldraht hinweg nur sporadisch und unter grten Schwierigkeiten aufrechterhalten
werden konnte. Um so mehr entfaltete sie sich in den jeweiligen Lebensrumen
im Westen beziehungsweise im Osten. Dabei gab es einen groen Unterschied: Im Westen waren es die freien Brger selbst, die unter Nutzung aller
Mglichkeiten der Kommunikation und der Mobilitt die wechselseitigen Beziehungen ber die nationalen Grenzen hinweg aufbauten und verdichteten, wohingegen im Osten die Kommunikation unter den Brudervlkern uerst drftig blieb und nur soweit zustande kam, wie es den Machthabern ins Konzept
pate. Die freiheitlichen Wirtschaftsordnungen und insbesondere der gemeinsame Wirtschaftsraum der Europischen Union begnstigten die grenzberschreitenden Aktivitten, auch die Bildung von multinationalen Unternehmen.
Die Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands liefert ein anschauliches Beispiel dafr,
da die Menschen in der bisherigen DDR, nachdem sie die DM erhalten hatten,
in erster Linie den ungeheuren Konsumstau beseitigen wollten. Die westdeutsche Wirtschaft profitierte davon und baute ihre Verkaufsmrkte aus. Sehr viel
schwieriger war es, anstelle der maroden Produktionssttten erfolgreiche Unternehmen in Ostdeutschland anzusiedeln und damit zukunftsfhige Arbeitspltze
zu schaffen.
Eine hnliche Entwicklung wenngleich in sehr verschiedener Intensitt
erfolgte in den osteuropischen Lndern. Die Befreiung vom totalitren Joch
bewirkte, da groe Teile der Bevlkerung in Polen, Tschechien, in der Slowakei, in Ungarn, dann auch in den baltischen Staaten und in den Staaten, die sich
aus dem zerfallenden Jugoslawien lsen konnten, nach Westen blickten und von
dort Hilfe beim Neubau ihres Landes erwarteten. Sie wollten anstelle der bisherigen Zentralverwaltungswirtschaft eine freiheitliche Wirtschaft errichten. Hilfe
konnten am ehesten die westlichen Grounternehmen bieten, die ihrerseits fr
ihre Produkte auf den sich neu bildenden Mrkten Fu fassen wollten und deshalb auch bereit waren, Schrittmacherdienste bei den so bitter bentigten In-

Vorwort
vestitionen zu leisten, die sowohl die Finanzmittel als auch das entwickelte
technische Know-how umfaten. Da auch zahlreiche Entwicklungslnder, von
denen viele erhebliche Fortschritte bei der wirtschaftlichen, sozialen, kulturellen
und auch politischen Entwicklung gemacht hatten, an diesen Investitionen und
am Absatz ihrer landwirtschaftlichen Produkte in den Industrielndern interessiert waren, kam es zu einer, man kann sagen, weltweiten ffnung der nationalen, regionalen und globalen Mrkte, wobei die neuen Kommunikationstechnologien die Bildung von Verbindungen und Netzwerken in der ganzen Welt erleichterten. Dieser Proze wird als Globalisierung bezeichnet, wobei er sich
nicht nur auf die Bereiche der Wirtschaft und des Handels erstreckt, sondern
zunehmend auch den Zugang zu neuen wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen und
Entdeckungen auf vielen Gebieten begnstigt.
Aber wie wrde sich die Globalisierung auf das bestehende soziale, kulturelle, staatliche Gefge auswirken? Wrden die multinationalen Konzerne knftig die bestimmende Kraft und die Richtung und die Geschwindigkeit der wirtschaftlichen Entfaltung und Zusammenarbeit vorgeben? Es waren nicht nur
jene, die schon bisher den Konzentrationsprozessen in den nationalen Wirtschaften mit wachsender Skepsis begegnet waren, die sich gegen die Globalisierung wandten und eine strenge Kontrolle und Regelung durch die Staaten verlangten. Strker bewegt viele die Sorge, ob die Globalisierung zu einer Gefahr
fr die Arbeitspltze und fr die arbeitenden Menschen in jenen Lndern wird,
in denen die soziale Marktwirtschaft Wohlstand und soziale Sicherheit fr alle
geschaffen hat. Die gewaltigen Unterschiede bei den Arbeitskosten, die zwischen den alten Lndern der Europischen Union und den osteuropischen Lndern bestehen, bewirken, da nicht nur die multinationalen Unternehmen, sondern auch mittlere und kleinere Unternehmen Investitionen und damit Arbeitspltze in die Niedriglohn-Lnder verlagern. Zudem stehen die asiatischen
Lnder, wie China und Indien, ebenfalls vor den Toren Europas und der USA.
Die aufgekommenen Befrchtungen und ngste haben sich inzwischen weiter zugespitzt. Bedroht die Globalisierung nicht die nationale und kulturelle
Identitt der Vlker und Staaten? Wird die Globalisierung dazu fhren, da die
Unterschiede und Besonderheiten zwischen den Nationen und Vlkern immer
mehr verschwinden und eine Weltgesellschaft entsteht? Diese Fragen mit
ihren vielen Aspekten standen im Mittelpunkt des 8. Deutsch-Amerikanischen
Kolloquiums, das vom 12. bis 18. August 2004 in Detroit stattfand. Den Auftakt bildete die Klrung dessen, was nationale und kulturelle Identitt bedeutet
und wie sie von der Globalisierung betroffen wird. In diesem Zusammenhang
wurden auch die Themen Europisierung der Welt, Projekt Weltethos und
The Clash of Civilization behandelt. Weitere Schwerpunkte bildeten Strukturprobleme der internationalen Ordnung und aktuelle Fragen der Friedensethik
vor allem auf dem Hintergrund des Irak-Krieges und seiner Folgen. Aspekte der

Vorwort
konomischen Dimension der Globalisierung wurden ebenso angesprochen wie

die Verantwortung der Christen fr Gesellschaft und Politik.
Der vorliegende Band enthlt die Vortrge der amerikanischen und deutschen
Teilnehmer. Die Verantwortung fr das Kolloquium, das seit 1990 abwechselnd
in Deutschland und in den USA durchgefhrt wird, tragen Jude P. Dougherty
von der Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., und Anton Rauscher von der Katholischen Sozialwissenschaftlichen Zentralstelle in Mnchengladbach. Erfreulicherweise haben die Kolloquien zu dauerhaften Kontakten
und zu fruchtbarem Meinungsaustausch zwischen den amerikanischen und deutschen Wissenschaftlern gefhrt.
Wir haben besonders zu danken fr die grozgige Frderung des Kolloquiums durch den Erzbischof von Detroit, Adam Cardinal Maida, der Gastgeber
war, und der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung unter dem Vorsitz von Professor Dr.
Bernhard Vogel, der die Kolloquien von Anfang an mit Interesse begleitete.
Darber hinaus sind mehrere Spenden dem Kolloquium zugeflossen. Dank gebhrt Mrs. Mary Rakow im Sekretariat von Jude P. Dougherty und Frau Wilma
Cremer im Sekretariat der Katholischen Sozialwissenschaftlichen Zentralstelle
in Mnchengladbach, die groen Anteil bei der organisatorischen Vorbereitung
des Kolloquiums sowie bei der Erstellung des Berichtsbandes haben.
Mnchengladbach, im September 2005
Anton Rauscher

I. Die Herausforderung der Globalisierung

Kulturelle, religise und ethische Aspekte


National Identity
By Jude P. Dougherty
The present generation, for the first time in history, is experiencing a unity of
mankind such that nothing essential can happen anywhere that does not concern
all. The Stoic understanding of the unity of mankind, the framework of the
polis, has been expanded to include the whole of mankind. The growing interdependence among nations seemingly has ended the days of absolute national
sovereignty. Almost imperceptibly a new attitude has developed regarding interdependence, so much so that a United States of Europe is regarded as an imminent possibility. As Europeans debate a constitution, the loss of national sovereignty looms with unacknowledged consequences.
This eradication of national identity is occurring at the same time that there
is a widespread awareness that the West has lost some of the spiritual resources
which animated its past. In a memorable passage written in the first decades of
the 20th century, the Spanish-born, Harvard University professor, George Santayana expressed it this way:
The present age is a critical one and interesting to live in. The civilization characteristic of Christendom has not disappeared, yet another civilization has begun to
take its place. We still understand the value of religious faith . . . On the other hand,
the shell of Christendom is broken. The unconquerable mind of the East, the pagan
past, the industrial socialist future confront it with equal authority. On the whole
life and mind is saturated with the slow upward filtration of a new spirit that of
an emancipated, atheistic, international democracy.1
Santayana was not alone in his assessment. Philosophers and theologians as

diverse as Nietzsche and Leo XIII addressed the new intellectual climate shaping 19th-century European thought. Old patterns of thought were losing the allegiance of the European intelligentsia. Lost was a confidence that the inherited
could withstand the assault of the new science and technology and the progress
it implied. Nietzsche and later Husserl and Heidegger, each in his own way,
called for a return to classical Greece as the source for an understanding of
Western culture. Leo XIII recommended Aquinas as the antidote to the nihilism
and anti-Christian spirit which animated the intellectual climate in the mid1800s. Discussion in philosophical circles tended to focus on the meaning of
1 George Santayana, The Winds of Doctrine (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1913), p. 1.

14
Jude P. Dougherty
the concept Europe. Hilaire Belloc could confidently assert that Europe is
the Faith, the Faith is Europe, but that view was not widely shared in the intellectual circles of his day by the philosophers of Enlightenment parentage
who thought they had eradicated Christianity. The classical sources of Western
culture could not be denied, but was that the whole story? Paul Valry, we shall
subsequently see, would answer with an emphatic no.
In his 1935 lecture, Philosophy and the Crisis of European Humanity, Edmund Husserl offered an analysis of Europe's spiritual and intellectual crisis
that looked to ancient Greece as a way out of the crisis facing the West. Husserl found in the Greek spirit of philosophical inquiry the sources for free and
universal theoretical reflection that would serve as a model for a supranational ideal of reason. In Husserl's words, There are only two escapes from
the crisis of European existence: the downfall of Europe in its estrangement
from its own rational sense of life, its fall into hostility toward the spiritual into
barbarity; or the rebirth of Europe from the spirit of philosophy through a heroism of reason that overcomes naturalism once and for all.2
Like his mentor Husserl, Martin Heidegger similarly attempted to show that a
revival of the Greeks was essential to the future of the West. Heidegger looked
upon Germany as the privileged nation whose historical mission is to save the
West when the spiritual strength of the West fails and the West starts to come
apart at the seams.3 Notably, in his several speeches on the Hellenic patrimony
of the West, Heidegger omits any reference to Roman Catholicism and Roman
humanism.
Historians remind us that cultures do not develop in a linear order of historical growth but grow sporadically, unlike the causal determinism characteristic
of science and technology. By the third century B.C. Greece was on the threshold of modern science, but that science had to await the l6th century before the
intellect of Western man had achieved the necessary understanding of the relation of science to technology. Distinctive cultural patterns arising from religious, social, economic, and political factors provided the necessary condition.
The well-known historian of science and technology Lynn White, in a colorful phrase, reminds us that the [Benedictine] monk was the first intellectual [in
the history of the West] to get dirt under his fingernails.4 Speaking of the Be2 Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and the Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. David Carr (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970),
p. 299.
3 (Rector's Address, 1933/34), The Self-Assertion of the German University, in:
The Heidegger Controversy, ed. Gunther Neske and Emil Kettering (New York: Paragon House, 1990), p. 19.
4 Lynn White, Machino ex deo: Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1968), p. 65.

National Identity
15
nedictine, White goes on to say, He did not immediately launch into scientific
investigation, but in his very person he destroyed the old artificial barrier between the empirical and the speculative, the manual and the liberal arts and
thus helped create a social atmosphere favorable to scientific and technological
development.5 White offers his observations in the context of his essay, Dynamo and Virgin Reconsidered, noting that St. Bernard's Cistercian monks
were so devoted to the Virgin that every one of their hundreds of monasteries
was dedicated to her; yet these White Benedictines seem often to have led the
way in the use of power. Some of their abbeys had four or five water wheels,
each powering a different workshop.6 He then makes the important point that
the Virgin and the dynamo are not opposing principles permeating the universe;
they are allies. The growth of medieval power technology . . . is a chapter in the
conquest of freedom. More than that, to those who search out why it happened,' it
is a part of the history of religion. The humanitarian technology which in later centuries had grown from medieval seeds was not rooted in economic necessity for
such necessity' is inherent in every society, yet has found expression only in the
Occident, nourished in the tradition of Western theology. It is ideas which make
necessities conscious. The labor-saving power machines of the latter Middle Ages
were harmonious with the religious assumptions of the worth of even the most
seemingly degraded human personality.7
Modernity since the European Enlightenment has acquired an implacable

faith in progress. Success achieved in science and technology fostered the belief that a similar success is possible in economics, politics, and the social order. Defects in human institutions were to be approached with confidence that
they, too, could be remedied with time as if they were problems in physics or
mechanics. Lost was an awareness of the distinctive culture and its sources
which made Western achievement possible. Those sources lie in classical antiquity, in the Hellenism and Christianity which gave us confidence that the human intellect is powerful enough to ferret out the secrets of an intelligible and
purposive nature. This confidence is at once the root of science and technology
and the rule of law as reflected in Western social and political institutions.
Those laws and institutions create a people to the extent that they are lived,
not simply recorded on parchment or engraved in marble or bronze but are instilled in the minds and dispositions of citizens.
Just as looking into the past is an essential route to finding oneself, so too a
people or a nation needs to understand its past. The German word Bildung is
useful insofar as it signifies a process, a process which is a continuum of impressions and evaluations which cumulatively give one a sense of belonging to
a collective with a distinctive heritage. Only in such a Bildung in which family
5
6
7
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 67.
Ibid., pp. 7273.

16
Jude P. Dougherty
ties, fostered and perpetuated by love and reverence for forefathers, is it likely
that freedom and the rule of law will prevail. Social cooperation depends on
national identity. To respect one's people is not tantamount to respecting whatever repressive government may have been thrust upon them in the past.
A point that needs to be underscored is the distinction between political and
cultural nationalism. Hilaire Belloc could proclaim, Spiritually we are all
Semites. Despite a certain common spiritual and cultural affinity, rendered increasingly evident as Islam rises in opposition to the West, cultural differences
within Europe exist and define national identity. The tiff between Berlusconi
and Schroeder and its aftermath is indeed amusing and need not be taken seriously, but there is a German national character, an Italian character, and a
French character, and the world is richer for it. An outsider would not want
these traits to disappear. It is more difficult to define an American character
since until recently it was an amalgam of the many strains found in Europe.
Immigration policy and the failure to integrate the black into what is essentially
European culture has eroded not only educational standards but the manner and
morals of a people. Standards of behavior have been shifted to the lowest common denominator. There is little doubt that the identity of the American people
is being eroded as a result of a political emphasis on diversity and multiculturalism. Moreover, the campaign for inclusion points to a more insidious form of
diversity, that which exists between the culture of the intellectuals and the culture of farmers, manufacturers, and tradesmen, sometimes referred to as the
difference between middle America and the eastern seaboard intelligentsia.
National identity is a challenge to be faced both in Europe and North America. Absent a common bond in the people, absent a cultural identity, can the
laws, let alone those customs and transactions which depend on virtue in the
people, long survive? England as a result of its immigration and asylum policy
is losing its identity to the chagrin of native Englishmen. The newcomers, in
bringing their own culture with them, eschew British traditions, creating enclaves of their own to the detriment of the larger society. Some say the Englishman we know from history, literature and film is becoming extinct, with
the sovereignty of the country itself in jeopardy as the European Union erodes
Britain's self-governance and national identity. Is this to the good?
Perhaps we should more properly speak of European identity. Paul Valry,
writing in the first quarter of the 20th century, gives us a very broad definition
of Europe. Europe is more than a geographical designation, he insists. There is
a certain trait, quite distinct from race, nationality, and even language which
unites the countries of the West and Central Europe making them all alike.8
Wherever the names of Caesar, Caius, Trajan, and Virgil, of Moses and St.
8 Paul Valry, Collected Works, trans. Denise Folliot and Jackson Mathews (New
York, Bollingen Foundation, 1962), Vol. 10, pp. 32223.

National Identity
17
Paul and Aristotle, Plato and Euclid have had simultaneous meaning and
authority, there is Europe.9 Again, Every race and land that has been successfully Romanized, Christianized and as regards the mind, disciplined by the
Greeks, is absolutely European.10 Shakespeare, he points out, is an integral
part of French, Italian, and German culture; so, too, Goethe and Dante. If Valry were part of the commission drafting the European Constitution,11 Valry
would insist that it contain reference to both Christianity and the character of
Europe.12 Christianity introduced a universal moral law that took its place
alongside the juridical unity contributed by Roman law. In other words, Christianity in taking all it could from Rome gave us a common law, a common
God, one and the same temporal judge, and one and the same judge in eternity.
Valry continues:
Christianity proposed to the mind the most subtle, the greatest, and indeed the
most fruitful of problems. Whether it were a question of the value of testimony, the
criticism of texts, or the sources and guarantees of knowledge; of the distinction
between faith and reason, and the opposition that arises between them or the antagonism between faith, deeds, and works; a question of freedom, servitude, or grace;
of spiritual and material power, and their mutual conflict, the equality of men, the
status of women and how much else? Christianity educated and stimulated millions of minds, making them act and react, century after century.13
Having acknowledged the influence of Christianity, Valry turns to the role

of classical learning. He speaks of the . . . subtle yet powerful influence to
which we owe the best of our intelligence, the acuteness and solidity of our
knowledge, as also the clarity, purity, and elegance of our arts and literature: it
is from Greece that those virtues came to us.14 What we owe to Greece, he
maintains, is perhaps what has most profoundly distinguished us from the rest
of humanity. Europe is above all the creator of science. While there have been
arts in all countries, there has been true science only in Europe. Valry's
assessment may be contrasted with Heidegger's, whose analysis placed the
emphasis on Greece and ignored two of Europe's most fundamental traditions,
Roman Catholicism and Roman humanism.
With such a sweeping definition of Europe, can there be national identity
within Europe or even a distinction between Europe and North America? What
Ibid., p. 322.
Ibid.
11 Even President Vladimir V. Putin, in discussing the role of his country vis-a-vis
the European Union, speaks of the value of Russian identity (New York Times, October 6, 2003, pp. 1, 4).
12 It may be observed that Valry Giscard D'Estaing and the Commission he heads
to draft a European Constitution is, in its failure to note the Christian sources of European unity and culture, closer to Heidegger than to his French namesake.
13 Valry, op. cit., p. 319.
14 Ibid.
9
10

18
Jude P. Dougherty
Valry means by Europe is almost identical to what is referred to today to as

the West, a term used sometimes to designate not only Europe and the Americas but Japan and other parts of Asia that are indebted to Western science and
technology, if not religion.
It is not easy to define clearly what a nation is. A line traced on a map and
on the ground, constituting a frontier, is the result of a series of historical incidents sanctioned by treaties. It may separate countries that are alike and join
others that are very different. There is a tendency to generalize characteristics
that are far from indicative of the whole. Few have difficulty speaking of the
Italian, the German, the Englishman. These broad, imprecise designations
may serve a purpose in colloquial speech and may be indicative of certain prejudices, positive and negative. Yet they do have some foundation in reality,
indicative of national or cultural traits. It may be easier to differentiate between
oriental traits and occidental ones than between Polish and Czech. Color, custom, and culture differentiate; so also do opinions, prejudices, and evaluations.
Is a rapprochement among the different peoples of Europe, say between Eastern and Western Europe, inevitable? With the creation of the European Union
many are now face to face who had never looked on each other as anything but
radically foreign. No doubt contact has resulted in the acknowledgment of certain virtues in the other or some superiority, some strength, agility, industry or
other virtues we identify with national character.
National character is difficult to define. The history of most countries of Europe is a chronicle of extremes, a chain of peaks and abysses. Some seem fated
by geographical structure, water resources, climate, soil, flora and fauna to play
a pivotal role on a grand scale. Germany rises, staggers, falls, rises again, retrenches, recaptures her greatness, is rent in two, reunites, displaying by turn
qualities of pride, resignation, unconcern, and ardor, standing out from other
nations by a distinct character. A certain natural discipline is apparent in the
German character which comes to the fore when needed. Sometimes the nation
is suddenly united when one would expect it to be divided. Moreover, the simplest and broadest features of any nation are likely to go unnoticed by the inhabitants themselves since they tend to be oblivious to what they have always
experienced. It is the foreigner who notices those features and may make too
much of them. One must also realize that whereas the effects of man's labor
with respect to his surroundings are clearly recognizable, the modifications in
man himself brought about by his place of residence are likely to be obscure. A
summer 2003 travel advertisement tells us that the Greek island, Santorini, was
shaped by its natural cataclysms, but its villages and landscapes seem chiseled
by the island's stark light. Out of that light came not only the great statues of
ancient Greece and the long clean lines of the Parthenon but the precise vocabulary for ideas that gave birth to Western philosophy.

National Identity
19
The reader may miss a middle term connecting land, sky, and philosophy,
but the words are worthy of some reflection. The effects of sky, the water, the
air he breathes, the prevailing winds, what one eats, are physiological and psychological. Manners, ideals, politics are the incalculable effects of subtle
causes. The Bavarian is not an Englishman and not simply because of language. The contours of a land that nourishes its people are but one aspect of a
complex whole. Location, ethnic composition, psychological constitution equally
contribute to national identity.
To understand a nation, be it England, France, Germany, or Italy, we must
attend to what each has created in the realm of the mind, expressions of intelligence or knowledge. The total intellectual and artistic treasure, the accumulated
beauty of great works of art, written, sculpted, painted, constructed is constitutive of a culture that would not exist apart from its roots in a particular national
setting.
Every nation of Europe is a composite, the result of the different ethnic elements that came to be mixed within her territory, and in none of them is a
single tongue spoken. Paul Valry will say of France, The French nation resembles a tree several times grafted, the quality and flavor of whose fruit are
the result of a happy wedding of very different saps and humors combining in
a single and indivisible life.15 Stretching a bit, he continues, Whether we
speak of the Capelins, of Joan of Arc, Louis IX, Henry IV, Richelieu, the Convention, or Napoleon, we are referring to one and the same thing, an active
symbol of our national identity and unity.16
Does the preservation of national identity matter? It matters to hosts of immigrants in both Europe and North America who seek to retain not only their
inherited customs but even their native language in their adopted country. It
matters because traditions, the components of what we call a culture, are specific. One cannot be a citizen of the world. Identity is local; it is the characteristic of a people who have inhabited a land over a period of time, who have
developed certain collective habits, evident in their manners, their dress, the
feasts they collectively enjoy, their religious bonds, the premium they put on
education, and their attention to detail and precision. These are not universal
traits but are rooted in centuries past and depend upon a historical consciousness, an attention to the deeds of ancestors past.
National identity is threatened from two sources, the immigrant who refuses
to assimilate and the secular, aggressively anti-Christian international socialist
whose mentality permeates the major media, the entertainment industries, and
the universities. The nation that is conscious of its past may be the only bul15
16
Valry, op. cit., p. 407.

Valry, op. cit., p. 408.

20
Jude P. Dougherty
wark against the neopaganism which seeks to replace Christianity throughout

the West. Cultural and moral standards are specific and cannot be held in
vacuo, apart from particular peoples, periods, and places. Even the universal
works of the mind, philosophy and science are subject to the hidden influence
of race, local habit and milieu. In fact, nothing seems to define a nation or
region better than the philosophy it has produced or the adherence to the rule
of law under which it functions. We speak of classical metaphysics, French literature, 19th century German philosophy, and in the United States of the Southern Agrarians.
A nation or people can only be energized internally, by the goals it sets for
itself in the light of a shared perception of the common good. These social and
political modes of life cannot be imposed from without as the United States has
discovered in Iraq. So-called emerging nations cannot be expected to embrace
lock, stock, and barrel the social and political modes of life that are urged on
them from without. Anthropologists have, of course, realized all along what
policy makers have been slow to acknowledge. In spite of the craving for economic advancement, who does, in fact, want to live in a world culture? Given
media-driven amoral standards, such a culture would be beneath the dignity of
human nature. In talking about declining moral standards, perhaps no one has
put the matter more succinctly than John M. Rist in his book, Real Ethics.17
Rist foresees a bleak future for the West. In losing its grip on its Christian
past and in the absence of a clear sense of civic virtue, Western society is preparing itself for a totalitarian democracy. Unable to choose between conflicting
claims to the good and the resulting propensity to tolerate all, it is subverting
the principle of toleration itself. Unfortunately, recovering a sense of the past
may not be an easy task. The past can be clouded by the authoritarian or ideological mentality of academics and humanists or be rewritten or invented to
promote a political agenda. Moreover, history is only one vehicle for transmitting the inherited. Whatever wisdom a society has acquired can be passed on
only if it is instantiated in institutional structures designed to maintain inherited
practices, beliefs, and intellectual acumen. As for the individual caught in an
unrooted modernity, those apt to keep their wits in a godless future are those
who possess a knowledge however acquired of their roots, that is, their own
past and traditions.
It is through inherited literature in our native language that we become aware
of our collective roots, develop collective attitudes, develop a political culture.
The Frenchman becomes a Frenchman not merely by reason of birth in a particular geographic territory but by reason of the literary tradition to which he is
introduced early on. One develops a Catholic mind by reading the Church
17
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

National Identity
21
Fathers, Justin Martyr, Clement, and Augustine, the medieval doctors of the
Church, and modern commentators thereon.
In a 1934 essay, The Sources of Cultural Change, the English historian
Christopher Dawson offered this definition: A culture is a common way of life
a particular adjustment of man to his natural surroundings and his economic
needs. In its development it resembles a biological species. Just as every natural region tends to possess its characteristic forms of vegetable and animal life,
so too will it possess its own type of human society.18 Dawson identifies the
three main influences which form and modify human culture. They are the
same as in the formation of animal species. They are (1) race, i. e., the genetic
factor; (2) environment, i. e., the geographical factor; (3) function or occupation,
i. e., the economic factors. But in addition to these there is a fourth element
thought or the psychological factor which is peculiar to the human species
and the existence of which frees man from the blind dependence on material
environment.19
Although the intimate linkage of science, technology, and commerce with
rapid material progress and change typifies only a minor part of the world, it
has assumed the status of a world culture with globalization as its hallmark.
Leaders of emerging nations are urged to embrace globalization and to become
part of the civilized world. If those leaders sense that the diffusion of a scientific world culture may threaten their indigenous cultures, they are sometimes
assured that world culture is a purely material culture incapable of impairing
the spiritual content of a nation's heritage.
The American journalist, Robert Locke makes a suggestive distinction between globalization and the globalists. Globalization as he defines it is an
ongoing historical process, a factual description of how things are. Globalism,
by contrast is an ideology, a set of political opinions about how things ought to
be. Ideological globalists, in Locke's characterization, look upon the existence
of separate nations as unacceptable because it fosters inequality. Separate nations give peoples with histories of brilliant political and economic achievement
. . . the free and prosperous lives that their forebears have earned while at the
same time consigning peoples of inferior ancestral achievement to lesser existences. The leftist egalitarian project aims to erase borders in order that mass
immigration to the first world from the third will force citizens of the first to
share their superior way of life. National cultural identity gives people an
attachment to their land and history and consequently fosters global inequality.20 Locke may be guilty of some exaggeration, but the globalist spirit he
detects is a reality all to often confronted.
18 Dawson, Dynamics of World History, ed. John J. Mulloy (Wilmington, Del.: ISI
Books, 2002), p. 4.
19 Ibid., p. 5.

22
Jude P. Dougherty
I am not suggesting that the problems facing Europe and North America are
identical. Both have to deal with the consequences of their permissive immigration policies. The United States has the additional problem of an educational
system that tends toward the lowest common denominator at all levels. The
universities have become politicized in a leftward direction. One can detect in
the publications of major university presses a tendency to rewrite Western history, leaving out Christianity. The media on both sides of the Atlantic are uncompromising in their drive to undermine biblical morality, promoting deviant
behavior at every turn, no matter the social consequences.
Many who view the situation in the broad manner suggested here end with
an unrelieved pessimism. In fact, I have read no one who does not come to a
pessimistic conclusion. Charles Murray, in a preview of his forthcoming book,
concludes, I write at a time when Europe's run appears to be over. Bleaker
yet, there is reason to wonder whether European culture as we have known it
will even exist at the end of this century.21
Husserl and Heidegger in their calls to return to the Greeks for a renewal of
European political philosophy are not without warrant. The Greeks understood
well the interdependence of polis and oikos, of public and private. In praising
the polis as the highest level of human achievement, Aristotle did not ignore
the private realm, nor did he undervalue the ties of family for the sake of an
abstract polity. Rather he recognized that the city survives only as long as the
private particular world of the family does. And for Aristotle that included piety
of a religious sort as well as piety toward one's ancestors and one's state.22
This fundamental Aristotelian position has been reiterated in recent times by
Leo XIII in his anti-socialist encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) and again by
Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno (1931) and John Paul II in Centisimus Annus
(1991). Known in its modern form as the principle of subsidiarity, the principle calls upon states to foster personal freedom and intermediate institutions for
the sake of efficiency as well as the common good. In the words of Quadragesimo Anno, Just as it is wrong to take away from individuals what they can
accomplish by their own ability and effort and entrust it to a community, so too
it is an injury and at the same time both a serious evil and a disturbance of
right order to assign to a larger society what can be performed successfully by
smaller and lower communities (79). Given the contemporary drive to concenThe American Conservative, June 2, 2003, pp. 1314.
Charles Murray, Measuring Achievement: The West and the Rest, American
Enterprise Institute, News & Commentary, posted August 6, 2003, p. 12. That judgment is not uncommon.
22 For an extended treatment of the role of the family and its religion (cult) in
creating the cohesiveness of society necessary for political stability and avoidance of
tyrannical rule, see W. K. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1968).
20
21

National Identity
23
trate power in central government, the principle remains relevant in both Brussels and Washington, D.C.
Summary
As the pace of globalization increases, it may be useful to call attention to the importance of national identity to the preservation of a culture. One cannot be a citizen
of an international, cosmopolitan world order. Identity is specific, rooted in soil, custom, and religious tradition. Throughout the West, national identity is being eroded as
a result of a political emphasis on diversity and multiculturalism. National identity is
threatened by the immigrant who refuses to assimilate and by the secular, aggressive,
anti-Christian international socialist whose mentality is reflected in the new European
Constitution. The question arises: Can a Europe in denial of its classical and Christian
roots long survive as we know it today? Paul Vlery put the matter succinctly. Europe
cannot be understood apart from Roman humanism and Roman Catholicism, the
source of its law, spirituality, and scientific impetus. Whatever wisdom a society has
acquired can be passed on only if it is instantiated in institutional structures designed
to maintain inherited practices, beliefs, and intellectual acumen. Absent an acknowledgment of its roots, can Europe survive the challenge of a militant Islam?
Zusammenfassung
Die Geschwindigkeit des Prozesses der Globalisierung nimmt zu. Es erscheint sinnvoll, die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Bedeutung der nationalen Identitt fr die Erhaltung
der Kultur zu legen. Man kann nicht Brger einer internationalen kosmopolitischen
Weltordnung sein. Die Identitt ist spezifisch; sie wurzelt im Land, in den Gebruchen
und religisen Traditionen. berall in der westlichen Welt geht die nationale Identitt
zurck als Ergebnis einer Politik, die vielgestaltige und multikulturelle Lebensformen
bevorzugt. Die nationale Identitt ist gefhrdet durch den Einwanderer, der sich der
Assimilation verweigert, sowie durch die skulare aggressive antichristliche Tendenz
des internationalen Sozialismus, dessen Geistigkeit auch in der neuen europischen
Verfassung sprbar ist. Die Frage stellt sich: Kann Europa wie wir es heute kennen
berleben, wenn es seine klassischen und christlichen Wurzeln negiert? Paul Vlery
hat diese Frage prgnant formuliert. Europa kann nicht begriffen werden ohne den
rmischen Humanismus und den rmischen Katholizismus, die Quelle des Gesetzes,
der Spiritualitt und des wissenschaftlichen Impetus. Was immer eine Gesellschaft an
Weisheit erlangt hat, kann nur weitergegeben werden, wenn sie in Strukturen Gestalt
annimmt und das ererbte Brauchtum, den Glauben und den institutionellen Zuschnitt
bewahrt. Kann Europa, ohne sich seiner Wurzeln bewut zu werden, die Herausforderung des militanten Islam berleben?


Von Jrgen Schwarz
Nach den Groen Weltkriegen und dem ideologischen Ost-West-Antagonismus im 20. Jahrhundert erscheinen die Spannungsverhltnisse zwischen den
mannigfachen Kulturen und Zivilisationen als die berragende Problematik der
Welt im 21. Jahrhundert. Neben den regionalen und partikularen kulturellen
Konkurrenzen, die die Menschheitsgeschichte von Beginn an kennt, sind es die
zunehmenden kulturellen Spannungen im globalen Ausma, die die Entwicklung der Weltgesellschaft auf verschiedene Weise belasten werden. Mglicherweise geschieht dies in dem von Samuel Huntington 1996 in seinem Buch
Kampf der Kulturen (The clash of civilizations) prognostizierten Sinne gewaltsamer Zusammenste, so wie gegenwrtig die Auseinandersetzung mit
dem internationalen Terrorismus und Islamismus interpretiert wird. Oder es
vollzieht sich in Formen von mehr oder weniger erzwungenen Befriedungs- und
Demokratisierungsprozessen, wie die jngsten Entwicklungen auf dem Balkan,
in Afghanistan oder im Irak zeigen. Sie werden mit groer Wahrscheinlichkeit
und sehr viel grundlegender, als die aktuellen Konflikte aussagen in zunehmender kultur-ideologischer Konkurrenz wenn auch unter der Oberflche einer vordergrndig friedlichen und sachbezogenen internationalen Kooperation
die internationale Politik bestimmen. In entsprechenden Konstellationen knnen
diese Konkurrenzen ebenfalls zu gefhrlichen Eskalationen oder gewaltttigen
Eruptionen fhren, generell aber seit einigen Jahrzehnten deutlich zu erkennen zu erhhtem Misstrauen und subtilem Widerstand gegenber einem fortdauernden und rigoroser gebten europischen Oktroi und damit zu permanenten Strungen und Reibungsverlusten in den internationalen Beziehungen.
So wie die traditionalen, regionalen ethnischen und kulturellen Konflikte, die
auf allen Kontinenten beobachtet werden, sind auch die globalen Spannungen
zwischen Europa (dem Westen) und den Lndern insbesondere Asiens, Afrikas
und Lateinamerikas nicht wirklich neu. Tatschlich wurden schon in den letzten
Jahrhunderten westliche, europische Kultur und Zivilisation kontinuierlich in
die auereuropische Welt getragen: mit groer Selbstverstndlichkeit, berzeugt von der kulturellen berlegenheit, mit selbstbewusstem Nachdruck und
unter Anwendung aller verfgbaren Mittel auf der Seite der Europer; bei nur
begrenzt mglicher Gegenwehr, schon bald dahinschwindendem Widerstand
oder auch mit wachsenden korrespondierenden Interessen auf der Seite der von

26
Jrgen Schwarz
den Europern kolonisierten und beeinflussten Lnder. Dieser kulturelle und zivilisatorische Europisierungsprozess hatte unterschiedlich tiefreichende, in der
Regel aber nachhaltige trickle-down-Effekte sowohl auf weit ausgreifende, stabil erscheinende und traditionsreiche als auch auf unscheinbarere, regionale
Kulturen. Die Lnder und ihre Gesellschaften ffneten sich unter Druck und
Drohungen und oft erst nach hinhaltendem, letztendlich aber vergeblichem Widerstand gegenber den europischen Invasoren. Sie ffneten sich aber auch
freiwillig gegenber den europischen Herausforderungen, die ihnen bald schon
als unumgngliche Modernisierungen erschienen, als adquate Wege des Fortschritts aus kulturell bedingter Rckstndigkeit. Die Europisierung vernderte
oftmals die kulturelle Identitt der betroffenen Lnder; in den Prozessen der
Modernisierung verloren sie den Bezug zu kulturellen Traditionen; es verschwanden weithin die aus den kulturellen Traditionen abgeleiteten Regeln fr
die Entwicklung von Staat und Gesellschaft; es gelang oftmals nicht oder nur
ungengend, die kulturelle Grundlegung mit den exogenen Herausforderungen
in bereinstimmung zu bringen; manche Kulturen unterlagen gnzlich dem europischen Ansturm, sie gaben sich als nicht konkurrenzfhig selbst auf und
verschwanden. Nur wenigen Lndern gelang es, die traditionelle nationale Kultur ohne signifikante Einbuen hinnehmen zu mssen und ohne grere Diskrepanzen mit europischer Kultur und westlicher Zivilisation zu amalgamieren. Zu diesen Lndern, die sich in mancherlei Hinsicht mit Europa und dem
Westen vergleichen knnen, gehren etwa Japan, die als Kleine Drachen (oder
Tigerstaaten) bezeichneten Lnder Taiwan, Sdkorea, Singapur und das spter
zur VR China zurckgekehrte Hongkong; die meisten anderen Lnder haben
inzwischen ebenfalls im Hinblick auf Modernisierung und Fortschritt und internationale Konkurrenzfhigkeit auf westliche und europische Mastbe gesetzt.
Bei aller Kritik an der Europisierung kann nicht geleugnet werden, dass die
Europisierung in grundlegender Weise erst wirtschaftliche und soziale Prosperitt, Weltoffenheit und internationale Kommunikation auf zahlreichen Gebieten
von Wissenschaft und Kultur mglich gemacht hat. In der Summe profitieren
die Lnder von dieser Entwicklung, wenn man etwa die von der UNO eingefhrten Standards fr moderne Entwicklung zugrunde legt.
I. Rckbesinnung auf die eigenen Traditionen
Das Auffallende aber ist, dass sich die zuletzt genannten Einsichten seit einigen Jahrzehnten in signifikanter Weise zu verndern scheinen, und zwar im
Hinblick auf eine Rckbesinnung auf die jeweils eigenen kulturellen Traditionen und damit einhergehend auf den Versuch einer greren Distanznahme zum
europischen Einfluss. Das erscheint zunchst paradox, weil der Fortschritt nach
wie vor nach den vom Westen bernommenen Methoden und Mastben befrdert wird und in dieser Hinsicht niemand an eine Revision denkt. Die alten,

27
indigenen Kulturen vor allem in Asien, aber auch in Afrika und Lateinamerika
scheinen jedoch oftmals auch dort, wo sie nur noch rudimentr vorhanden
schienen wiederzuerwachen, sich auf ihre Strken und Funktionen auch in der
modernen Welt zu besinnen und vor Erneuerungsprozessen zu stehen, die geradezu zwangslufig zu Auseinandersetzungen mit den kulturellen und zivilisatorischen Einflssen des Westens fhren drften. Kennzeichnend dafr sind
etwa die auf dem Hhepunkt nationalen und kulturellen Selbstbewusstseins vor
allem von asiatischen Fhrern (Malaysia, Singapur, Indonesien) im letzten Jahrzehnt ausgegebenen Parolen, dass die Welt zuknftig nicht mehr durch den kulturell erschpften Westen, sondern durch die kulturell zu neuem Leben und politisch zu neuer Strke gekommenen Lnder Asiens angefhrt werde. Finanzund Wirtschaftskrisen haben wohl nur vorbergehend solche Auffassungen leiser werden lassen; verstummt und hinter materiellen Zwngen verschwunden
sind diese Intentionen zweifellos nicht. Zu vergleichbaren Renaissance-Bemhungen gehren aber auch die Diskussionen in Japan und Sdkorea, in Indien
und Pakistan bis hin zu den Bewegungen in einzelnen Lndern Lateinamerikas
(Bolivien, Mexiko) oder Afrikas, wo sich die Ureinwohner wie in Bolivien,
Peru, Guatemala als Indios der Postmoderne bezeichnen und geradezu Lnder und Kontinente bergreifend von der Rckkehr der Zeit sprechen. Damit
sind die alten religisen Auffassungen, die Werteeinstellungen, die Denkweisen,
Rechtsauffassungen und sozialen und politischen Organisationsformen aus vorkolonialer Zeit gemeint. Oftmals sind solche Forderungen und Aufrufe vage, zu
den Zeitluften disparat und utopisch; im Grunde will und kann keine Gesellschaft die Europisierung rckgngig machen.
Gleichwohl aber sind die Bemhungen unbersehbar, die europischen Einflsse zu relativieren, ihnen nationale Form zu geben, ihnen wiederbelebtes
Kulturgut entgegenzustellen oder damit zu verbinden. Letztendlich wchst daraus die kulturelle Selbstbesinnung, die zur Auseinandersetzung mit dem fortdauernden Prozess der Europisierung fhren drfte. Zahlreiche Probleme der
internationalen Politik und Sicherheit, der globalen Wirtschaftsentwicklungen,
der nationalen Interessen- und Machtpolitik bis hin zur Vlkerpsychologie sind
neben anderen Ursachen zweifellos auch auf diese Grundproblematik zurckzufhren. Nicht nur die offen ausgetragenen gewaltttigen Auseinandersetzungen,
sondern auch die in zunehmendem Mae unduldsam und offensichtlich unter
kultur-ideologischen und national-egoistischen Aspekten ausgetragenen Konkurrenzen. Dabei werden hufig die legitimen nationalen politischen und wirtschaftlichen Interessen mit den kultur-ideologischen Motivierungen verwoben.
II. Der umfassende kulturelle Einfluss Europas
Wesentliche Ursachen fr die Konflikte der Welt liegen also so die These
in der seit Jahrhunderten voranschreitenden und trotz mancher Umkehrungsver-

28
Jrgen Schwarz
suche aufs Ganze gesehen irreversiblen globalen Europisierung. Damit ist

mehr gemeint als die seit der ersten Hlfte des vergangenen Jahrhunderts von
der Wissenschaft beobachteten Prozesse der internationalen Interdependenz und
auch mehr als die erst seit weniger als zwei Jahrzehnten so genannten Phnomene der Globalisierung. Whrend die internationale Interdependenz auf die
zunehmende wechselseitige Verflechtung und Abhngigkeit zwischen Staaten
abstellte und die Globalisierung heute sich auf die internationalen wirtschaftlichen Verflechtungen einschlielich aller ihrer politischen, wirtschaftlichen und
sozialen Folgen fr Staat und Gesellschaft richtet, soll unter Europisierung vor
allem der umfassende kulturelle Einfluss (impact) Europas und des Westens auf
die Nationen und Gesellschaften der Welt verstanden werden. Auch wenn heute
von der weltpolitischen Erschpfung Europas und vom Niedergang seiner wirtschaftlichen, seiner technisch-wissenschaftlichen und vor allem seiner kulturellen Krfte gesprochen wird, so ist doch nicht in Frage gestellt, dass der ber
Jahrhunderte gehende Einfluss Europas auf die Lnder der Welt und die globalen Strukturen und Prozesse manifest und unumkehrbar geworden ist. Nicht zuletzt kommt das auch darin zum Ausdruck, dass die Vereinigten Staaten, die
sich aus den europischen Traditionen zu eigenstndiger kultureller Identitt
entwickelt haben, auf den gemeinsamen Traditionslinien fortfahren, mit zunehmender Kraft und Motivation und mit deutlicher werdender Intention die europischen und westlichen Zielsetzungen zu vertreten. Dass durch diese Politik
weltweit der Eindruck einer Pax Americana entsteht und damit der politische
und weitergehende kulturelle Widerstand gegenber den USA und dem Westen
provoziert wird, ist eine seit Jahrzehnten bekannte negative Begleiterscheinung,
die in erster Linie nicht auf eine verfehlte Diplomatie, auf rigorose Zielsetzungen und Methoden zurckzufhren ist, sondern auf den zugrunde liegenden kulturellen Renaissance-Prozess.
Was sich in diesem Zusammenhang gegen die jeweilige Politik Amerikas
richtet, richtet sich letztendlich auch gegen die von den Europern in die Welt
getragenen kulturellen und zivilisatorischen Errungenschaften. Dabei muss unterschieden werden, ob sich die Bewegungen gegen die aktuelle Politik Amerikas richten oder gegen die mit der Europisierung ebenfalls vermittelten Fehlhaltungen und zivilisatorischen Negativfolgen.
Es ist zweifellos ein eklatantes Defizit, dass diese im Westen hufig als alternativlos und als Selbstlufer beurteilte Europisierung der Welt und die heute
daraus resultierenden Folgen in der auereuropischen Welt von der politischen
Klasse aller Lnder nicht oder nicht ausreichend wahrgenommen und deshalb
auch mgliche Schlussfolgerungen nur wenig adquat in das politische Handeln
einbezogen werden. Ist es nicht schon immer so gewesen, dass der Westen in
kulturellen Fragen dominant gewesen ist und dass auf der anderen Seite westliche berlegenheit, auch wenn sie als kultureller Oktroi empfunden wurde,
aus naheliegendem materiellen Grunde stillschweigend hingenommen werden

29
musste? Es hat nach wie vor den Anschein, als wenn fr eine Perzeption dieser
Problematik und ihre zweifellos nur langfristig mglich erscheinende Lsung der lange Atem, der adquate Zugang und eine langfristige Strategie bei
den Regierenden fehlen.
Eine langfristige Lsungsmglichkeit wird im hier skizzierten Zusammenhang in der Akkulturation gesehen, dem Zueinanderfhren der Kulturen, wie
sie von Bronislaw Malinowski schon in den 1920er Jahren empirisch und theoretisch untersucht (A scientific theory of culture, and other essays, 1935),
dann aber weithin vergessen wurde. Und wie sie auch in dem Projekt Weltethos fr Weltpolitik und Weltwirtschaft (1997) von Hans Kng auftaucht. Im
Dialog der Akkulturation soll dann allerdings nicht allein ber das Nebeneinander der Kulturen nachgedacht werden, sondern ber die gemeinsame Verstndigung in den Weltproblemen und ber ein notwendiges Miteinander in der Weltverantwortung; bis hin zur Einflussnahme auf die jeweiligen Kulturkreise und
ihre Gesellschaften. Denn ohne Gewinnung einflussreicher Schichten der Gesellschaften fr Selbstbewusstsein und Weltoffenheit zugleich kann kein realistischer Ansatz fr die Milderung und dauerhafte Einhegung internationaler Konflikte gefunden werden.
Europisierung meint hier die bertragung der seit Jahrhunderten in Europa
und in den Vereinigten Staaten entwickelten Anschauungen vom Menschen, seiner Denkweisen, Verhaltens- und Handlungsmastbe, seiner Wissenschaftlichen
Methoden, seiner Rechtsgrundstze schlielich und seiner Erfahrungen in konomie und Politik auf die Gesellschaften auerhalb Europas und des Westens.
Dabei werden die in Amerika seit der ersten Besiedlung und in den Vereinigten
Staaten seit der Unabhngigkeitserklrung (1776) und der Verfassung (1787) bis
heute entwickelten Werthaltungen und Mastbe ausdrcklich eingeschlossen.
Gleichwohl ist von Europisierung die Rede, weil in Europa auch die Wurzeln der amerikanischen Entwicklung liegen und der oft gebrauchte Begriff der
Westen unter Einschluss von Japan hufig als bloer Kapitalismusexport,
als Hegemonialpolitik oder auch als Neokolonisierung missverstanden wird.
Die Europisierung der Welt nahm in der Frhen Neuzeit an der Wende vom
15. zum 16. Jahrhundert ihren Anfang. Mit den naturwissenschaftlichen (Neues
Weltbild durch Nikolaus Kopernikus: Sonne Mittelpunkt des Planetensystems,
Kugelgestalt der Erde) und technisch wissenschaftlichen (Erster Globus von
Martin Behaim; Kompass; Erd- und Seekarten) Erkenntnissen, deren wissenschaftliche Wurzeln zweifellos in wesentlichen Aspekten auch aus dem Mittleren und Fernen Osten stammten und durch die Europer nach Jahrhunderten
wieder aufgegriffen wurden (Mathematik, Geographie, Navigation), gingen die
ersten Entdeckungsfahrten einher. Ein wesentlicher Anlass dafr war unter anderen die Kontrolle des Landweges von Europa ber das seit 1453 von den
Osmanen kontrollierte Istanbul am Bosporus. Damit wurden auch die fr Eu-

30
Jrgen Schwarz
ropa lebenswichtigen Importe aus dem Orient politisch und wirtschaftlich kontrolliert. Um dieser Abhngigkeit zu entgehen, versuchten die Europer unter
Einsatz ihrer neuen wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse sehr systematisch, einen
Seeweg nach Indien und in den Orient zu finden; nach Osten und nach Westen.
Columbus entdeckte 1492 den Seeweg nach Amerika, in die West-Richtung
also, die den Europern noch als unheimliche Weltgegend galt. Bartholomus
Dias fand 1488 bereits die Ost-Passage um Afrika und das Kap der Guten Hoffnung. Als erster segelte Vasco da Gama auf diesem Wege 1497/98 nach Indien.
Bereits 151922 umrundete Fernando de Magellan (Magalhes) dann die Erde.
Europa trat mit den Vlkern und Lndern der Welt in Verbindung.
Zunchst nur interessiert an den in Europa gesuchten Gtern: Gold, Edelsteine, Gewrze, Seide. Dann mehr und mehr auch interessiert an der Besiedlung der entdeckten Lnder, an ihrer dauerhaften Inbesitznahme und Kolonisierung. ber die Jahrhunderte entstanden europische Kolonialreiche und koloniale Abhngigkeiten auf allen Kontinenten und auf den Inseln. Sie wurden in
jeder Hinsicht geprgt durch die jeweiligen Kolonialherren: von der Sprache
ber die ffentliche Ordnung, die Einfhrung des jeweiligen Rechts bis hin zur
politischen und wirtschaftlichen Organisation. Wobei festgestellt werden muss,
dass es von Anfang an, in den Kolonialgebieten allerdings in unterschiedlicher
Ausprgung, eine Distanz zur indigenen Gesellschaft und Kultur gab; Apartheid
gab es nicht nur im Sinne der Rassentrennung, sondern auch hinsichtlich der
wie es den Kolonialherren meist schien kulturellen Rckstndigkeiten in den
Kolonien. Die Christliche Mission versuchte immer wieder, diese Trennungen
zu mildern oder aufzuheben; die einheimische Bevlkerung an die neuen Lebensformen heranzufhren; traditionelle Lebensformen in das europische Kulturgut zu inkulturieren. Sie steuerten damit im Sinne einer Modernisierung der
gegenber den europischen Segnungen zurckgebliebenen einheimischen Gesellschaften zum Europisierungsprozess bei. Bis in die Neuzeit gingen die
Europer davon aus, dass die unter europischen Bedingungen entwickelten
Lebensmodelle auch fr die Lnder auerhalb Europas sinnvoll und lebenswert
seien; geeignet, Unbildung zu beseitigen, Krankheit und Armut einzudmmen,
die unterentwickelten Gesellschaften politisch und wirtschaftlich zu stabilisieren. Dabei steht auer Frage, dass es in diesen Prozessen, in denen es immer
auch um Sicherung der Kolonialherrschaft ging, vielfach zur Vergewaltigung
der indigenen Lebensformen, zu ihrer Zerstrung und sogar zum Genozid gekommen ist. Bis in die 50er und 60er Jahre des 20. Jahrhunderts sind die Kolonien relativ stabil geblieben; die Prgung durch die Europer auch mit Hilfe
einheimischer Fhrungsschichten, die diese Europisierung auch im Sinne ihrer
Vlker als Fortschritt begrten, erschien nahezu unumkehrbar auch im Hinblick auf eine postkoloniale Entwicklung.
Tatschlich fand die Europisierung auch nach Auflsung der Kolonien
und nach ihrer Entlassung, wie es hie, in die Unabhngigkeit ihre Fortset-

31
zung nicht nur in den ehemaligen Kolonien selbst, sondern auch durch ihre Einbindung in den Rahmen der internationalen Organisationen: in der nach westlichen Vorgaben entwickelten UNO und in ihren zahlreichen Sonderorganisationen bis hin zum Internationalen Gerichtshof, in dem wenn auch unter Bercksichtigung verschiedener Kulturkreise nach universalem Vlkerrecht, wie es
durch die Europer entwickelt wurde, Recht gesprochen wird. Die Regierenden
der Welt haben dabei auch die auf westlichen Grundlagen beruhende Politik der
Weltorganisation (z. B. Die Allgemeine Erklrung der Menschenrechte der
UNO 1948) akzeptiert, wenngleich sie immer deutlicher auch hier ihre durch
die jeweiligen nationalen Kulturtraditionen geprgten Vorstellungen und Interessen zum Ausdruck bringen.
III. Begegnung mit anderen Religionen und Kulturen
Im Folgenden sollen nherhin zwei Problemkreise der Europisierung angesprochen werden:
Zum einen sind dies die von Europa ausgegangenen geistigen Strmungen,
die letztendlich auch das Denken in den auereuropischen Lndern beeinflusst haben und gerade auch dort, wo der Bildungsstand und die Gelehrtentraditionen gro waren, mit ihren praktischen Folgerungen akzeptiert wurden.
Damit ist die Frage verbunden, warum in Sonderheit das europische Fortschrittsdenken akzeptiert wurde, wenngleich es doch ber Jahrhunderte nicht
zuletzt durch die groen Religionen geprgte andere Denkweisen gegeben
hat.
Zum anderen soll auf die umfassende Globalisierung (Europisierung) und
die sich entwickelnde Weltgesellschaft hingewiesen werden. Wobei die Frage
nahe liegt, wie die sich gegen die Europisierung wehrenden Lnder aus dieser zweifachen Dauerprgung herauskommen wollen.
Eine einfache Graphik knnte deutlich machen, in welch umfassender Weise
sich die kulturelle Basis der heutigen Weltpolitik von Europa ausgehend ber
die Jahrhunderte entwickelt hat. Zur Basis gehren natrlich auch die frhen
Entwicklungen des Orients und der Antike. In einer ganz bestimmten Weise des
Fortschrittsdenkens (transzendentes Denken) geht die kulturelle Entwicklung
vom Christentum aus. Ohne das sich in Europa entwickelnde Christentum
spter in Verbindung mit Renaissance und Aufklrung wre die Entwicklung
zur andauernden globalen Suprematie des Westens im 19. und 20. und jetzt im
21. Jahrhundert nicht mglich gewesen. Es wurden dabei Stufen durchlaufen,
die diesen Ausgang ab und an nur noch vage erkennen lassen; im Vordergrund
steht, eher von der Aufklrung ausgehend, die wissenschaftliche und die industrielle Revolution, die Entstehung der kapitalistischen Wirtschaftsform; die
wiederum westliche Normen und westliche Ordnungsvorstellungen hervorbrach-

32
Jrgen Schwarz
ten, die weil anderen kulturellen Entwicklungen machtpolitisch berlegen

die globale Hegemonie des Westens ermglicht haben. Das transzendente Denken stand bei dieser Entwicklung vor allem in Asien dem im Buddhismus, im
Taoismus, im Hinduismus verbreiteten und in der animistischen Religiositt
Afrikas und Lateinamerikas anzutreffenden kosmogonen Denken entgegen. Das
kosmogone Denken kann wo es strikt zur Geltung gebracht wird retardierende Auswirkungen auf wirtschaftliche, technisch-wissenschaftliche oder auch
politische Entwicklungen haben. Es kann also damit auch die vom Westen ausgehende Modernisierung von Gesellschaften aufhalten. Jedenfalls wird das hufig als Argument fr die frhere Unterlegenheit der Kulturen gegenber der
voranschreitenden Europisierung ins Feld gefhrt. Inzwischen sind die meisten
auereuropischen Religionen dabei, Wege in die Modernisierung zu finden.
Eine ambivalente Rolle spielt hier der Islam, der sich als monotheistische Religion durchaus skularisieren knnte, wenn dem nicht eine besonders strikte
konservative und legalistische Auslegung der Worte des Propheten entgegenstnde.
Die Strukturierung der Weltgesellschaft durch eine Globalisierung im umfassenden Sinne von den global handelnden Organisationen und Regimes ber die
globale Wissenschaft, die Versuche einer globalen Verrechtlichung bis zur globalen Kommunikation und zu globalen Marktprozessen haben alle Staaten der
Erde in einen europisch und westlich determinierten Rahmen gebunden, den
die Staaten praktisch nicht mehr verlassen knnen. Das gilt insbesondere auch
hinsichtlich der knftigen Entwicklungen im technisch-wissenschaftlichen Bereich. Diese globalen Einbindungen werden oftmals nur widerwillig oder der
erwarteten Vorteile wegen akzeptiert und unter dem Vorbehalt, fr die nationalen Eigeninteressen einen angemessenen Handlungsspielraum nutzen zu knnen.
Widerstand gegen die Europisierung der Welt hat es von Beginn an gegeben. In den Lndern naheliegend auf sehr unterschiedliche Weise und aus unterschiedlichen Grnden. Der aufgezeigte Strukturrahmen der Welt deutet zwar in
Richtung Weltgesellschaft und wird von den Lndern der Welt auch im Hinblick auf ihre internationalen Interessen akzeptiert. Von Integration einer Weltgesellschaft und von Einfgung der Nationen in diese Weltgesellschaft kann aber
nur in Grenzen gesprochen werden. Insofern kann auch von einer Weltregierung
oder von einer Weltinnenpolitik keine Rede sein; auch die Vision einer fderalen Weltrepublik erscheint utopisch. Nach wie vor geht es um internationale
Politik und ihre Gesetzmigkeiten, um eine Ordnung zwischen souvernen Nationen. Nach wie vor wehren sich die souvernen Staaten und ihre Gesellschaften zudem gegen eine sich verfestigende Dominanz westlicher Vorstellungen,
Normen und Konzepte, gegen jeglichen Weltzentralismus, der in den aufgezeigten Strukturen immer nach einem Oktroi des Westens aussehen wrde. Die
Staaten verteidigen konsequent ihre nationale Souvernitt in einem umfassenden Verstndnis und suchen im Inneren des Staates nach traditionellen kulturel-

33
len Wurzeln, nach der gemeinsamen Geschichte, nach Integration der Gesellschaft, um auf diese Weise das internationale Profil des Landes unverkennbar
zu machen und die nationale Interessenpolitik zu strken. Es steht auer Frage,
dass die internationale Rolle des Staates nicht zuletzt auch vom Selbstverstndnis, vom Selbstbewusstsein des Volkes und von der Identifikationsmglichkeit
der Menschen mit ihrem Lande abhngt, das heit letztlich auch von einer
lebendigen, von der Gesellschaft, von den Menschen gelebten umfassenden
(nationalen) Kultur. So unumgnglich es ist, politische, wirtschaftliche, wissenschaftliche und kulturelle Erkenntnisse und Erfahrungen von auen in der nationalen Entwicklung zu bercksichtigen, so notwendig aber erscheint es auch, die
nationalen kulturellen Traditionen lebendig zu erhalten, sie, wo es angemessen
ist, fortzuentwickeln und mit den tglich gebten Lebensformen zu verbinden.
Sie sollten nicht musealen oder folkloristischen Charakter annehmen und sollten andererseits auch nicht einem internationalen Zwang zur Konformitt ausgesetzt sein.
In diesem Zusammenhang sind auch die in einem Land ausgetragenen Rivalitten von Vlkern, Ethnien und Interessengruppierungen zu sehen; dabei geht es
um die Durchsetzung unterschiedlicher Interessen, um Lebensmglichkeiten,
um Machtpositionen, letztlich aber auch um die Integration des Staates und um
die Geschlossenheit der Gesellschaft im Hinblick auf die Interessenvertretung
aller nach auen und um die Auswirkungen der kulturbedingten nationalen Einstellungen auf die internationale Politik.
Dazu einige Beispiele: Japan etwa, ein hochentwickeltes und nach auen integriert erscheinendes Land, musste im 19. Jahrhundert mit Waffengewalt fr
den internationalen Handel geffnet werden und bernahm spter, vielfach unter Verzicht auf traditionales Kulturgut, in besonderem Mae europische oder
westliche Errungenschaften, so dass man es schon bald zum Westen zhlte.
Inzwischen wird der Verlust traditionaler Kulturgter beklagt und die geradezu
botmige bernahme westlicher Denk- und Handlungsweisen kritisiert. Staat
und Gesellschaft versuchen nicht zuletzt zur Strkung der nationalen Identitt
die Wiederbelebung verdorrter japanischer Kulturgter. Es ist von einem
neuen japanischen Isolationismus gesprochen worden. Solche Tendenzen werden sich aus naheliegenden Grnden nicht durchsetzen; sie deuten aber an,
welche politischen und gesellschaftlichen Vorbehalte gerade im japanischen
Mikrokosmos auch bei einer dem Westen zugerechneten modernen Industrienation bestehen und umgekehrt welche Probleme sich angesichts der
offensichtlichen kulturellen Defizite fr ein modernes Land ergeben.
Auch was Russland betrifft, machen jngere Studien darauf aufmerksam,
dass dieses sich nach dem Zusammenbruch der UdSSR dem Westen gegenber
weit ffnende Land wieder auf Distanz geht, nicht in Scheu vor dem internationalen Wettbewerb, sondern auf der Suche nach der kulturellen Identifikations-

34
Jrgen Schwarz
mglichkeit mit Russland und seiner Geschichte und nach der unverkennbar
russischen Rolle in der internationalen Politik.
hnliches lsst sich in der VR China beobachten. Es ist bekannt, dass Deng
Xiaoping das Land dem Westen gegenber ffnete und eine wirtschaftliche Liberalisierung des Landes einleitete, dass es ihm aber nicht mglich war, diesen
einschneidenden Vernderungen eine demokratische Reform des politischen Systems folgen zu lassen. Es gab auch keinen funktionalen Automatismus, etwa
hinsichtlich einer Reform des mit dem Wirtschaftssystem so eng zusammenhngenden Rechtssystems. Auch der Einfluss des internationalen Rechtes konnte
von chinesischer Seite eingedmmt werden. Das mag andeuten, dass die globalen normativen Einflussmglichkeiten (impact) relativiert werden mssen, wenn
nationale politische Strukturen (Sozialistischer Staat unter der demokratischen
Diktatur des Volkes) oder aber kulturelle Traditionen dem entgegenstehen.
Indien, das in einem langen Prozess des Widerstandes seine Unabhngigkeit
von Grobritannien gewann, hat mit andauernden inneren Integrationsschwierigkeiten zu kmpfen; Multiethnizitt und eine damit verbundene Vielfalt der Kulturen lsst Indien kaum ein klares nationales Profil und eine entsprechend gewichtete Rolle in der internationalen Politik finden. Wenngleich der frhere koloniale Einfluss Englands nicht zuletzt auch als einigendes Band deutlich
auszumachen ist und im Sinne einer notwendigen Modernisierung dem Westen
in bestimmten Bereichen die Tore geffnet werden.
Auch bei anderen modernen Staaten sind die angezeigten Balancierungsversuche zwischen fortschreitender Modernisierung und Anpassung an die globalen Entwicklungen auf der einen und der Wiederbelebung nationaler Traditionen und Kultur als Ferment einer modernen Gesellschaft auf der anderen Seite
noch nicht abgeschlossen; es deutet sich aber an, dass diese Staaten den nationalen Weg in die sich entwickelnde Weltgesellschaft finden werden. Das aber
wird nicht unter dem Banner der Asiatisierung der Welt vonstatten gehen, das
noch vor zehn Jahren heftig und voller Optimismus geschwungen wurde. Davon
ist gerade wegen der Orientierung an der westlichen Fortschrittsmentalitt heute
kaum noch etwas zu hren. Gleichwohl aber scheinen etwa in den Staaten Sdostasiens die indigenen Kulturentwicklungen weniger stark beschdigt als etwa
in den Staaten Afrikas. Neuere Studien scheinen auch hier mit guten Argumenten zu belegen, dass eine Balance zwischen wiederbelebten kulturellen Traditionen und einer notwendigen Modernisierung mglich ist.
Ganz anders, um noch ein letztes Beispiel zu nennen, sieht es in Afrika aus.
Hier handelt es sich von einigen Staaten im Norden und von Sdafrika abgesehen in der Mehrzahl um aus der Kolonialzeit desolat hervorgegangene Staaten (failing states oder failed states), deren traditionelle Kulturen weithin schon
am Beginn ihrer Unabhngigkeit zerstrt waren, deren Vlkerschaften oftmals
getrennt in verschiedenen Staaten leben, deren nationale Integrationsprozesse

35
kaum abschliebar erscheinen, deren kulturelle oder zivilisatorische Zerklftung

mit allen negativen Folgen in Politik und Wirtschaft Legende ist. Zahlreiche
Sanierungsanstze und Reformkonzepte sind fehlgeschlagen. Die kulturelle Basis fr einen Neuaufbau der Staaten ist weithin zerstrt; inzwischen auch dort,
wo einmal hoffnungsvolle Grundlagen geschaffen wurden. Peter Scholl-Latour
hat deshalb zurecht einem seiner Bcher den Titel gegeben: Totenklage ber
Afrika. Der globale Rahmen wird konstruktiv kaum wirksam, die negativen
Einflsse berwiegen; afrikanische Lnder sdlich der Sahara spielen international mit der erfreulichen Ausnahme Sdafrikas keine positive Rolle; sie werden der Welt zunehmend zur Last. In Tansania ist eines der wenigen hoffnungsvollen afrikanischen Entwicklungsexperimente, der Ujaama-Sozialismus, der an
typische Kulturtraditionen des Landes anzuknpfen versuchte, gescheitert.
IV. Einige entwicklungstheoretische Anstze
Der Westen (Industrielnder) hat die Staaten der Dritten Welt generell als
Entwicklungslnder bezeichnet, die nach wirtschaftlichen Kriterien in verschiedene Gruppen (Schwellenlnder etc.) eingeteilt wurden und denen nach Magabe bei der Entwicklung ihrer Lnder Untersttzung zukommt. Dazu sind
einige entwicklungstheoretische Anstze ausgebildet worden, von denen in
diesem Zusammenhang die wichtigsten skizziert werden sollen, weil sie die
angedeuteten Probleme zwischen Europisierung und autonomer, vor allem kultureller Entwicklung herausstellen knnen.
Ein Schwerpunkt lag zunchst auf dem generellen Prinzip einer umfassenden
Modernisierung der Entwicklungslnder. Man sah die Ursachen der Unterentwicklung in den Entwicklungslndern selbst. Diesen so die Annahme knnte
mit den umfassenden Erfahrungen und Konzepten des Westens begegnet werden. Also eine gewisse herablassende Attitude, weil die jeweils besonderen Situationen der Drittwelt-Lnder kaum beachtet wurden. Die Entwicklungslnder
sollten mglichst viel berflssigen, das hie in der Regel kulturellen und traditionellen Ballast abwerfen, um Staat und Gesellschaft einen effizienten takeoff der Modernisierung zu ermglichen. Im Zentrum dieses Konzeptes stand die
massive wirtschaftliche Untersttzung und die Vermittlung westlicher Vorbilder
und Methoden beim Aufbau politischer, wirtschaftlicher und rechtlicher Institutionen. Kulturelle Aspekte wurden dabei in den Hintergrund geschoben. Im
Sinne des Funktionalismus sollten sich alle anderen modernen Entwicklungen
aus den ersten sichtbaren wirtschaftlichen Fortschritten ergeben. Ohne weitere
Schritte dieser Versuchsphase darlegen zu knnen, muss heute festgestellt werden, dass das Konzept der Modernisierung letztlich gescheitert ist; wenngleich
einzelne Elemente der Forderung einer Modernisierung zweifellos nach wie vor
relevant sind. Vor allem die kulturellen Traditionen der Lnder waren verkannt
und nicht in den Prozess der Modernisierung einbezogen worden.

36
Jrgen Schwarz
Eine andere Perspektive vertritt die Dependenztheorie, die vor allem in Lateinamerika entwickelt wurde. Sie sieht die Ursachen fr die Unterentwicklung
bei den Industrielndern, die im Rahmen des kapitalistischen Wettbewerbs die
Entwicklungslnder ausbeuten und in der Abhngigkeit halten wollen und dabei die kulturellen Traditionen und Grundsteine zerstren. Um sich aus der Abhngigkeit zu befreien, ist es notwendig, vor allem die wirtschaftlichen Beziehungen zu den Industrielndern aufzugeben und sich auch in kultureller Hinsicht auf eine autonome, nach auen mglichst abgeschlossene Entwicklung zu
konzentrieren. Auch dieser Theorieansatz ist an den Realitten gescheitert. Es
ist praktisch keinem Land mehr mglich, sich aus den internationalen Verflechtungen herauszulsen, Handel zu betreiben, von internationalen Organisationen
Untersttzung zu akzeptieren und sich gleichwohl von der Auenwelt zu isolieren. Selbst Nord-Korea sieht sich heute gentigt, eine gewisse ffnung des
Landes einzuleiten. Die Wiederbelebung traditioneller Lebensmodelle, die
Rckkehr zur indigenen Kultur (Rckkehr der Zeit) kann allein nicht gengen,
um ein Land in autonomer Entwicklung zu modernisieren. Ein gescheitertes
Modell in dieser Hinsicht ist das lngst vergessene sozialistische Albanien.
Gleichwohl erscheint es durchaus legitim und mglich, die Entwicklung von
Abhngigkeitsstrukturen zu vermeiden und damit hufige (auch zerstrerische)
Eingriffe von auen in die inneren Angelegenheiten der Staaten zu mindern.
Eine Schlussfolgerung soll hier noch erwhnt werden: die Neomodernisierungstheorie. Sie sieht die Ursachen falscher Entwicklung auf beiden Seiten,
bei den Industrielndern wie bei den Entwicklungslndern. Sie wird heute allgemein akzeptiert und ist zum wesentlichen, wenn auch sehr generellen Leitprinzip der Entwicklungspolitik des Westens, zu einer Art aufgeklrter Europisierung geworden. Man verspricht sich von diesem Ansatz eine gewisse Balance
zwischen den Erwartungen und Vorbehalten auf der einen und den gezielten
Hilfsmglichkeiten auf der anderen Seite; materielle und psychologische Faktoren, die jeweiligen kulturellen Grundbedingungen und lebensfhigen Traditionen sollen gleichermaen bercksichtigt werden. Den Entwicklungslndern soll
Raum bleiben, um selbst zu entscheiden, was als berflssiger Ballast abgeworfen werden kann und was als historisch und kulturell unabdingbar fr Gesellschaft und Staat erhalten und gepflegt werden muss. Die Geberlnder wiederum
knnen auf dieser Basis ber die ihnen unaufgebbar erscheinenden Konditionen
verhandeln, ohne ihren Hilfsangeboten oder ihren Entwicklungsansten den
Charakter eines Oktroi zu geben.
Eine Variante der Neomodernisierung ist die Theorie der Akkulturation, die
vorstehend bereits skizziert wurde. Sie sucht die kulturellen Aspekte im Verhltnis von nationaler Entwicklung und Europisierung der Welt zu bercksichtigen, zu strken und deutlicher, als bisher geschehen, der internationalen Politik zur Bercksichtigung zu empfehlen. Die Aspekte einer kulturellen Autonomie sind auch in den politischen Prozessen des Peace keeping oder des Peace

37
making bisher zu sehr an den Rand geschoben worden. Ihre zentrale Bedeutung
liegt im Irak klar auf der Hand so wie in den Prozessen des staatlichen und
gesellschaftlichen Wiederaufbaus auf dem Balkan oder in Afghanistan, im Nahen Osten, in Staaten Afrikas oder Lateinamerikas.
Zum Ende noch eine politische Schlussfolgerung: Im Zentrum einer Auflsung des Spannungsverhltnisses zwischen der manifesten und fortschreitenden
Europisierung der Welt und der sie ablehnenden Nationen sollten erneut die in
den 50er und 60er Jahren des 20. Jahrhunderts diskutierten Konzepte des Nation-building treten, die auf eine Entwicklung der sich ihrer Traditionen, ihrer
kulturellen Basis und ihrer nationalen Identitt bewussten Nationen zu modernen Staaten hinzielen.
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Jrgen Schwarz
Zusammenfassung
Europisierung ist der ber Jahrhunderte andauernde Prozess der tiefgehenden Beeinflussung der Vlker der Welt, ihrer Kulturen und Lebensweisen, durch die von Europa und Nordamerika ausgehenden Geistesstrmungen, Religionen, Denk- und Verhaltensweisen. Mit Entwicklung der klassischen Renaissance, der Aufklrung und der
modernen Wissenschaften traten in Europa und damit auch in der auereuropischen
Welt sukzessive die Methoden von Wirtschaft, Naturwissenschaften und Technik in
den Vordergrund. Fortschritt, Machbarkeit, Rationalitt und Modernitt verdrngten als
dominierende Maximen zunehmend die religise und moralische Grundlegung. Vermehrt im 21. Jahrhundert stt nunmehr diese Europisierung an Grenzen, die man als
neuzeitliche Renaissance indigener Kulturen, vor allem auch ihrer religisen und ethischen Grundeinstellungen, bezeichnen knnte. Auf sehr unterschiedliche Art versuchen die Vlker der Welt ihre originren Kulturen und die damit einhergehenden
Denk- und Verhaltensweisen wiederzuentdecken und von dorther die radikal skularisierten europischen Einflsse zu balancieren, zurckzudrngen oder auch zu verndern. Aus diesen Prozessen knnen Spannungen und Konflikte entstehen, die nur im
Sinne einer selbstbewuten Akkulturation, durch Selbstbesinnung auf die jeweiligen
kulturellen Grundlagen und durch interkulturellen Dialog gelst werden knnen.
Summary
For centuries Europe has been of decisive influence on peoples, cultures and societies of the whole world. It is still Europe and North America where the mainstream of
thinking and the long lasting political, scientific and economic impact come from. But
since the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment and during the following development of sciences, economy and technology the moral, spiritual and religious content
of Europeanization has been fading away. Today maxims like progress, feasibility,
rationality and modernity are the dominant orientation of the worldwide development.
In the 21st century this type of a radical secularized Europeanization seems to be confronted with what could be called the cultural renaissance of the non-Western world.
This movement is still in its beginning; but it is already quite obvious that these countries do not want to abstain any longer from what they call their cultural foundations.
They try to revitalize their indigenous cultural roots and to develop their cultural identity, even if they should have to pay for modernization and material progress. This
could lead to discrepancies or even conflicts with the western world. But also a cultural rapprochement could be attempted. It should be called peaceful intercultural dialogue and international acculturation.

Mistaken National Identity:

Samuel Huntington's Who Are We?
By Kenneth D. Whitehead
I.
Harvard Professor Samuel P. Huntington has long been considered one of
America's most distinguished political scientists. With his 1996 book, The
Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,1 he demonstrated that
human societies and civilizations are not driven by politics, economics, and
secular concerns alone, as so often seems to be the way they are viewed and
described today. Much more fundamentally, they are based on religions and
cultures.
Huntington's division of the world into eight major civilizations, for the
most part, corresponded with the territories of the world's great religions. Interestingly enough, however, he identified no single Christian civilization, but
rather distinguished three of them: Western, Latin American, and Orthodox.2
His analysis of the past, present, and possible future clashes between the various world civilizations has since resonated very widely, especially after 9/11,
since Huntington gave considerable attention to what he called a high propensity to resort to violence among Muslims, and he also noted, pertinently, that
wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbors.3
In his new book, Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity,4 Professor Huntington takes up again some of the themes of his Clash of
Civilizations, but this time from a somewhat different perspective. In this book,
he examines America's national identity in the context of today's globalization;
and, in an impassioned analysis that could almost be called a polemic except
for the author's relentless and dry factual piling up of data and citations one
1 Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World
Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).
2 Ibid., p. 2.
3 Ibid., pp. 256 & 258.
4 Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004).

40
Kenneth D. Whitehead
upon the other, he analyzes the threat he sees that various aspects of globalization pose to the integrity of the United States as a nation as well as to the very
national identity of Americans. For him this threat derives primarily from the
virtual unrestricted immigration policy that has been followed by the United
States since 1965.
Professor Huntington is alarmed in particular by the huge numbers of immigrants of Hispanic origin coming to the United States who, in his opinion, are
no longer being assimilated into American society in the way that earlier generations of immigrants were assimilated. He is especially concerned at the number of immigrants from a contiguous country, Mexico, crowding into the United
States, legally and illegally, in ever increasing numbers. From constituting only
14 percent of all immigrants into the United States in the 1970s, Mexicans in
the 1990s amounted to 25 percent of the total immigration. In the year 2000
alone, nearly 8 million Mexicans legally entered the U.S., where Mexican immigrants already constituted 27.6 percent of the total foreign-born population in
that year. The next largest contingents, by comparison, were Chinese and Filipinos, who constituted only 4.9 and 4.3 percent of the foreign-born population
respectively. Professor Huntington sees current Mexican immigration as leading toward the demographic reconquista of areas Americans took from Mexico
by force in the 1830s and 1840s.5
Professor Huntington is hardly the first to raise the question of what all this
means for the future of America. In fact, the number of his sources and citations is quite astonishing: we would never have believed that so much had been
written on the subject if we did not see it all laid out in his extremely dense
text and notes. He certainly manages to make the case that there is a problem.
He himself fears that America could lose its core culture, become bi-furcated, and evolve into a loose confederation of ethnic, racial, cultural, and
political groups with little or nothing in common apart from their location in
the territory of what had been the United States of America (emphasis
added).6
Professor Huntington is not at all unmindful quite the contrary! that the
current trends he fears in addition to unrestricted immigration namely, multiculturalism, diversity, bilingual education, affirmative action, the downgrading
of patriotism, and the like are strongly favored within the United States by
powerful secularists and Enlightenment-based liberal elites, if not by what
might be called the current American establishment itself. Undaunted by today's reigning notion of political correctness, or the idea that we should
never be critical of those of diverse ethnic, cultural, or religious identities,
5
6
Ibid., p. 221.
Ibid., p. 19.

41
he is apparently little concerned about the sensibilities that usually moderate

today's discourse on anything thought to be covered by political correctness.
He is quite bluntly critical, in fact, of all those he sees undermining or harming
the traditional America and the American identity that he loves. He attacks
multiculturalism in particular and constantly reminds his readers that, since declaring independence from Britain in 1776, the United States has embodied a
distinct culture based upon the noble ideas enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the 1789 Constitution of the United States.
Given the rather unpopular stands which Professor Huntington takes, especially in the present cultural climate, it should not be surprising that Who Are
We? The Challenges to America's National Identity has not met with a uniformly favorable response from the critics. Most of the reviews of the book to
date, in fact, are as critical of Professor Huntington as he is of those whose
agendas he opposes. Perhaps not surprisingly, he has even been attacked as a
racist possibly the most damaging epithet that can be applied to anyone in
the United States today. To call someone a racist is immediately to place him
outside the pale of acceptable society and discourse. Professor Huntington does
not seem to care, however; he seems quite unshakably convinced of the rightness of his views. Meanwhile, though, some of his other critics have more temperately made a number of perhaps valid points suggesting that while his thesis
is certainly grounded in some troubling current realities, his fears for the future
of America and of the American identity may nevertheless be more than a little
exaggerated.7
However that may be, this Harvard professor's book has stirred up a lively
and in many ways an acrimonious debate among the intellectual classes, and it
will probably continue to do so for some time to come, given the author's prominence, the book's subject matter, and the rather belligerent, almost defiant
way the author has approached that subject matter.
II.
In this paper I want to concentrate on an issue to which most of Professor
Huntington's critics and his votaries and supporters, for that matter have
given little attention, preoccupied as most of them are by his lack of political
correctness and unwillingness to observe some of the taboos in our contemporary society. I want to talk about his idea of what constitutes the American
national identity to which he refers so prominently in his title. Although he is
7 See especially the many letters sent in by a distinguished array of critics to Foreign Policy magazine (May/June, 2004) critiquing an article mostly excerpted from
Who Are We? The Challenge to America's National Identity which Professor Huntington had published in the March/April, 2004, of the same journal.

42
impressively learned in the history and development of the United States and of
the American character, and fervent in his patriotism and his allegiance to traditional Americanism as he understands it, I believe he is in some ways quite
wrong-headed and indeed ultimately mistaken in his explanation of what basically constitutes the American character and America's national identity.
Briefly, his account stresses that the United States was founded by British
settlers who brought to these shores a distinct culture and way of life that included the English language, a dissenting version of Protestant Christianity, a
love of freedom, and a respect for the rule of law. These factors eventually
developed into what many have styled an American Creed a civic creed,
obviously, not a religious one that included principles of liberty, equality,
democracy, civil rights, non-discrimination, and the rule of law.8
The successive waves of immigrants that came to the United States quite
naturally and regularly tended to accept these values, and thus they became
assimilated into what Professor Huntington calls America's Anglo-Protestant
culture. I think he exaggerates unduly the extent to which dissenting Protestantism constitutes an essential and continuing component of the American
identity. Even the earliest settlers of America had to modify some of the tenets
of their original Puritanism or Protestantism merely in order to live in peace
with each other, much less have a society that could eventually admit Catholics, Jews, and even unbelievers on the equal basis in which these original
settlers also strongly believed, on Professor Huntington's own testimony.
It is, of course, undeniable that the Protestantism of America's early and
even some of her later settlers had an enormous influence on the formation of
America's national identity. Once formed, however, that identity then constituted a new thing in itself, which did not necessarily require a continuing link
with all of the elements that had once originally served in its formation. Specifically, it was no longer necessary to be a Protestant or to subscribe to a Protestant version of Christianity in order to be an American in the full sense, possessed of an authentic American national identity. Catholics or Jews or nonbelievers could also qualify as Americans in the full sense. And in any case,
the Protestantism of the early Puritans, like that of the later revivalist Christians, eventually became attenuated to the point where nearly all Protestant
Americans today have a very different outlook and very different attitudes than
those exhibited by their Protestant co-religionists back in the days when the
American identity was being formed.
However that may be, though, Professor Huntington still insists on characterizing American culture, even today, as an Anglo-Protestant Culture, and his
great fear today, as already noted above, is that more recent immigrants, espe8
Ibid., p. 338.

43
cially Hispanic, are not assimilating any longer into America's basic society
and culture. He even declares that the principal theme of this book is the continuing centrality of Anglo-Protestant culture to American national identity
(emphasis added).9
As I say, though, I believe his insistence upon the Protestant component of
America's basic identity today is greatly overdrawn, but Professor Huntington
is nevertheless surely quite unusual among modern American academic political scientists in according to religion such an important role in the formation
and continuation of the American identity. He goes further. He unabashedly
affirms that America is a religious and primarily Christian country, encompassing several religious minorities, adhering to Anglo-Protestant values, speaking English, maintaining its European cultural heritage, and committed to the
principles of [its] Creed . . . America was founded in large part for religious
reasons, and religious movements have shaped its evolution for almost four
centuries.10
The fact alone that Samuel Huntington is prepared to affirm that America is
a Christian country would ipso facto probably be enough today to provoke the
kind of opposition that he has in fact aroused, if most of his critics were not
otherwise so strongly focused on his alleged racism. It is indeed remarkable
that in our present secularized society an American academic and from Harvard of all places! would dare to make such an affirmation. True to his insight in the Clash of Civilizations that religion is often the basis of society and
culture, he is certainly prepared to affirm this in the case of America as well.
It is important for us to remember, however, that for Samuel Huntington the
Christianity that informs American culture is Protestantism. He makes this
point over and over again and very plainly. In his view, the successful Americanization of, for example, Catholic immigrants has necessarily involved what
he calls the Protestantization of the Catholic Church in this country. Even
American Jews, he holds, have undergone this kind of Protestantization. As
for Catholics, he admits that they do not like people referring to the Protestantization' of their religion. Yet in some degree that is precisely what Americanization involves. He goes on:
Given the Protestant origins of America, the overwhelming predominance of Protestantism for over two centuries, the central and pervasive role of Protestant values
and assumptions in American culture and society, how could it be otherwise? . . .
Catholics in societies that have historically been shaped by Protestantism Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United States typically have values
more similar to those of their Protestant countrymen than to Catholics in other
countries.
9
10
Ibid., p. 30.
Ibid., p. 20.

44
Catholics and Protestants within these societies [he quotes another study] do not
show markedly different values: Dutch Catholics today are about as Calvinist as the
members of the Dutch Reformed Church.11
Probably from his own point of view Professor Huntington thinks he needs to
posit a Protestantized Catholicism which unlike Hispanic Catholicism, for
example is compatible with authentic Americanism as he defines it. Otherwise he would be excluding at one stroke the largest organized body of Christians by far in his Christian America, namely, the nation's sixty-plus million
Catholics. But his analysis and explanations here are really quite superficial and
defective. Although there is no doubt some truth in the idea that Catholics living in countries or societies along with Protestants often share with them some
common (national?) values and attitudes, his idea that the nature of Catholicism
and of the Catholic Church has somehow been changed or could be changed
by the interaction of Catholics with their fellow citizens in America or,
more pertinently, that Catholics who are true Catholics (not Protestantized
ones) would be incapable of being loyal Americans and adherents to the
American Creed all this is nothing more than blatant prejudice and harkens
back to the days when an Al Smith could never be elected president of the
United States because he was supposedly subservient to a foreign potentate, the
pope. The history of Catholics in America over the past couple of centuries has
surely demonstrated the contrary, as Professor Huntington, of all people, ought
to know.
His basic problem seems to be an inability even to imagine contrary to the
plain evidence of history that Catholics (or Jews) might possibly remain firm
adherents to their own authentic religious faith and yet still be patriotic and
loyal Americans also able to subscribe sincerely on a civic level to the American Creed. It is not necessary to be Protestantized in order to qualify as a
true American or share an American identity. The notion that it might bespeaks
on Professor Huntington's part a prejudice against and an ignorance of the
Catholic Church which is quite unworthy of him but which unfortunately is
at least sporadically evident throughout his book. In spite of his impressive erudition, he really seems to know very little about the Catholic Church, including
the Church in America and what he does know, he does not appear to like.
He almost never quotes Catholic sources, for example, and even seems to be
mostly unaware that any such sources even exist.
Actually, his treatment of religion generally, including his favored Protestantism, is often quite superficial, in spite of some of the genuine insights about
religion of his for which he has been widely credited. He is given, for example,
to quoting statistics from polls where people say they are religious, though
little or nothing is evident from these polls about their actual religious beliefs
11
Ibid., pp. 9697.

45
or real degree of their religious commitment. Nevertheless, this is the kind of

evidence he adduces for the proposition that Americans continue to be a
Christian people.12 He virtually never gets into questions of what might or
might not be true in religion, or what moral demands upon the individual or
the citizen a true religious commitment might entail. It is significant that one of
his often-used words is: religiosity.13 This word aptly describes what, too often, he himself erroneously takes to be religion.
III.
It was surprising enough in this day and age that a Harvard political scientist
could declare the United States to be still a Christian country. But in another
sense it was perhaps even more surprising that the scholar in question would
then promptly turn around and deliberately limit the meaning of Christianity to
exclude in principle and from the start the major Christian body existing not
only in America, but in the world, namely, the Catholic Church. Since he believes that Christianity is an essential element of the American identity which
he also believes is seriously threatened today we might have imagined that he
would at least want to widen his definition of Christianity in order to include as
many Christian Americans as possible who just might be of his way of thinking, and who might wish as ardently as he to affirm America as the unique
historical experiment that America has in fact been.
Nothing of the sort, however: he makes quite clear that the only Catholics he
fully accepts are those he believes have been Protestantized by America.
Otherwise his basic hostility towards the Catholic Church the word hostility
is not too strong comes across in a number of places in the course of his
narrative. His strong disapproval of Mexican and Latino immigration, for example, seems in significant part to be based upon the culture of Catholicism14
which he believes these immigrants bring with them (although he himself documents the equally significant number of conversions to Evangelical Christianity
among Mexicans and other Latino immigrants).
The culture of Catholicism itself, however, will evidently never do. Suddenly, it even begins to become clear why he perhaps classified Latin America
as a separate civilization in his earlier book, and was unwilling to posit one
Christian civilization tout court: some versions of Christianity, including perhaps also the separate civilization of Eastern Orthodoxy, evidently for him
simply do not measure up to the demands of the Anglo-Protestant culture he
champions.
12
13
14
Ibid., p. 15.
Ibid., e. g., p. 365.
Ibid., p. 254.

46
An integral part of his project, then, amazingly enough, thus seems to entail
the celebration and revival of: WASPism, that is, of the ascendancy of the
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, or WASP. This is hard to believe. Of all the
contemporary projects that might be attempted or imagined today, surely the
revival of the WASP ascendancy would seem to be one of the least likely ever
to succeed. Most of us had thought that former President George H. W. Bush,
for example, was one of the last of the WASPs; his son, President George W.
Bush, already quite consciously places himself in the ranks of the Evangelicals,
who continue to demonstrate a certain vitality that is no longer evident in most
of the old-line, mainline Protestant denominations in America.
For when we look at Protestantism in America today, we no longer discern
the strong Christian conviction and commitment that motivated both the early
Puritan settlers in America and the later revivalist Christians. The Puritans
believed in the faith they professed and in the city on the hill they were striving to build. The same thing was true of some of the subsequent revivals in
American history that Professor Huntington identifies. However, we see nothing
remotely comparable on the religious scene in America today. Who today believes in the Protestantism that the early American settlers believed in? Does
Professor Huntington? Does he subscribe, for example, to the Augsburg Confession, the Westminster Confession, the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican
Church, or some more modern version of Protestantism? Or does he simply
affirm the importance of Protestantism because it was clearly one of the most
important elements in the formation of the original American identity?
If the latter, he has gotten it all exactly backwards. He resembles those idealists who have sometimes praised the Catholic Church, not because they believed in her creed, but because they admired the achievements of Western civilization, and they understand that the Catholic Church was the mother of that
civilization. We are almost inevitably reminded here of a figure such as the
French nationalist Charles Maurras, a notable figure especially in the period
between the two world wars. Maurras decreed that Catholicism had to be an
integral component of the French national identity that he cherished because he
understood what the Catholic Church had contributed to the greatness of
France; meanwhile, though, he scarcely believed a word of the Church's creed.
Is Professor Huntington touting Protestantism in the same way? If so, he is
trying to link America's future prospects to a diminishing force. That National
Opinion Research Center, in a recent report entitled The Vanishing Protestant
Majority, noted that the various Protestant denominations in the United States
dropped from 63 percent of the population of the United States in 1993 down to
only 52 percent in 2002.15 And these numbers continue to dwindle. It would
15
Quoted by Greg Erlandson in Our Sunday Visitor, August 29, 2004.

47
seem that Protestantism today is hardly in any condition to lead any revival or
revitalization of America as God's new chosen people. Nor is it just a matter of
decreasing numbers; it also comports a seemingly drastic loss of faith and conviction. We can only contemplate with dismay such things as, for example, the
spectacle of the Episcopalians blessing homosexual unions and ordaining as
a bishop a man who deserted his family in order to enter into an open homosexual relationship. We see a United Methodist Church at its recent quadrennial
general conference voting only by a narrow margin after an unedifying internal
battle to uphold traditional Christian morality in sexual matters. The Presbyterians, for their part, put off voting on the issue until another year because they
apparently could no longer agree on what Scripture nevertheless very plainly
says about sexual morality. Several Protestant denominations in America have
actually endorsed, and some even promote, such phenomena antithetical to the
Gospel as so-called same-sex marriage or legalized abortion.
On the evidence, Protestantism in America today is not the Protestantism that
inspired and motivated America's early settlers. If the American identity truly
depends upon the continued vitality of Protestantism, then we are perhaps in
bigger trouble than even Professor Huntington imagines. And while it is true
that many sincere Christians, Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox, continue to
try to affirm their faith in a society and culture increasingly hostile to religious
faith, the degree to which some Protestant denominations in particular seem to
have succumbed to the pressures of the dominant secular culture cannot inspire
much confidence in their ability to revive any Anglo-Protestant culture.
In our increasingly morally decadent America, it is true that Evangelical
Christians have shown more conviction and commitment than mainline Protestants. Many Evangelicals have proved to be quite admirable both in embodying
their faith in action, and in working in the public square to oppose America's
current slide into moral permissiveness and decadence. As Professor Huntington
himself documents, however, neither the Moral Majority in the 1980s, nor the
Christian Coalition in the 1990s, turned out to have either the consistency or
the staying power to oppose effectively today's secular humanist juggernaut
currently in the process of crushing all the laws governing morals that happen to be in its path.
None of this is said in order to criticize or denigrate Protestants or Protestantism as such. Americans generally are implicated in the marked and rapid moral
decline in America in our day a moral decline that probably represents a
greater challenge to American identity than any of the challenges that worry
Professor Huntington. But if the revival of his cherished Anglo-Protestant culture truly is what is necessary to the salvaging of America's threatened identity,
then there would seem to be some need for America's culture to be Protestant
in the traditional sense described by Professor Huntington, namely, as denoting

48
what Protestants once believed was right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate.16 But, in fact, all this has been drastically changed from what it was
in the predominantly Protestant culture that characterized America at its founding.
Today in America, courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, abortions for any reason or for no reason have been legal since 1973.
Over 40 million Americans have been subtracted from today's American population over the past 35 years by virtue of not being allowed to be born. Today
in America, the same U.S. Supreme Court, in its recent 2003 sodomy decision,
Lawrence v. Texas, legalized not merely sodomy between consenting adults,
but, in effect, any and all sexual acts whatsoever between consenting adults. In
America's original culture, the commandments, Thou shalt not kill and Thou
shalt not commit adultery, among other commandments, had some meaning.
They no longer have as much in America today. In its most recent session ending in June, 2004, the very same Supreme Court was unable to find any way to
protect children from gross obscenity and pornography on the internet because under the court's current understanding of the rule of law, obscenity
and pornography must be allowed as constitutionally protected speech.
In a word, both sexual morality and marital fidelity have now virtually been
legally abolished in America today. This is no exaggeration. Many other indications besides court decisions point to the same kind of precipitous, perhaps irremediable, moral decline. The marriage rate in America, for example, has fallen
by nearly 50 percent since 1960, with approximately 1.5 million divorces now
occurring annually. At the same time, what the U.S. Census Bureau calls unmarried partner households have climbed from 523,000 couples in 1970 to
4,900,000 in 2000, a ninefold increase.17
Now none of this is the fault of Protestants in particular. The acids of modernity have affected all Americans. Indeed, much of the problem can be said
to stem from the decline of Protestantism and of Christianity generally in
America today. A falling off of religious practice verifiably does correspond to
the decline of personal moral behavior. One scholar makes this point unmistakably:
Sociologists predictably see a close linkage between declining church attendance
among young Americans and a rising willingness to engage in premarital sex.
Young women eagerly availed themselves of the Pill in the Sixties and Seventies
largely because they were simultaneously letting go of the New Testament: whereas
only 29% of college age females reported having had premarital intercourse in
1965, that percentage had sky-rocketed to 63% by 1985. In the post-Sixties world,
Ibid., p. 30.
Figures cited by Allan Carlson, Rebuilding a Culture of Marriage, in: The Family in America, December, 2003.
16
17

49
young Americans were clearly taking their behavioral cues from someone other
than St. Paul. By the 1980s . . . millions of heterosexual couples would flout the
religious doctrines forbidding fornication: over two million unmarried heterosexual
couples were living together in 1986, and 44 percent of all American heterosexual
couples who married between 1980 and 1984 had cohabited before taking vows.18
Thus has personal morality evolved in America today. But what is the
point of citing all this evidence of moral decline in a paper dealing with America's national identity? The point is that America's national identity is said by
Professor Samuel Huntington to be in danger from many of the effects of today's globalization, especially from immigrants deemed not easily assimilable
to America's supposed Anglo-Protestant culture. The reality, however, is that
the Anglo-Protestant culture in question (if that is really what it is) is itself in a
steep moral decline characterized by the progressive abandonment by Americans today of the Christian morality which the Founding Fathers of the country,
by Huntington's own testimony, certainly regarded as an essential component
of America's national identity.
IV.
In Who Are We? The Challenge to America's National Identity, Professor
Samuel Huntington says that he would like to see Americans of all races and
ethnicities . . . attempt to reinvigorate their core culture.19 But then, as we have
seen, he insists on defining America's core culture as Anglo-Protestant,
thereby as a practical matter excluding on account of their religion at least
some of the races and ethnicities about which he speaks. He states flatly, for
example, that America is the child of [the] Reformation. Without it there
would be no America as we have known it.20 He probably thinks that he has
explained and defined things so that American Catholics and Jews, or even
American Muslims, will not be put off by his narrow identification of America
with Protestantism. In fact, however, his attitude can only be described as rather
condescending towards the many Americans who might well be disposed to
share his positive commitment to America's core culture, but who might not
want to be obliged thereby to be committed to the Protestant Reformation as
well. As far as he is concerned, however, they will just have to accept his ipse
dixit that America is fundamentally Protestant.
More than that, the American core culture in question is currently in the
throes of a radical secularization and a drastic moral decline, of which we have
18 Bryce Christensen, Why Homosexuals Want What Marriage Has Become, in:
The Family in America, April, 2004.
19 Huntington, Who Are We?, p. 20.
20 Ibid., p. 63.

50
noted only a few of the more salient contemporary indications. Ironically, some
of the undesirable immigrants he thinks cannot easily be assimilated might in
fact help check the current moral decline by bringing with them personal moral
standards more consonant with traditional Christian morality. While the divorce
rate among Americans generally today is around fifty per cent, the divorce rate
among the immigrants from Mexico whom he fears is around five per cent.
Throughout his long and detailed work, however, Professor Huntington scarcely
takes any notice at all of the fact that his touted American core culture is in the
midst of a grave moral crisis that surely threatens America's national identity
every bit as much as unrestricted immigration, for example, threatens it. He has
thus not correctly identified the major challenge to America's national identity.
He unaccountably denies, for example, that America has become secularized.21
It must be said that he is concerned about lawlessness, at least in the areas of
civil rights and affirmative action, where he notes that judges and even legislators bend and stretch the law until it comes to mean the opposite of what it
originally meant (e. g., supposedly color blind civil rights legislation is interpreted to favor affirmative action for people of color!).22 But at the same time,
he is entirely oblivious, or at any rate wholly indifferent, to the way civil rights
legislation has been (and is being) interpreted to grant special rights to homosexuals, even though no federal or state legislation anywhere actually includes
sexual orientation as a protected category (this does not, however, prevent
many judges and administrators from treating it as if had been enacted into law
somewhere).
It is true that the current much-publicized drive for so-called same-sex marriage probably did not burst upon the scene until after Professor Huntington's
book was already written. Still, there were earlier indications, in Hawaii and
Vermont, for example, that this so-called same-sex marriage was coming inexorably down the road. Any alert student of American society and culture should
have been aware of these indications, especially someone positing a revival
or reinvigoration of religion in order to reaffirm America's national identity
in the face of the dangers threatening it. Now that America has experienced the
widespread recent lawlessness of witnessing the issuance of marriage licenses to
same-sex couples by mayors, judges, and justices of the peace, not only in contravention of existing law, but often in open defiance of it, we can only speculate about what Samuel Huntington might think about the rule of law as one
of the pillars of Anglo-Protestant culture and the American Creed.
Actually, Professor Huntington rarely mentions homosexuals, and, when he
does, he takes an entirely morally neutral, if not actually favorable, stance to21
22
Ibid., p. 15.
Ibid., pp. 148149.

51
wards them. He does not seem to regard today's massive and aggressive homosexual-rights movement as representing any kind of threat or attack on traditional Christian morality or American culture. His first mention of gay men
and lesbians comes in a quotation from Richard Rorty on leftism in academia.23 On the same page, he refers non-committally to President Clinton's policy on gays in the military. He mentions media bias in reporting crimes
against blacks, gays, and women.24 He includes the category of gay rights
in a list of cultural issues.25 And in one place, he actually refers to people
willing to vote for a homosexual as proof that they are still religious!
In short, then, it seems that he regards the contemporary gay rights movement as legitimate. How he would reconcile this with what he must know the
Founding Fathers would have thought about today's open and flaunted homosexual lifestyles or what the vast majority of Protestants would have
thought about them up until very recently, not to speak of what the Holy Bible
on which Protestants claim to base their religion very clearly says about them
is hard to imagine. If neither traditional Christian morality nor the Bible is to
count in the face of such modern secular humanist imperatives as so-called
gay rights as the current battles over the issue going on within a number of
Protestant denominations suggest that both Christian morality and the Bible
count less and less with more and more Protestants then what is the status of
the Protestantism that Professor Huntington insists must be equated with
American values even today? It certainly does not appear that Protestants
generally are engaged in building any shining city on a hill today.
Mention of homosexuality in the climate of today inevitably raises the question of marriage which homosexuals too are now demanding for themselves.
Long before the organized homosexual-rights movement ever conceived of this
as a goal, however, regular marriage was already falling into an ever deepening
crisis, not only in America but in the Western world as a whole. The current
state of marriage in the West today surely represents a crisis of civilization if
anything does. Yet Professor Huntington discusses marriage only in connection
with dual citizenship,26 and in connection with interethnic and interracial intermarriage.27 Once again the savant who expatiates so confidently on the moral
foundations of America shows himself to be simply oblivious to many aspects
of the real moral state of the American society and culture which he otherwise
describes in such almost excruciating detail.
23
24
25
26
27
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
p. 272.
p. 313.
p. 352.
p. 212.
pp. 296297; and pp. 305306.

52
And then there is the scourge of legalized abortion. Professor Huntington

mentions abortion several times casually or in passing as if it were nothing out
of the ordinary. The word does not appear in his Index, any more than marriage or homosexuality are to be found there. He refers to abortion offhand
as one of the things Americans argue about today.28 He mentions it again in
connection with conservative efforts to impose restrictions on it.29 The word
appears again in connection with Southern Baptist opposition to it,30 as well as
in a list of some cultural issues.31 He takes note too of how some Christian
rightist efforts to prohibit abortion . . . [against] centrist opinion . . . came to
naught.32 Pretty clearly, for this author, centrist opinion, not opposition to
abortion, occupies the moral high ground here. He is thus actually dismissive of
those Protestants who are trying to deal with America's real, acute moral crisis.
Nowhere does he reveal the slightest hint that what could aptly be styled America's pagan decision to acquiesce in the regular and steady killing of millions of
her children by abortion might be anything but a perfectly normal and accepted
thing today.
When Professor Huntington finally does touch upon the subject of America's
contemporary moral decline, he is content with a bland and superficial summary a bare list, in fact, with no discussion of a few of the major problems: . . . teen-age pregnancy, single parent families, mounting divorce rates,
high levels of crime, widespread drug use, pornography and violence in the
media, and the perception that a large number of people were living the easy
life on the welfare rolls funded by hardworking taxpayers.33 He actually
speaks of Americans becoming concerned about what they saw as the decline
in values, morality, and standards in American society . . . (emphasis added).34
Thus, according to Professor Huntington, these Americans were concerned only
with what they saw, not with what has actually and undeniably happened to
Christian morality in America today.
It turns out, then, that the famous Harvard professor who champions the idea
that religion often lies at the basis of cultures and civilizations, and who has
even been prepared boldly to declare America to be still a Christian nation,
has a decidedly incomplete and defective idea of what Christianity actually is
and entails for example, what it must have been back in the era when the
American identity was being formed as compared with today! He also has a
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
p. 9.
p. 79.
p. 345.
p. 352.
p. 343.
pp. 343344.
p. 341.

53
very imperfect and myopic idea of what America has since become, morally
and culturally speaking. His views on these things in the end evidently do not
really differ all that much from those of his secular humanist academic colleagues, in fact, in spite of the controversy that has surrounded his supposedly
racist and other politically incorrect views. He thus never really gets at the
heart of what once made America great, and he certainly has little idea of what
a truly Christian America might have to be like today. If he seriously believes
that Christianity is one of the necessary elements making up the American
character and identity, then perhaps he should have addressed the question of
what might need to be done to revive authentic Christianity in the world today,
not just his favored dissenting-type of Protestantism.
As it is, whatever resources, religious and otherwise, that America may still
have to draw upon in facing the very real problems that beset her which include but are certainly not limited to the problems stemming from today's globalization and unrestricted immigration will have to await another and better
study than this one.
Summary
In his 2004 book Who Are We? Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington argues that America's national identity is in danger of being lost because of the influx
of immigrants, particularly Hispanic, who are not being assimilated to American society. Huntington believes that the American national identity was formed through the
interaction of the Protestant Christianity of the original settlers with the New World.
He therefore calls for a revival of the American identity through a return to its
sources, but he fails to see that the liberalized and attenuated Protestant Christianity of
today is no longer capable of revitalizing the American identity.
Zusammenfassung
In seinem 2004 erschienenen Buch Wer sind wir? vertritt der Politologe Samuel
Huntington die These, da die nationale Identitt Amerikas verlorenzugehen drohe infolge des Einflusses der Immigranten, insbesondere der Einwanderer aus den spanischsprechenden Lndern, die nicht in die amerikanische Gesellschaft assimiliert werden.
Huntington glaubt, da die nationale Identitt Amerikas entstanden ist durch die wechselseitige Beeinflussung der protestantischen Christen, der ersten Einwanderer, mit der
neuen Welt. Deshalb pldiert er fr die Wiederbelebung der amerikanischen Identitt
durch eine Rckkehr zu ihren Quellen. Aber er sieht nicht, da die liberal und schwcher gewordene protestantische Christenheit von heute gar nicht mehr fhig ist fr
eine Wiederbelebung der amerikanischen Identitt.

Culture and the Individual:

The Psychological Impact of Globalization
By Gladys Sweeney
I. Introduction
With the advent of information technology and the spread of economic capitalism, globalization has become a phenomenon of increasing importance.
Globalization may be thought of as the widening, deepening and speeding up
of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life, from
the cultural to the criminal, the financial to the spiritual.1
Much of the worldwide conversation about globalization focuses on economic progress and development, and rightly so. It is important, however, to
consider globalization's impact on culture and the attendant psychological consequences for the individual.
While economic and technological breakthroughs are the most obvious results of globalization, the psychological effects are equally important in the life
of a nation. Psychological ramifications are not theoretical; they are very real,
and they affect the lives of the men, women, and children who form the families that are the strength or the Achilles's heel of a society. In general,
psychological factors influence whether a person will be balanced or maladjusted, goal-oriented or adrift, fulfilled or marginalized. In extreme cases, psychological dysfunction can render a person incapable of raising a family or
holding a job. These consequences affect not only the present generation but
succeeding generations as well. The teen who becomes alienated from his parents and struggles with identity issues and depression will spend the greater part
of his adolescence turned inward. He focuses on himself, ultimately unable to
1 Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Acta 7: Globalization: Ethical and Institutional Concerns, citing D. Held, A. McGrew, D. Goldblatt, and J. Perraton, Global
Transformation, Stanford: Stanford University Press (1993), p. 2; see also Arnett, J. J.,
The Psychology of Globalization, American Psychologist (Oct., 2002), p. 774. Arnett
describes globalization as a process by which cultures influence one another and become more alike through trade, immigration, and the exchange of information and
ideas. He notes that in recent decades, the degree and intensity of the connections
among different cultures and different world regions have accelerated dramatically because of advances in telecommunications and a rapid increase in economic and financial interdependence worldwide.

56
Gladys Sweeney
give of himself to others because it takes so much effort just to navigate daily
life. The damage does not stop there. His inability to form strong relationships
with his siblings and parents may affect his relationship with his future spouse
and children. The individual's mental health affects the health of his family.
And the family's health, as Pope John Paul II points out, inevitably affects
society's health.2
All the economic opportunity in the world will be useless to a person who is
psychologically dysfunctional and unable to take advantage of that opportunity.
Similarly, an aggregate increase in a nation's standard of living or technological
development will not stand long when it rests on a crumbling foundation, that
is, when individuals, families, and even the culture have lost their cohesiveness,
traditions, and purpose. Thus, psychological consequences are very real to
those individuals who suffer them and to society as well.
Globalization, per se, is not necessarily psychologically harmful to individuals. Indeed, John Paul II states that globalization, a priori, is neither good
nor bad. It will be what people make of it. No system is an end in itself and it
is necessary to insist that globalization, like any other system, must be at the
service of the human person, it must serve solidarity and the common good.3
II. A Critique of Globalization Today
from Pope John Paul II's Perspective
But does the globalization of today meet those criteria? Do the real-life
forces of globalization support and respect an authentic vision of the human
person? Pope John Paul II, not surprisingly, offers a cogent analysis of the problematic aspects of globalization.
The Holy Father, along with many secular psychologists, warns that globalization as practiced today tends to produce a stifling conformity among cultures
and nations. Conformity among cultures is problematic, according to the Pope,
because culture writ large ought to reveal the inexhaustible richness of humanity. On one level, culture is often described as the distinctive body of customs,
beliefs and social institutions that characterize each separate society.4 But it is
2 The health of society depends on the family's health. Pope John Paul II, Message of the Holy Father to the 43 Italian Catholic Social Week, November 10, 1999.
3 John Paul II, Address to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, April 27,
2001.
4 Goodell, G. E., Universal Cultural Traits and Anthropology's Contributions to the
Study of Them, The Jacques Maritain Center's Thomistic Institute, July 19, 2000, p. 6.
For another view of culture, see Hermans, H. J. and Kempen, H. J., Moving Cultures:
The Perilous Problems of Cultural Dichotomies in a Globalizing Society, American
Psychologist (Oct., 1998), at p. 1115. Hermans and Kempen note that many commentators defined culture as a package of ideas, values, and practices; as a repertoire of

Culture and the Individual: Psychological Impact of Globalization
57
also much more. As John Paul II notes, culture provides a clue to both man's
origin and his destiny. It is
[t]he form of man's self-expression in his journey through history, on the level of
both individuals and social groups. For man is driven incessantly by his intellect
and will to cultivate natural goods and values, to incorporate in an ever higher and
more systematic cultural synthesis his basic knowledge of all aspects of life . . . and
to foster those existential values and perspectives, especially in the religious sphere,
which enable individual and community life to develop in a way that is authentically human.5
Culture is a window into the profound nature and possibilities of the human
person; it provides the context for people's lives and bears the stamp of people's choices their hierarchy of values, their underlying basis for security, an
interpretation of the meaning of life, their history, and their future. In a reciprocal way, culture shapes the attitudes, beliefs, and practices of a people. Culture
expresses to the world and to the person himself his understanding of who
he is and who God is.
Immersed in his own culture, the human person discovers a necessary tension
within himself between the universal and the particular. He possesses the same
nature that every human being enjoys and intuitively connects himself to the
larger human family. The eyes of his soul see beyond his doorstep and even his
national borders. At the same time, however, he is born with a certain ethnic
heritage, lives in a specific place, and calls one nation6 home. He has a cultural identity, with all that this implies, namely tradition, customs, rituals, language, and more. Jesus, for example, was not a generic global citizen. He was
born and lived as a Nazarene. John Paul II makes the point that
in most cases a culture develops in a specific place, where geographical, historical,
and ethnic elements combine in an original and unique way. The uniqueness' of
each culture is reflected more or less clearly in those individuals who are its
bearers, in a constant process whereby individuals are influenced by their culture
and then according to their different abilities and genius, contribute to it something
of their own. In any event, a person necessarily lives within a specific culture. People are marked by the culture whose very air they breathe through the family and
social groups around them, through education and the most varied influences of
their environment, through the very relationship which whey have with the place in
schemas; as a system of meanings, symbols, and actions; as a syndrome of beliefs,
norms, attitudes and roles; and as a pattern of self-definitions centered around a
theme. However, Hermans and Kempen believe that such simple definitions of culture fail to capture the complexity of culture in a globalized world. They propose an
additional dimension of culture that includes the ways in which the ideas and modes
of thought and external forms . . . are spread over a population and its social relationships. At p. 1115.
5 John Paul II, Message of His Holiness Pope John Paul II for the Celebration of
the World Day of Peace, January 1, 2001, par. 4.
6 Called nation, from the Latin word nasci, to be born.

58
Gladys Sweeney
which they live. There is no determinism here, but rather a constant dialectic between the strength of the individual's conditioning and the workings of human freedom.7
Thus this vital tension between universality and particularity8 is present

in every person. Lived in a balanced way, the duality of universality and particularity enriches and broadens both the culture and the individual.
One of the risks of globalization is that this sense of particularity may be
lost. The increasing tendency towards cultural homogeneity obscures the richness of God's creation and shades man's perception of His limitless transcendence. Driven by values of efficiency and production, globalization may easily
obliterate the diverse cultures of smaller nations and produce an artificial homogeneity. While critics find additional fault with globalization for fostering a
smug attitude of Western superiority (from some perspectives, anything native is always preferable)9, the Pope exposes a deeper flaw inherent in artificial homogeneity: it constricts the individual's and the culture's ability to explore the most profound questions of life and to express the answers they find.
For different cultures are but different ways of facing the question of the meaning
of the personal existence. And it is precisely here that we find one source of the
respect which is due to every culture and every nation: every culture is an effort to
ponder the mystery of the world and in particular of the human person: it is a way
of giving expression to the transcendent dimension of human life. The heart of
every culture is its approach to the greatest of all mysteries: the mystery of God.10
This brings us to the Holy Father's major criticism of globalization: it is

awash in the secular materialism of Western culture, bringing with it modernity's soulless vision of the world,11 a world-view that dispenses with God.
[N]o less perilous is the slavish conformity of cultures . . . to cultural models deriving from the Western world. Detached from their Christian origins, these models are
often inspired by . . . secularism and practical atheism and by patterns of radical
individualism. This is a phenomenon of vast proportions, sustained by powerful
John Paul II, World Day of Peace, January 1, 2001, par 5.
John Paul II, Address of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to the Fiftieth General
Assembly of the United Nations Organization, October 5, 1995, par. 7.
9 Thomas, K. R. & Weinrach, S. G., Multiculturalism in Counselling and Applied
Psychology: a Critical Perspective. Educational and Child Psychology (1999), Vol.
16(4). The authors explain that: A devotion to cultural diversity, for its own sake,
has been elevated above a commitment to common sense . . . When counselors, applied psychologists, educators, and other social service professionals, in their enthusiasm for multiculturalism, encourage their clients or students to retain aspects of their
native culture that are no longer adaptive or functional, they may be doing a disservice not only to the people they are intending to help, but also to society generally.
at p. 7677.
10 John Paul II, United Nations, at par. 9.
11 National Catholic Register, June 1319, 2004, p. 4, Media Watch column,
Where is America's Collective Soul?
7
8

59
media campaigns and designed to propagate lifestyles, social and economic programs and, in the last analysis, a comprehensive world-view which erodes from
within other estimable cultures and civilizations. Western cultural models are enticing and alluring because of their remarkable scientific and technical cast, but regrettably there is growing evidence of their deepening human, spiritual and moral
impoverishment. The culture which produces such models is marked by the fatal
attempt to secure the good of humanity by eliminating God, the Supreme Good.
Yet, as the Second Vatican Council warned, without the Creator the creature
comes to nothing!' A culture which no longer has a point of reference in God loses
its soul and loses its way, becoming a culture of death.12
Not surprisingly, a culture without God evolves into a culture that fails to
serve the common good; utilitarianism and consumerism (unchecked consumption and materialism) become the standard by which ethical decisions are made.
Globalization (and the companies, individuals, and governments that push it
forward) often serves a utilitarian ethic rather than the common good, demonstrating a commitment only to the inexorable march of progress and wealth
regardless of whether progress respects the dignity of the human person or
upholds authentic standards of morality. However, unlike many sociological
and political commentators, Pope John Paul II never shrinks from confronting
an ethic that purports to rest on anything but the dignity of man, for the human
person is the center of every social order.
Ethical discernment in the context of globalization must be based upon two inseparable principles: (1) The inalienable value of the human person, source of all human rights and every social order. The human being must always be an end and not
a means, a subject and not an object, nor a commodity of trade. (2) The value of
human cultures, which no external power has the right to downplay and still less to
destroy. Globalization must not be a new version of colonialism. It must respect the
diversity of cultures which, within the universal harmony of peoples, are life's interpretive keys. In particular, it must not deprive the poor of what remains most precious to them, including their religious beliefs and practices, since genuine religious
convictions are the clearest manifestations of human freedom.13
The potential then for globalization to do good or to inflict harm depends on

whether it respects the human person and his religious convictions, his dignity
and freedom, and the God-given diversity of nations and cultures. Moreover,
when globalization imposes excessive uniformity it undermines those values,
with profound implications in the area of identity. As John Paul II observed,
[P]recisely against a horizon of universality we see the powerful resurgence of a
certain ethnic and cultural consciousness, as it were an explosive need for identity
and survival, as sort of counterweight to the tendency toward uniformity.14
12
13
14
John Paul II, World Day of Peace, January 1, 2001, at par. 9.

John Paul II, Social Sciences Address, April 27, 2001, at par. 4.
John Paul II, United Nations, October 5, 1995, at par. 7.

60
Gladys Sweeney
III. Globalization's Impact on Identity

The Holy Father pinpoints a singularly important consequence of globalization: it affects identity. Here is where psychology proves especially helpful:
psychology explains the significance of cultural identity and the complex process of identity formation, particularly in adolescence. Moreover, it provides
insight into globalization's effect on cultural identity and identity formation, as
well as the resulting strength of the culture and its people. These concepts and
connections are crucial if we hope to apprehend the full significance of John
Paul II's critique of globalization. While science and theology are different
ways of seeking the truth, there can never be a true divergence between faith
and reason, since the same God who reveals the mysteries and bestows the gift
of faith has also placed in the human spirit the light of reason. This God could
not deny himself, nor could the truth ever contradict the truth.15 In Fides et
Ratio, John Paul II urges scientists to pursue their professions without ever
abandoning the sapiential horizon within which scientific and technological
achievements are wedded to the philosophical and ethical values which are the
distinctive and indelible mark of the human person. Scientists are well aware
that the search for truth', even when it concerns a finite reality of the world or
of man, is never ending, but always points beyond to something higher than the
immediate object of study, to the questions which give access to mystery.16
Coming from this premise of the universality of truth, I will take a preliminary look at the concept of cultural identity and globalization's effect on it. From
there, we will consider personal identity formation, especially in adolescence.
Cultural identity is the discovery of a psychological home, a sense of belonging to an ethnic or geographic community with consistent socialization
themes and traditions . . . The cultural home provides a set of integrated assumptions, values, beliefs, social role norms, and emotional attachments that constitutes a meaningful personal identity, developed and located within a sociocultural framework and [that] is shared by a group of similarly located individuals.17
Cultural identity is not a fixed place, but rather a sense of community, built
on shared values, traditions, and assumptions about life that form a common
frame of reference. It is an expression to the world and to oneself of who you
are and what it means to be a person.18
Fides et Ratio, September 14, 1998, at par. 53.

Fides et Ratio, par. 106, quoting from an address by the Holy Father at the University of Krokow, June 8, 1997.
17 Vivero, V. N., & Jenkins, S. R., Existential Hazards of the Multicultural Individual: Defining and Understanding Cultural Homelessness, Cultural Diversity and
Ethnic Minority Psychology, February 1999, vol. 5, no. 1, p. 626.
15
16

61
What happens, then, when globalization prompts a sustained contact between

two different cultures especially when the dominant culture represents a view
of man radically different from that of the native culture?
Psychology offers us a framework for describing the results of this contact
and its effect on cultural identity. The process is called acculturation, which
occurs when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact with subsequent changes in the original culture pattern of
either or both groups.19 Psychologists observe four typical patterns of acculturation,20 and note that while acculturation is not always bad,21 it usually produces acculturative stress. Psychologist John Berry refers to acculturative
stress as the experienced conflict between one's original culture and a new
culture.22 Arnett and Jensen state that globalization could be said to result in
such conflict when the norms and practices of the local culture are incompatible
with the norms and practices introduced by the global culture.23 It has been
debated whether acculturation is always accompanied by acculturative stress.
Berry himself notes that early views were that culture contact and change inevitably led to stress; however, current views are that stress is linked to acculturation in a probabilistic way, and the level of stress experienced will depend
on a number of factors.24 Berry goes on to summarize the likely results of
acculturative stress: At the personal level, reduced health (physical, social and
psychological), lowered levels of motivation, a sense of alienation, and increased social deviance have been documented. At the societal level there are
direct counterparts in increased health costs, lower educational and work attainment (with related higher welfare costs), increased social conflict . . . substance
abuse, criminal activity, and a general societal malaise.25
18 In Catholic terms, cultural identity reflects the person's natural desire to live in
community, to share life with others whom they love, to find meaning in personal
relationships and the context that frames those relationships. Think of Genesis 2:20
23. Adam named the animals but was still alone without a person fit for him. God
then created Eve and brought her to Adam. Adam's reply, This at last is bone of my
bones and flesh of my flesh, Gen 2:23, offers a poetic glimpse of cultural identity,
illuminating the psychological importance of living in community with those who are
most like ourselves. Indeed man seeks to create community in psychological terms,
to find his cultural home and cultural identity.
19 Berry, J. W., Immigration, Acculturation, and Adaptation, Applied Psychology,
vol. 46, no. 1 (1997), p. 534, at p. 7.
20 Berry, Immigration, at p. 9.
21 In fact, in many circumstances it is quite good, enhancing the experience of both
the individual and his community. See Berry, Immigration, at p. 7.
22 Berry, Immigration, at p. 13.
23 Arnett, J. J., The Psychology of Globalization, American Psychologist, vol. 57,
no. 10 (October, 2002), p. 774783, at p. 779.
24 Berry, J. W., Acculturative Stress, in P. B. Organista, K. M. Chun & G. Marin
(Eds.), Readings in Ethnic Psychology, N.Y.: Routledge (1998), at 120.
25 Ibid., p. 122.

62
Gladys Sweeney
I would like to illustrate this process by using of a fictional character. A man

let's call him Jos lives in a developing country that has welcomed the
agents of globalization into its cities and towns. Little by little, the globalized
culture permeates Jos's town. New factories run by Americans offer English
classes to their employees. Workers earn bonuses when they meet production
quotas a goal possible only if the employee forgoes his customary lunch and
siesta at home. Some businesses in town begin to stay open on Sundays, raising
the pastor's ire as church attendance begins to dwindle. Internet service becomes available and the stores are being stocked with American CD's, TV's,
and computers available for a price that the newly employed can now afford.
Clothing stores begin to offer Western clothing, especially for women, shocking the sensibilities of the older residents. And children's play, punctuated with
slang, begins to reflect the storylines of American action movies and sitcoms.
Over time perhaps even a short time exposure to the globalized culture
will change Jos. He will not be the same man that he was before. As he sorts
out his cultural identity, his behaviors and attitudes will fall into one of four
categories of acculturation, each with different stress levels and problems. His
children will experience the same process, although it will be complicated by
their need to define their own independent identity during adolescence.
Let's look at the possible scenarios for Jos. If he refuses to learn English,
shuns the Americanized workers who begin to cluster together at work and
afterwards, forbids his children to watch American TV or connect to international websites, and insists that the family maintain its commitment to traditional customs, language, dress, and religious rituals in short, if he succeeds
in avoiding most contacts with the globalized culture that is shaping his village
psychologists would describe him as separationist. The separationist approach
engenders stress and psychological conflict for Jos as he strains to live in a
culture that is changing around him and which he adamantly refuses to accept. He looks for others who feel the same way, perhaps resulting in a smaller,
more closed circle of friends.26 His family may or may not follow his lead,
raising the likelihood of parent-child conflict and marital strain.
A second approach to the new culture is the assimilation paradigm. If Jos
eagerly learns English, works extra hours in the pursuit of more income, and
26 Separationist tendencies may take the form of religiously based self-selected
culture. Arnett cites the example of newly Orthodox Jewish women' . . . who grew
up in secular Jewish homes in the United States but as they arrived at womanhood
they concluded that the secular values they were raised with provided an inadequate
foundation for living. The women converted to Orthodox Judaism which, despite its
restrictive teachings towards women, was appealing because it offered them the
structure of a definite place in the world, the meaning conferred by Orthodox Jewish
theology, and the roots of a long, durable tradition. Arnett, J. J., Psychology, at p.
780.

63
strives to absorb the nuances of his foreign employer's corporate atmosphere,

he will be making progress towards assimilating the global culture. As he habitually logs on to the Internet and his children watch MTV, his family's use of
leisure time will reflect new pastimes rather than the traditional ones. Jos will
become more familiar with the Western customs and values beamed daily into
his home and will associate with fellow townspeople who will exchange knowledge of American entertainment, discuss world news and embrace the globalized culture. He may jettison old friends in favor of those who share his pursuit of all things Western. Over time he may find himself shedding his old traditions, language, and perhaps even faith, in order to fit in with his more
contemporary peers or to appear modern.
Consequently, this assimilation approach causes psychological stress for Jos
as well. Typically it engenders conflicts within the family over the maintenance
of traditions, old friends, and deeply held beliefs. Jos's relationships with more
traditional institutions in his community (such as the church, schools, and local
cultural groups) will become more attenuated as the perceived distance between
them grows. He may lack support from them in the future. He may experience
inner conflict and turmoil from the decision to reject the heritage that formed
the backdrop of his own childhood. His stress and inner conflicts may render
him less available to his wife and children as well. At the same time, they may
need him more as they struggle to understand his push to assimilate a goal
that only some of them embrace. For other family members, the prospect of
assimilation generates fear and confusion. Division characterizes family relationships. Jos's parents, in particular, interpret their son's drive to assimilate
as a rejection of their lives a judgment that the old ways are inferior or
backward.
An additional problem with assimilation arises when globalization exists according to an utilitarian27 ethic: the human person becomes subject to exploitation. For example, if a company's relentless pursuit of profits drives its managers to require longer workdays (even on Sundays), inexperienced employees
may feel pressured to accept these hours. Fearful that to refuse the hours would
jeopardize his job, Jos works long hours and participates less and less in family and community life. Jos discovers that he is no longer valued for himself, but as a means to an end a useful or profitable end. Psychologically, the
person internalizes this message in his willingness to assimilate. He experiences
a devaluation of his existence as he risks feeling trampled by the faceless globalized mechanisms and increasingly loses his identity and dignity as a person.28 The psychological consequences may include loss of self-esteem, the
27 The Pope describes utilitarianism as the doctrine which defines morality not in
terms of what is good but of what is advantageous. John Paul II, United Nations
(1995), at par. 13.

64
Gladys Sweeney
fragmentation of family as work dominates home life, the coarsening of the

conscience as immoral means become acceptable in pursuit of a good end, and
a deepening psychology of insecurity as Jos loses a sense of his own worth
and dignity. Overtime he may adopt this mentality as well and begin to see
others in utilitarian terms, starting with his own family.
If Jos does not choose assimilation, a third alternative for him is the integration approach, striving to maintain the cultural traditions and values of his
homeland, all the while interacting as much as possible through work, education, and community involvement with the dominant global culture that now
surrounds him. Jos retains strong connections with his church and local community and widens his circle of friends to include newcomers who are invited
to share in local celebrations and family rituals. His commitments to the underlying values of his culture are clear and strong. He continues to pass on these
beliefs and values to his children, with the clear expectation that they will adopt
them as well. At the same time, he pursues the education and opportunities
afforded him by the global influence.
Psychologists agree that integration is the healthiest psychological approach
to acculturation. What is implicit in this option, is the maintenance of the cultural integrity of the larger group as well as the movement by the individual to
become an integral part of a larger societal framework. An integrationist approach will allow him to retain the cultural identity that informs his own personal identity. At the same time, this commitment to maintain familiar traditions
and relationships allows him the inner freedom to branch out from those traditions and relationships. He will expand his circle of friends without feeling the
need to reject the old in order to embrace the new. He may choose to adapt
some of his behaviors in response to the surrounding culture, but without the
psychological stress of abandoning his roots. His family more easily adapts to
the global culture neither shunning it nor being absorbed by it.29
Integration works for the individual not just because of his inner attitude but
because of external circumstances as well. The dominant culture riding the
wave of globalization deftly balances respect for the person's cultural traditions
while unfolding the benefits of modernity. For example, an employer might
demonstrate flexibility, accommodating work schedules to include time for im28 John Paul II, Address to the 6th Public Session of the Pontifical Academy of
Theology and St. Thomas Aquinas, November 8, 2001.
29 According to Berry, The integration option . . . implies the maintenance of the
cultural integrity of the larger group, as well as the movement by the group to become an integral part of a larger societal framework. Berry, Acculturative Stress, at
p. 118. It also seems to be the most effective strategy if we take long-term health
and well-being as indicators. See Berry, Immigration, at p. 2, which discusses research in India and the Third World affirming the positive outcomes from the integrationist approach.

65
portant cultural traditions (such as a mid-day family meal or local holidays).

The teachers and medical professionals that arrive to provide support services
for company personnel exhibit knowledge and respect for local religious norms
and traditions. The individual feels free to retain his values and meaningful
traditions without fear of ostracization or judgment. The climate of openness
and acceptance encourages him to engage the new culture, to learn from it, and
to evaluate it on his terms. While no acculturation effort is ever free from
stress, the integration approach yields the least stress and the fewest mental
health problems.
In contrast to the healthy psychology that accompanies integration, the fourth
mode of acculturation marginalization is associated with the highest incidence of psychological dysfunction. In this model, the person neither seeks to
maintain his original culture, nor aims to interact with the dominant culture, he
will become a man without a psychological home. Marginalized in both cultures, he may experience social isolation, stress, depression, and psychological
dysfunction. Emotionally empty, he may have nothing to pass on to the next
generation with the consequences that this may entail. The potential for division, loneliness, and vulnerability for the entire family becomes great, leading
to a significant isolation.
This acculturation framework, while not complete,30 offers insights into the
degree of psychological stress generated by globalization and helps evaluate the
effect of globalization on cultural identity. Globalization, however, affects more
than cultural identity; it also exerts a powerful influence on the personality development of adolescents.
IV. Adolescent Individual Identity
Adolescents, like adults, must sort out issues of cultural identity. However,
they face the additional challenge of finding their cultural identity while still
wrestling with issues of personal identity. One of the chief psychological goals
of adolescence, and a pre-requisite to healthy adulthood, is to understand and
accept one's own identity. While a person seeking cultural identity begins to
feel at home by finding others like himself, the youth seeking to understand his
30 The acculturation framework fails to acknowledge that assimilation is not all bad
or even unexpected. It depends on what is being assimilated. Culture shedding may be
desirable when the home culture violates the truth about the human person, through
its laws or behavioral practices. As the Pope's criteria (mentioned earlier) make clear,
a culture that fails to respect human dignity, to seek the common good, or to acknowledge God as Creator is less authentically human than a culture that fulfills these criteria. Leaving that culture behind (for example, when a person converts and assimilates into a Christian culture) will bring internal peace and coherence, even if it also
produces the pain of family or social rejection.

66
Gladys Sweeney
own personal identity searches for what distinguishes him from others who
share the same cultural identity.31 He longs to find what makes him unique,
worthy of love, and that which about him is irreducible. These are the kinds of
basic questions the adolescent tackles as he embarks on the complex process of
forming his individual identity.
In an effort, then, to deepen our understanding of globalization's impact on
the individual, let us look closely at the concept of personal identity. Erik Erikson, a renowned psychologist and the foremost authority on identity formation,
states that the personal growth required in this process occurs through a series
of conflicts, inner and outer, which the vital personality weathers, reemerging
from each crisis with an increased sense of inner unity, with an increase of
good judgment, and an increase in the capacity to do well' according to his
own standards and to the standards of those who are significant to him.32
Erikson highlights the importance of adults in a child's personality development. While an adolescent's identity (and consequent mental health) depends to
some extent on personal variables, it is intimately tied to relationships with
adults who afford emotional support and protection: attachment figures, as
they are called.33 This attachment relationship is built on trust.34 For not only
young children, but human being of all ages are found to be at their happiest
and to be able to deploy their talents to best advantage when they are confident
that, standing behind them, there are one or more trusted (italics added) persons
who will come to their aid should difficulties arise.35 Bowlby provides evidence for the continued importance of child-parent attachment during the period from preadolescence to early adulthood, claiming that an unthinking confidence in the unfailing accessibility and support of attachment figures is the bedrock on which stable and self-reliant personalities are built.36 As Erikson
notes, the healthy child, given a reasonable amount of proper guidance, can be
trusted to obey inner laws of development, laws which create a succession of
potentialities for significant interaction with those persons who tend and re31 Jensen, L. A., Coming of Age in a Multicultural World: Globalization and Adolescent Cultural Identity Formation, Applied Developmental Science, vol. 7, No. 3
(2003), at p. 190.
32 Erikson, E. H., Identity: Youth and Crisis, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Co. (1968), at
p. 92.
33 Bretherton, I., Munholland, K., Internal Working Models in Attachment Relationships. In Handbook of Attachment, edited by Jude Cassidy and Phillip Shaver, N.Y.:
The Guilford Press, 1999 (p. 89).
34 Beyond infancy, attachment relations come to be governed by internal (or mental) working models that young individuals construct from the experienced interaction
patterns with their principal attachment figures. Bowlby, J., Attachment and Loss,
vol. 2 Separation; N.Y. Basic Books, 1973, p. 359.
35 Ibid., at p. 359.
36 Ibid., at p. 322.

67
spond to him and those institutions which are ready for him. While such interaction varies from culture to culture, it must remain within the proper rate and
the proper sequence' which governs it.37 The adolescent needs to interact
with a widening radius of significant individuals and institutions,38 in a climate of trust, dialogue and openness.
It is in the context of these trusting relationships that the process of identity
formation begins. Erikson proposes a specific three-stage model to describe the
growth process for adolescent identity. The adolescent's first step in the identity
process is called introjection or incorporation. In this stage, the adolescent's
relationships with the significant adults in his life prompt him to introject or
incorporate some of their qualities into his personality. Introjection requires mutuality between the mother (or mothering adult) and child. Erikson believes that
only the experience of such initial mutuality provides a safe pole of self-feeling from which the child can reach out for the other pole his first love object.39 In the second stage, called identification, the adolescent consciously
begins to identify himself with those introjected models and their qualities.
Identification's success depends on the child's interaction with trustworthy
models, especially family members. In the third stage, identity formation, the
adolescent eventually adopts or rejects certain aspects of his models' identities
and creates his own identity. This unique identity is the result of his interaction
with those models as well as other societal factors.
An adolescent has achieved a stable identity and a degree of maturity when
he actively masters his environment, shows a certain unity of personality, and
is able to perceive the world and himself correctly.40 When the attachment
relationships are inadequate (for example, because of distance, hostility, or a
rupture in the parent-child relationship), identity formation may be impaired,
leaving permanent psychological scars. Thus, the formation of identity is both
complex and dynamic, and it reflects the influence of societal factors. In the
globalization context, these factors certainly include family relationships but
also the acculturation strategy employed, the extent to which pluralism is reflected in the local culture, the degree of distance between the local culture and
the global influences, peer influence, and the presence of support systems for
the developing adolescent. Berry's four acculturation strategies are themselves
heavily influenced by how successful the individual has been in achieving individual identity.
Erikson, Identity, at p. 93.
Ibid.
39 Bretherton, I., Munholland, K., ibid., at p. 89.
40 Jahoda, M., Toward a Social Psychology of Mental Health, Symposium on the
Healthy Personality, Supplement II: Problems of Infancy and Childhood, Transactions
of Fourth Conference, March 1950, M. J. E. Benn (Ed.), N.Y.: Joaish Macy, Jr., Foundation, 1950, quoted in Erikson, Identity, at p. 92 (emphasis in the original).
37
38

68
Gladys Sweeney
The adolescent's ability to navigate the channels of cultural identity will be

heightened or compromised depending on his success at achieving a strong personal identity. On the other hand, his ability to form his personal identity will
be affected by the culture and thus by globalization itself.
V. Problems in Adolescents Identity Formation
Globalization adds further stresses to the inevitable struggles all adolescents
face, especially with his parents, his peers, and himself as he strives to create
his own identity. When an adolescent's cultural identity is built on the shifting
sands of globalization, his efforts to develop a secure personal identity has the
potential of becoming tenuous and fraught with conflict and confusion. As the
culture changes, his role models change, and his identification with those models can become blurred to the point that cultural identity and personal identity
become not only malleable but also misshapen. Further, globalization seems
ready-made to instigate conflicts between child and family,41 possibly to the
point of disrupting those attachment relationships. Pressure points arise when
the child seeks to identify with his peers in the dominant, secular culture while
the family insists on maintaining its cultural-religious traditions. The child
may have to face the dilemma of choosing between peer rejection for being
different and his or her family's anger and rejection for attempting to assimilate
to the dominant culture to be accepted by his or her peers.42
If a child exposed to the global culture routinely gets the message that his
culture of origin is worthless or that he must reject it in order to be accepted by
the larger culture, he will suffer psychological conflict.43 The extent of the conflict will vary according to several factors: (1) the acculturation pattern being
followed by his family; (2) the nearness of fit between the new culture and
the adolescent's own personality and beliefs; (3) the distance between the
culture of origin and the global culture, including whether the underlying
values in each culture are in conflict.44
Let me illustrate this with an example. Remember Jos, our fictional character? Let's picture the potential issues for his son, Diego, who is fourteen. Diego
is fascinated by American entertainment, Western dress, and can't wait to logon
to the Internet. If his parents have chosen the separationist approach rejecting
41 This phenomenon is also known as dissonant acculturation . . . when exposure to
a new culture leads to more rapid change among adolescents than among adults. Jensen, Coming of Age in a Multicultural World: Globalization and Adolescent Cultural
Identity Formation, at p. 191.
42 Vivero & Jenkins, Cultural Homelessness, p. 626.
43 Berry, Acculturative Stress, at 121.
44 Arnett, Psychology of Globalization, at p. 778779, citing Berry.

69
the global culture embraced by Diego's peers Diego will have a choice to
make. He may resort to immersing himself in the forbidden culture secretly,
cultivating new friendships with boys whose parents allow greater access to
global influences. Moreover, he may strive to become like them in order to win
peer approval and to imitate these chosen models. However, if he embraces
values antithetical to his firmly-held beliefs, he will have betrayed himself, his
integrity and his family. He may also reap the consequences of abandoning
those beliefs. (For example, the family's religious prohibition against premarital
sex prevents the teen from enduring the consequences pregnancy and STD's
of his behavior. If he violates those tenets he risks consequences he would
otherwise avoid.) His jump to assimilate creates distance between himself and
his family and the traditional societal institutions (such as the church, school,
or extended family). Those bonds all become weaker, threatening the strength
of his identity.
Alternatively, if Diego rejects the modern values in favor of traditional
ones, his peer relationships will suffer. He may be rejected and friendless. His
sense of self-worth may suffer as he internalizes the message from the global
culture that his home culture is inadequate or backwards. If he perceives a
negative view of his native traditions and culture, he may feel rejected. The
role models in his life and family members with whom he identified may be
criticized or rejected by the global culture as well. He struggles as he shifts
between competing views about his worth and dignity views reinforced by
the contradictory cultures he traverses daily. His relationships with his parents,45 peers, or both will suffer. In the worst-case scenario, he may become
marginalized.
Some researchers describe this phenomenon as cultural homelessness,
where identity is not lacking but is characterized by a feeling of not belonging or being different. The implications are worrisome to psychologists.
[T]he children may find it necessary to adapt to a series of different cultures, and
perhaps nations, during their formative years and they may be required to learn new
communication styles and methods to do so. Cultures may differ dramatically in
their constructs of the self and the interdependence of selves in relationships, and
these constructs have a strong impact on subjective experience . . . What happens
when a child has grown up learning divergent and contradictory constructs of the
self and others, especially if these change unpredictably . . .?46
45 It may degenerate into alienation between son and parents, a breakdown in intergenerational solidarity, a value emphasized by the Holy Father. John Paul II, Address
of John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences. April 11, 2002, at
par. 3.
46 Vivero & Jenkins, Cultural Homelessness.

70
Gladys Sweeney
John Paul II echoes this concern. He notes that:

The need to accept one's own culture as a structuring element of one's personality,
especially in the initial stages of life, is a fact of universal experience whose importance can hardly be overestimated. Without a firm rooting in a specific soil', individuals risk being subjected at a still vulnerable age to an excess of conflicting
stimuli which could impair their serene and balanced development.47
The implications of this psychological stress are more significant that one
might expect. For example, the adolescent who is struggling with identity issues may experience anxiety about his future, depression caused by loneliness
and a sense of rejection, anger and inner turmoil from the conflicts with his
parents or extended family, and self-absorption as his psychological struggles
become overwhelming. Unsure of his own identity, he is less able to give and
receive love, to be attentive and giving to others. These patterns may become
ingrained, inhibiting his future ability to have healthy, giving relationships, for
when an adolescent has impaired perceptions of, and emotional ties to his parents, he in turn may have impaired relationships with a future spouse and children.
Furthermore, if life seems meaningless because he no longer finds satisfaction in the traditions and pastimes of his original culture, the adolescent may
struggle with boredom and cynicism. He may be out-of-sync with his peer
group, and his negative feelings may be acted out in anti-social or self-destructive behavior. Arnett cites numerous studies supporting the view that identity
issues compounded by acculturative stress leads adolescents into negative behavior. [G]lobalization increases the proportion of young people in non-Western
cultures who experience a state of identity confusion rather than successfully
forming an identity . . . For some young people . . . delocalization may result in
an acute sense of alienation and impermanence as they grow up with a lack of
cultural certainty, lack of clear guidelines for how life is to be lived and how to
interpret their experience.48 Arnett goes on to cite a study on Ivory Coast
youth that showed increases in suicide, drug abuse, armed aggression, and
male and female prostitution, which were interpreted as evidence of the conflict young people were experiencing between the values of their traditional
cultures and the values of the West.49 Likewise, Jensen cites research on the
Inuit youth of Canada who, as they were sent to school and absorbed global
values through media exposure, exhibited boredom and alienation . . . [these
were] among the factors contributing to adolescent risk behavior, such as shoplifting and alcohol use, in contemporary Inuit society.50
Arnett, L., Psychology of Globalization, at p. 778779.
49 Ibid., at p. 779.
50 Jensen, Coming of Age in a Multicultural World: Globalization and Adolescent
Cultural Identity Formation, at p. 194.
47
48

71
Identity issues are tremendously important. Identity formation in the adolescent is a crucial developmental phase with consequences that extend far beyond
the teen years and that affect those with whom one comes in contact. This is a
process extremely vulnerable to the disruptions and dilemmas of globalization.
The pressing question is how to manage the increasing pressures of globalization in a way that respects the human person and his needs not only physical,
but also psychological.
VI. Towards a New Culture in a Globalized World
The Holy Father provides us with a vision of a new culture in a globalized
world. With moral clarity, he paints the picture of a modern world united in its
recognition of the truth of the human person, yet diverse in culture and tradition
arising from dialogue and mutual respect. Interestingly, the Pope's approach
mirrors what psychology has shown is the healthiest form of acculturation: integration. Psychology and theological truth fuse well in this area of globalization
and the individual.
The Holy Father's first emphasis is on community and the common good. In
light of globalization, we must realize that we are a community of men and
women, called by God, Creator and Father, to form a single family51 in which
the rights and responsibilities of all are recognized, based on the common and
fundamental dignity of the human person.52 With a shared nature and dignity,
the human family must work towards the common good,53 like any other family. An atmosphere of mutual respect would prevent any exploitation of the
weakest members.
The idea of family' immediately evokes something more than simple functional
relations or a mere convergence of interests. The family is by nature a community
based on mutual trust, mutual support and sincere respect. In an authentic family
51 In a separate address, the Pope notes that emphasizing common human heritage
does not abolish patriotism and that patriotism itself must be distinguished from an
unhealthy nationalism. [W]e need to clarify the essential difference between an unhealthy form of nationalism, which teaches contempt for other nations and cultures,
and patriotism, which is a proper love of one's country. True patriotism never seeks
to advance the well being of one's own nation at the expense of others. For in the end
this would harm one's own nation as well: doing wrong damages both aggressor and
victim. Nationalism, particularly in its most radical forms, is thus the antithesis of true
patriotism . . . [this]holds true . . . in cases where religion itself is made the basis of
nationalism . . . so-called fundamentalism' (5, 11).
52 John Paul II, Pontifical Academies address, November 8, 2001, par. 2. He uses
similar language on earlier occasions, for example his encouragement for the United
Nations to develop a shared awareness of being . . . a family of nations, United
Nations Address, October 5, 1995, at par. 14.
53 John Paul II, Pontifical Academies address, April 27, 2001, at par. 3:
[G]lobalization . . . must serve solidarity and the common good.

72
Gladys Sweeney
the strong do not dominate; instead the weaker members, because of their very
weakness, are all the more welcomed and served.54
Similarly, on the psychological level, the person who takes the integration
approach to a more dominant culture begins with confidence in his own identity coupled with an attitude of openness and respect towards others. He resists
the idea that the newcomer is either an enemy he must flee or a dominator
whom he must slavishly imitate. Integration strikes the right balance between
fear and worship, namely respect.
VII. The Human Person and Objective Truth
Since each family member of globalization (i. e., nation) represents a different history, belief system, and cultural tradition, it is only possible to find
common ground by finding unity in a common understanding of the human
person.55 This is the second part of the Pope's vision. He insists that the truth
of the human person is our common ground, and further that the truth of the
human person implies objective moral truths that must be honored. Only when
this is recognized will authentic dialogue take place.
[T]here are indeed universal human rights, rooted in the nature of the person,
rights which reflect the objective and inviolable demands of a universal moral law
. . . [T]here is a moral logic which is built into human life and which makes possible
dialogue between individuals and peoples . . . The universal moral law written on
the human heart is precisely that kind of grammar' which is needed if the world is
to engage this discussion of its future . . . [I]t is a matter of serious concern that
some people today deny the universality of human rights, just as they deny that
there is a human nature shared by everyone. To be sure there is no single model for
organizing the politics and economics of human freedom . . . but it is one things to
affirm a legitimate pluralism of forms of freedom,' and another to deny any universality or intelligibility to the nature of man or of human experience.56
Insisting on objective truth and on the intelligible nature of the human person, says the Pope, is not just a matter of personal integrity; it serves society.
Thus it is important that Christians be helped to show that the defense of uni54 John Paul II, United Nations, October 5, 1995, at par. 14; The Holy Father also
urges the United Nations to promote values, attitudes, and concrete initiatives of solidarity . . . capable of raising the level of relations between nations . . . from simple
existence with' others to existence for' others, in a fruitful exchange of gifts, primarily for the good of weaker nations but . . . a clear harbinger of greater good for everyone. Ibid., at par. 14.
55 It has been done before, on a smaller but significant scale. The Pope reminds us
of the successful overthrow of Communism in 1989, an effort based on [T]he vision
of man as a creature of intelligence and free will, immersed in a mystery which transcends his own being and endowed with the ability to reflect and the ability to choose
and thus capable of wisdom and virtue. Ibid., at par. 4.
56 Ibid., at par. 3.

73
versal and unchanging moral norms is a service rendered not only to individuals
but also to society as a whole. Such norms represent the unshakeable foundation and solid guarantee of a just and peaceful human coexistence, and hence
genuine democracy.57
Further, commitment to authentic truth actually safeguards freedom. In the
globalization context, the truth about the human person serves to constrain materialism and utilitarianism, preventing the arrogance that leads to exploitation.
Detached from the truth about the human person, freedom deteriorates into license
in the lives of individuals, and, in political life, it becomes the caprice or the most
powerful and the arrogance of power. Far from being a limitation upon freedom or
a threat to it, reference to the truth about the human person a truth universally
knowable through the moral law written on the hearts of all is in fact, the guarantor of freedom's future.58
The psychological parallel here is striking. Recall that the integration model
succeeds in the globalization context because the individual insists on maintaining his core values; his integrity and fundamental identity remain intact. His
commitment to these fundamental values gives rise to an internal peace about
who he is and gives him the freedom to engage the culture on other levels. He
can even embrace aspects of the globalized culture as long as those fundamental values most related to his identity are respected. In addition, his serenity in
the face of pressure serves not just his own integrity but reinforces the community as well, encouraging others to not abandon their most fundamental beliefs
and values. In effect, his action becomes a catalyst for the global culture to
respect the cultural identity of his people.
When cultures begin with mutual respect and find common ground in the
truth and dignity of the human person, it opens the door to productive dialogue.59 Dialogue, then, is the third component in the Pope's vision of a globalization that works.
Individuals come to maturity through receptive openness to others and through
generous self-giving to them; so too do cultures. Created by people and at the service of people, they have to be perfected through dialogue and communion, on the
57 Veritatis Splendor 96, quoted by John Paul II to participants of the 6th Plenary
Session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
58 John Paul II, United Nations, October 5, 1995, at par. 12.
59 The truth about man is the unchangeable standard by which all cultures are
judged; but every culture has something to teach us about one or other dimension of
that complex truth. Thus the difference' which some find so threatening can, through
respectful dialogue, become the source of a deeper understanding of the mystery of
human existence. John Paul II, United Nations, October 5, 1995, at par. 10. The
Pope notes elsewhere, Much depends on whether people can embrace a spirit of
openness that, without yielding to indifferentism about values, can combine the concern for identity with the willingness to engage in dialogue. John Paul II, World Day
of Peace, January 1, 2001, at par. 14.

74
Gladys Sweeney
basis of the original and fundamental unity of the human family as it came from
the hands of God who made from one stock every nation of mankind.' In this perspective, dialogue between cultures . . . emerges as an intrinsic demand of human
nature itself, as well as of culture. It is dialogue which protects the distinctiveness
of cultures as historical and creative expressions of the underlying unity of the human family, and which sustains understanding and communion between them. The
notion of communion, which has its source in Christian revelation and finds its sublime prototype in the Triune God, never implies a dull uniformity or enforced
homogenization or assimilation; rather . . . [it is] a sign of richness and promise of
growth.60
In the final analysis, dialogue61 is what will both preserve the diversity of
culture and move the world community towards its future. Similarly, the individual sure in his identity and insistent on retaining his core values who
comes face-to-face with the global culture and dialogues with it, is the one who
benefits the most psychologically. I should also mention the importance of the
various mediating structures or authoritative communities, namely institutions
such as the Church, schools, and universities in guiding the individual in the
discernment necessary to retain the good introduced by globalization and to
reject the harmful.
I began this paper with the premise that globalization intrinsically is neither
good nor bad. As conducted in today's world, globalization is problematic, for
both individuals and cultures. The Holy Father, however, offers a vision for
successful globalization, one that comports with both the scientific knowledge
of psychology and the theological truth of the human person:
A sound globalization, carried out in respect for the values of different nations and
ethnic groupings, can contribute significantly to the unity of the human family and
enable forms of cooperation which are not only economic but also social and cultural. Globalization must become more than simply another name for the absolute
relativization of values and the homogenization of life-styles and cultures. For this
to happen, Christian leaders, also in the commercial sphere, are challenged to bear
witness to the liberating and transforming power of Christian truth, which inspires
us to place all our talents, our intellectual resources, our persuasive abilities, our
experiences and our skills at the service of God, our neighbor and the common
good of the human family.62
In some quarters, dialogue is viewed as a codeword for compromise and relativism. For the Pope, however, dialogue is the vehicle of truth and serves to safeguard
freedom of conscience. In the dialogue between cultures, no side can be presented
from proposing to the other the values in which it believes, as long as this is done in
a way that is respectful of people's freedom and conscience. Truth can be imposed
only with the force of truth itself, which penetrates the mind both gently and powerfully. John Paul II, World Day of Peace, January 1, 2001, at par. 15.
62 John Paul II, Address to Conference of Business Executives, Organized by the
Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the International Union of Christian Business Executives, ZENIT, March 5, 2004.
60
61

75
This is his vision. It is my fervent hope that the world community is listening.
Summary
The widespread phenomenon of globalization has been studied from many different
viewpoints. Since the family is the cornerstone of society, and the mental health of
each family member directly impacts the health of the rest, then a crucial aspect of
globalization is the psychological effects on the individual. This paper proposes that
globalization as such is neither good nor bad; it is what people make of it. Under
what parameters, then, is it enriching and not destructive? After reviewing the Holy
Father's analysis of these parameters, psychological research on how globalization impacts personal and cultural identity, especially during adolescence, is discussed. The
final section integrates these views and offers recommendations for authentic, healthy
globalization.
Zusammenfassung
Das weitverbreitete Phnomen der Globalisierung wurde von verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten her studiert. hnlich wie die Familie der Grundstein der Gesellschaft ist
und die geistige Gesundheit eines jeden Familienmitglieds die Gesundheit aller brigen direkt berhrt, spitzt sich auch bei der Globalisierung die Frage darauf zu, ob
davon psychologische Wirkungen auf das Individuum ausgehen. Dieser Beitrag legt
dar, da die Globalisierung weder gut noch schlecht ist; vielmehr wird sie zu dem,
was die Menschen aus ihr machen. Es stellt sich die Frage nach den Beurteilungskriterien, ob die Globalisierung zu wnschenswerten oder zu destruktiven Ergebnissen
fhrt. Nach einem Blick auf die Analyse dieser Kriterien, die der Papst anwendet,
konzentriert sich die psychologische Untersuchung ber den Einflu der Globalisierung auf die persnliche und kulturelle Identitt. Abschlieend werden diese verschiedenen Aspekte zusammen gesehen und Empfehlungen fr eine authentische, gesunde
Globalisierung abgeleitet.


By Kenneth L. Schmitz
I.
Given the many thoughtful presentations that have taken up the financial,
economic, political, legal and ethical aspects of globalization, it is daunting for
a philosopher to speak to the metaphysics of the process. A metaphysical approach is so general that it seems unlikely to offer little of importance, and to
intrude upon the more particular, relevant and urgent issues that need to be
dealt with. If it does have something to contribute, it will be at a fundamental
and comprehensive level. For, inasmuch as globalization is a process, metaphysics may have a word to add. A process, after all, is a change, and that invites
reflection upon the bearing of time past, present, and future as well as
space here and there upon human life and human values.
Leading Euro-American Enlightenment thinkers during the past two centuries
have given pre-eminent value to the concept of Progress1; and, indeed, much of
the literature on the subject of modernization has stressed the novelty of globalization;2 so that one may well ask: Will anything significant remain from the
past? And more particularly, given the theme of our present conference: What
is the likely fate of traditional cultures in the face of the new phenomenon?
1 In their criticism of modernity, so-called postmodern thinkers such as JeanFranois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, Jacques Derrida, Grammatology, and
others reject the concept of progress, without, however, embracing that of tradition;
on the contrary, they have accentuated the new and the different.
2 For example, Lester G. Thurow (MIT), Building Wealth. The New Rules for Individuals, Companies, and Nations in a Knowledge-Based Economy (New York: Collins/Harper Business, 2001) stresses the gaps where disequilibrium or market imbalance occurs and that offer new and unprecedented opportunities for profit. A popular expression on the back of a sportshirt touts the cutting edge of the momentary:
Since baseball time is measured in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep
the rally alive and you have defeated time: you remain forever young. (Roger Angeli, The Interior Stadium). Not only does this devalue the significance of the aged
among us; it also denies the value of the other moments of time in the pattern of human growth. Quite to the contrary, St. Thomas Aquinas, building upon Aristotle,
has remarked that time is, as it were, a help-mate [co-adjutor] in human affairs. And,
on the grounds of faith, the Christian believes that a new fullness of life is received
only through death, and except for those alive at the End-Time, only after death.
Time is not defeated, but receives its full meaning and value.

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The challenge is impressive insofar as the many cultures of the world are
being brought into more direct and immediate contact and not seldom into
conflict3 closer contact than ever before, brought together in new ways
through trade and tele-communications.4 Moreover, what is at issue is not only
the relations between separated cultures, but the degree to which more than one
culture is co-present with others within the space of a single country, as they
are in the newly minted countries of Africa, within the somewhat more established countries such as Belgium and Canada, and even in the large minorities
resident within older initially mono-cultural countries, such as France and Germany.5
In the face of such massive change, basic questions arise: Why perpetuate a
culture? and: Why prolong a tradition? The several centuries-long phenomenon
of modernization has presently taken more vigorous shape in the process of
globalization and has quickened its pace.6 The energy of the process raises to
new prominence the issue of the durability or fragility of traditional cultures.7
3 Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World

Order (New York: Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 1996), divides the world into several spheres of influence, each grounded initially in a distinctive religious base; so
that conflicts on the periphery, where they rub against one another, may bring the
different power-centers into conflict with one another.
4 See, for example, Jas. E. Rauch (UC at San Diego) & Alessandra Casella (Columbia & Hautes Etudes, Paris), Networks and Markets (New York: Russell Sage
Foundation, 2001); especially, pp. 329336. Also, Art Kleiner, Karen Stephenson's
Quantum Theory of Trust, in: Strategy + Business: Creative Minds (Special Issue,
Fall 2004, Booz, Allen, Hamilton), pp. 5871, esp. p. 67. I am indebted to John
O'Brien for guidance in and discussion of the literature.
5 Even prior to the 20th century migration of workers from Turkey and elsewhere,
the drive for a united Germany dealt with the regional diversity of Bavaria, Saxony,
Prussia, East Prussia and the Rhineland. Something similar occurred in France earlier
between the regions of langue d'oc and langue d'oeuil. But, for the most part, these
developments occurred within a single language and culture. Earlier still in the Middle
Ages, however, there was considerable cultural diversity between regions and countries, even to the acceptance of various customary bodies of law.
6 Without denying the novelty endemic to globalization, it may be understood as
the latest phase in an older process. John Mickelthwait & Ardian Wooldridge (both of
The Economist) trace the history of the development of business organization, reaching back to earlier phases and passing on from the mediaeval guilds to the chartered
companies of the 17th century and the joint-limited-liability stock company of the
19th, concluding with a look to the future (p. 185): The Company. A Short History of
a Revolutionary Idea (New York: Modern Library, 2003).
7 Presumably, the maintenance of a tradition and a culture is not guaranteed. Josef
Pieper in his many works has reminded us that the preservation of tradition requires
an effort on the part of each generation to hand on the deposit to the next. See: ber
den Begriff der Tradition (Kln & Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1958), Tradition
als Herausforderung (Mnchen: Ksel, 1963), and: berlieferung (Mnchen: Ksel,
1970).

79
Given the theme of our colloquium, permit me to briefly recall the structural
dynamics of globalization familiar to you , since they provide the framework
for the remarks that follow, insofar as the dynamics bear upon the metaphysics
of change. What strikes one first in the literature on globalization is the prominence given to the financial and economic sectors of modern life. There can be
no doubt that this emphasis is justified, since they are the most visible features
and the most active agents in the process. Among the most important institutions that oversee the global processes are the IMF (International Monetary
Fund) with its mandate for monetary oversight, the World Bank with its stewardship in economic development, the conditions of labor and the reduction of
poverty, and the WTO (World Trade Organization) with its concern with trade.
Only by bearing these institutions in mind can one enter meaningfully into even
a partial understanding of the process, and begin to think at all clearly about
other, wider and deeper dimensions of globalization. The orientation of this colloquium has turned its attention to some of these other aspects. And so I am
encouraged to ask, how the international context, overseen by these global institutions in relation to national governments, impacts upon the texture of the cultures and traditions of the developed and developing world?
From the perspectives of financial, economic and commercial oversight, it is
clear that the three organizations just mentioned are of central importance. They
are meant to play key roles in preserving stability and promoting innovation in
financial markets, in issues of employment, productivity and poverty, and in the
furtherance of trade. While acknowledging the necessity for transnational institutions, criticism has been made that a narrow market fundamentalism has
dominated the policies of the IMF, and at least some of the earlier policies of
the World Bank.8 Meetings of the WTO have regularly aroused vociferous protests voiced with the most indignant rhetoric.9
More moderate charges have been made that policies have often favored the
developed countries while causing instability and increased poverty in developing countries. The justice of such charges must be left to others more expert
8 See, among others, Josef Stiglitz (formerly at Brookings, Stanford and presently
at Columbia U., Nobel Prize Winner, formerly on the Council of Economic Advisers
for the Clinton White House, and Senior Vice-President for the World Bank), Globalization and its Discontents (New York: Norton, 2003).
9 For example, from the 2003 Annual Report of Inter Pares (Ottawa): We are living in a time when citizenship seems in danger of becoming extinct. The state is run
as a corporation with citizens as clients and stakeholders. Public relations and messaging' have replaced truth and communication in public discourse. Education and
research institutions serve commercial interests rather than the broader public interest,
and science' is used to defend policy and profit rather than truth and public wellbeing. We are seeing the privatization of public goods, such as water, and the commodification of public services, such as health and education. Citizenship is no longer a
right, but a privilege of wealth and social status.

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Kenneth L. Schmitz
than I in economic affairs, but they do serve to raise the issue of the capacity
for cultures in the developing countries to adapt to material progress, while preserving and nourishing what is of permanent worth in their cultural memory,
values, and customs.
A second dimension of globalization is political.10 And here the question is
whether globalization has led to a diminution in the central power and sovereign authority of the nation state.11 The prospect of a supernational world political government, with the sovereign authority of a present-day nation-state, is
not foreseeable even if such a hotly contested idea were desirable. In the
political literature, however, a suggestive distinction has been made between
government and governance.12 The latter term is applicable not only to the empowered authority possessed by the governments of nation-states with their
heavy responsibilities for defence, foreign policy and internal order; governance
also entrains with it a broader claim to a less formal sort of legitimacy that is
resident in civil society associations.13
The concept of governance (as distinct from government) includes the loose
network of non-governmental institutions and civil associations. We can attribute a sense of governance to these associations inasmuch as they often play an
effective role in the full spectrum of international and global issues, even
though they do not wield the political, legal and military power of national
governments or the delegated mandatory power of transnational organizations.14
10 Mark R. Brawley (McGill U.), The Politics of Globalization: Gaining Perspective, Assessing Consequences (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2003) provides a brief
history of growth in trade and in financial institutions within the political context (pp.
179188), and discusses the consequences for democracy (pp. 5153), calling for a
new balance between the market and society. (p. 218)
11 Samuel Huntington (Harvard), author of The Clash of Civilizations, extends the
argument made in that book to a defence of American national identity in Who are
We? The Challenges to America's National Identity (New York: Norton, 2004), arguing that what is needed since 9/11 is the restoration of the dissident Anglo-Protestant core values associated with America's national identity (pp. 6266 et passim).
12 For example, among others, David Held & Mathias Koenig-Archibugi (edd.;
both of the London School of Economics), Taming Globalization: Frontiers of Governance (Cambridge/Oxford: Polity Press in association with Blackwell, 2003).
13 Robert Goodin (Australian National University), Globalizing Justice, in: Taming
Globalization: Frontiers of Governance (p. 83): The formal treaty regime the UN
Declaration [on Human Rights] and associated conventions, and the various other subject- or region-specific declarations and treaties creates the institutional site at which
all this activity occurs. But once that basic apparatus is in place, what drives social
change is basically just networking among activists. In the same volume, David Held
calls for Cosmopolitan Multilateralism, (pp. 160186), while others speak of CSOs
(Civil Society Organizations).
14 A distinction is to be made between civil associations and transnational institutions. While many NGOs and CSOs (Red Cross, Mdecin sans Frontires, etc.) have
interests beyond national borders, transnational organizations (such as the WHO, ILO,
WTO, etc.) occupy a serviceable intermediate status between these and national gov-

81
Now, it is true that many of these associations have been active for some considerable time, but (unless I have missed an extensive discussion in the literature) the concept of governance within the civic context , its under-pinnings,
source of authority and basis of legitimacy , has not been adequately explored
as to its status in the hierarchy of global institutions. Yet developing globalization brings with it a growing sense of civic legitimacy with its own rights and
responsibilities.
Whereas economic and financial institutions, such as the IMF and the World
Bank, have a defined mandate to work towards the increase of wealth and material well-being; and whereas political institutions aim to provide stability, security and the rule of law; and finally, whereas the transnational agencies of the
UN and various inter-state treaties aim at international collaboration ; the innumerable civil associations throughout the world engage the citizen in the
open field of social and cultural exchange. Globalization brings with it the
growing sense of a still somewhat undefined consciousness of world-citizenry
with its appropriate opportunities and responsibilities.
It is here, most of all, that the present conference has its focus and locus, its
character and role. If the body of the conference is its organizational and administrative structure as the German-American colloquium, its mind and soul
while providing national and international institutions with counsel , includes
among a variety of interests the concern for culture in the life of the citizen.
And here, too, a further question takes form: Does globalization have a culture? Can we speak truly of a culture of globalization? There are those who
fear that it has, and fearing the loss of their distinctive cultural identity they
call it McWorld. Or is globalization simply an inter-cultural reality, much as
the political world-order lacking a single world government is an international association of nation-states? It seems to me, rather, that a new social
form is taking shape as a global awareness, which is bringing about a more
expansive hybrid than either a single, uniform world-culture or a simple set of
national cultures: something that is no longer a single culture, nor yet a universal culture, and yet something more than a collection of separate cultures. Perhaps it is not so much a culture at all, but a new form of civilization with many
cultures.15 And so the question arises at the heart of the colloquium: What is
ernmental bureaus (such as the Department of Defence or the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs). Transnational organizations are the result of the collaboration of member national states of the United Nations (UNCTAD, etc.), or come about by international
treaty arrangements (NATO, NAFTA, etc.). Transnationals play a role in mediating
between nation states and NGOs/CSOs, many of whom receive at least partial funding
from national governments. CSOs and NGOs, on the other hand, arise out of voluntary initiatives within civil contexts.
15 There are striking similarities and differences between the present process and
the ancient Roman Imperium. Among the differences besides the obvious difference

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the relation between the identity of diverse cultures and the civilization that
globalization is building? and, more particularly, what is the status of civil associations in this setting?
II.
It is here, perhaps, that metaphysics has something to say. As we address the
theme of national and cultural identity within the process of globalization, we
might begin at the beginning, which is to say with the identity of ourselves as
constituent members of various local, regional, national, transnational, and civil
associations within the global setting. Now, this is to begin with the enculturation of ourselves as persons. Samuel Huntington in his most recent book addresses the question of American cultural identity.16 And he answers with a
rallying call to return Americans to their founding roots, which he describes as
non-establishment Anglo-Protestantism.17
Instead of speaking of the identity of a single culture, globalization challenges us to consider more generally the question of the perpetuation of distinctive cultural traditions within a global setting. I say traditions in the plural;
for, as we experience the irreducible diversity of cultures, we intuit that, in our
human finitude, no one cultural form is capable of exhausting the rich possibilities of being human. In short, the plurality and diversity of cultures and traditions is not haphazard or without meaning for humankind as a whole.
As we address the question of cultural traditions, however, it is not enough to
talk about them. The pressures brought to bear upon all cultural traditions by
globalization makes it necessary to do more than talk about the identity of a
cultural tradition: it is necessary to draw upon the general and essential features
of tradition and culture, upon the character of cultural tradition as such. Only
then will we be able to see how the durability and relative permanence of particular cultures might fare and function within the present process. The dynamics
of tradition, in its primary structure, need to be put into play.
in the pace of technological development is that at that time a unified state government possessing a single Latin culture exercized imperial sovereign administrative
powers. But the similarities abound as well, especially the multi-cultural complexity
of the Empire. See John Buchan, Augustus (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1941). A
general sort of Romanitas was widespread, and Latin, if not Greek, was widely used
among the leadership class, somewhat in the way that English seems to be the lingua
franca of much of commerce and technology today.
16 See fn. 11 above.
17 He summarizes the notion with a quotation from Edmund Burke: [T]he religion
most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance:
it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion. (Who
are We?, p. 64).

83
There is a certain paradox operative here, however; for to put these general
and essential features to work, it is necessary to draw upon conceptions and
values that have come down to each one of us through our own distinctive
culture and its traditions, and to put them to the task of clarifying the issue in
terms more general than the identity of a single culture. Conscious of the polar
tension between local particularity and universal totality, Goethe summed up
the liaison with the affirmation: Ich bin Weimarer, ich bin Welt-Brger. And so,
we receive, if not an answer to our earlier question, still an aspiration towards
world-citizenry that is to be reconciled with our local and cultural identities. So,
too, I would be a citizen of Canada and a dweller in the city of Toronto, while
at the same time aspiring to be a world-citizen.18 To explore this relation, however, I must take my stand within a definite tradition, in order to see what it
might shed upon the general issue of culture and tradition in the age of globalization. The tradition, with which I explore the concept, begins with the Greeks,
is developed during the European Middle Ages, and is still alive today. While it
has aspects peculiar to itself, like any other tradition, it also has more general
features that address the human condition in a fundamental and all-embracing
way. For in and through this tradition we have come to understand identity and
diversity, unity and difference, the same and the other, in an illuminating manner that is relevant to other traditions. Now, in this intellectual tradition, we
find the rich and variable concept of analogy (analogia entis) as the resolution
that preserves diversity without loss of unity, and that internalizes the unity of
human nature within the diversity of its cultures. So that we need not fear the
loss of difference, or despair over the loss of unity.
In a word, the analogous character of each human being is meant to be open
to both Weimar and Welt. Indeed, the anticipated-and-partially-achieved reconciliation of lived space among the peoples of the world is grounded in the com18 It is not easy to balance these loyalties. I experienced a bifurcated version of the
poet's maxim, when being shown a tourist site in the charming Upper Bavarian city
of Landshut. My elderly guide asked me: Was fr ein Landsmann sind Sie? to
which I answered, conscious no doubt of my own massive land: Ich bin Kanadier.
Interessant! he opined, with equal pride: Ich bin Landshuter. For a defence of
the spirit of a locality, see the famous radio address of Martin Heidegger, Warum ich
in den Provinzen geblieben bin. Smaller centers are under pressure. Jane Jacobs,
The Life of Cities and the Wealth of Nations, has called attention to the role of certain large modern cities in the generation of both wealth and the spirit of the civitas
and its citizenry. There can be no doubt that globalization is building a city-centered,
largely urban environment in which the ratio of production between the agrarian rural
districts and the urban centers favors the latter. The recent meeting in China has acknowledged the imbalance in the regime's improvement of urban conditions to the
neglect of the countryside. In most developed countries, food production engages less
than 3% of the work-force, so that smaller communities are acutely sensitive to the
imbalance. A side-effect, which is a further issue not here discussed, is that in addition to the durability of cultures within the global setting, there is a related issue of
the preservation of smaller local communities within each culture.

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position of reality itself. Within the texture of being, each person is a subject of
being: suppositum entis, a non-self-originated entity with an orientation toward
some kind of finality, participating in a particular way in the very texture of
being and its properties. The analogous understanding of the unity and diversity
of humanity does not ensure wise policies in particular situations; expert knowledge is required for that. But it does encourage an ample horizon and a generous attitude towards the surprising differentiation within humankind; and it reminds us that we owe respect to the ontological context and tradition, within
which we have emerged and within which we carry on our lives.
The formation of the encultured individual begins humbly and mysteriously
with the father's seed and the mother's flesh, within some kind of familial setting and parental care, flowering into adolescence and young adulthood within a
specific context. It is advanced by a web of relations: the reception of a genetic
code, giving us what the Greeks called temperament and we call disposition, as distinct from the character we are meant to develop through cultural
experience. For in the formative process, culture begins to take precedence over
genetics. I use the word culture to mean the ways in which an individual and
a society shape their values and customs as guides to both the ordinary events
of life as well as its crises. A culture is a determinate influence, often taking
shape as a pre-reflective receptivity that plays a role in forming the character of
persons and the ethos of a society.
Nor is this formation a merely accidental affair, if by accidental we mean
what easily comes and goes. We need to refine our understanding of the familiar terms, substance and accident. Traditional metaphysics distinguishes between substantial generation and corruption, on the one hand, and so-called accidental acquisition or loss, on the other. But, we need to nuance what we mean
by accidental. Just as civil associations stand between national governments,
on the one hand, and global institutions, on the other, so, too, cultural formation
is a distinctive acquisition and enjoys a distinctive status that stands between
substantial change and ordinary accidental acquisition. For the acquisition of
culture does not fit easily into this exclusive division between substance and
accident.19 More precisely, there is a significant variety among the acquired
characteristics that have been called accidental. And, if we carefully consider
the wide range of so-called accidental changes, the differences among them exhibit greater or less depth of inherence in the substance, and embrace the person more or less totally, as they come to reside in the individual and contribute
to his or her character and identity.
19 One sees the externalization that separates so-called accidents from the substance
occur among post-Aristotelian Stoics and Atomists. It is an externalism that has been
made even more radical by modern nominalist tendencies.

85
Consider the difference between a Frenchman and his hair coiffure. The hair
may be easily arranged or rearranged, and over the years will alter its color.
Such traits are, indeed, accidental in the sense of superficial and transient, however important the individual may consider them to be at the time. But what of
his culture? What about the language he speaks and in which he thoughtfully
and emotionally dwells,20 and the way in which he carries out his daily activities, the range of his reading, the set of his interests and values? Surely, being
French is more deeply and wholly settled upon him and in him than the styling
of his hair, though even that may be in some fashion French.
The banality of the example serves to indicate that there are radical differences of depth and comprehensiveness among what we might call the non-substantial but not insubstantial! features of an individual. Cultural acquisitions, such as language and inherited history and values, are deeper and more
integral factors in the individual's make-up. And while they are not identical
with the substance (since they can be lost without the loss of the individual's
basic existence), yet they are not superficial or merely partial. Among these are
one's primary culture, one's embedment in the language and social institutions
of a culture. The enduring quality of this cultural deposit is manifest in that it
does not disappear when one acquires a newly adopted political nationality,
though it may be drastically altered thereby. So that, strictly speaking, there is
a distinction between culture and national status , the one a civil and deeply
anthropological feature, the other a legal and political one, though for most
persons they coincide.
Through cultural acquisitions and transformations, the individual retains his
or her identity and yet is changed internally and wholly , one might even say,
architectonically, as one receives a distinctive interior architecture. Now, a culture is a generous household that has many rooms within it. Within the same
culture, one individual is drawn into a life of productive activity, another will
be led to cultivate an unquenchable curiosity for an understanding of reality,
another for the celebration of beauty, still another for the pursuit of holiness;
and these modifications will transform the whole of the individual's life, comprehensively and intensively, redirecting it towards a goal, and giving it a tonality that is distinguisable yet all but inseparable from the supposit. Within the
culture and through its modalities, the process realizes a determinate development of personality and character, that which the Greeks called ethos.21
Now, it is not only individuals who receive an ethos; cultures do as well.
And while it is no less mysterious than the character of an individual, a collecHeidegger aptly termed language the house of being.
I use the term anthropologically, in the broadly cultural sense to indicate an
habitual way of life, that includes ethical (as well as non-ethical and even unethical) qualities but is not restricted to the narrower sense of ethically good.
20
21

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Kenneth L. Schmitz
tive character is more complex. Our attempts at stereotypes fail to capture the
cultural difference, and they are rightly repudiated insofar as they are often negative and pejorative; but they also signal an intuitive sense of that difference.
The ethos is a sort of collective character, differing in degree among individuals, more or less present in them, sometimes even rejected by them, and yet
a deeply resident factor in the social life of members of that culture and determinative of the culture as a whole. If the collective ethos is the result, cultural
formation is the process or change that brings about the ethos through education
in the family, neighborhood, school and the broader culture.
Now, Aristotle, drawing upon his own culture, is justly famed for providing
us with a plethora of names for various factors in the phenomenon of change:
among them, genesis, metabole, kinesis, symbebekos, hypokeimenon, steresis,
hyle, energeia, dunamis, poein, praxis, pathos, katharsis, and at the intellectual
level, dianoia and logismos. The terms simply pour out, indicating the importance of the phenomenon.
And yet it is, to my knowledge, Hegel who saw even more deeply into a
certain internality between what we call accidents and what we term substance,
between the supposit and its modifications.22 Towards the end of the second
book of the Wissenschaft der Logik, Hegel reflects upon the reciprocity between the substance and the accidents that it acquires. And he suggests that,
especially with regard to the deeper modifications of the substance, there is an
internal transformation of the substance, whereby the supposit retains its identity and yet is changed intrinsically, not simply externally or superficially. I
would only add that the penetration to which Hegel alludes is especially true of
cultural energies such as education, commitment to a cause, religious conversion and above all, incorporation into a linguistic culture.
Oddly, we have few precise names for the effect of such forces, and those
mostly name the crises in our lives in which dramatic changes have occurred,
rather than in the quiet on-going processes that for the most part bring about
cultural identity. For cultural influences work quietly throughout our lives, and
especially in the early years of character formation. Such deep changes do not
result in a wholly new being as in substantial generation or corruption (which is
the gain or loss of basic individual existence and identity); but neither are they
merely superficial acquisitions or losses (as in transient accidental alteration).
Each ingredient of cultural formation is a change within a substance that is not
itself a change of substance. And yet such changes within the substance and not
22 I do not mean to fault Aristotle as though he externalized the relation between
matter and accidents in the way some of the post-Aristotelian thinkers did (fn. 19
above); it is simply that, while taking unprecedented steps in advancing the analysis
of change, he did not carry the thrust of his understanding as far as he might have,
nor with the depth that Hegel effected with the help of the Greek thinker.

87
merely to it are the most important factors in the formation of cultural identity,
both for the individual and for a society.
If we now relate these metaphysical considerations to the process of globalization, we are led to recognize that the intrusion of modern technological developments, however well-intentioned and planned, need to take into account the
deeply indwelling presence of the receiving culture, so that if it has not already been the practice of imaginative and sensitive directors modern companies may be well advised to employ negotiators of the first rank, as consultants
or officers in charge of cultural affairs, who are skilled in the relevant culture.
What is needed is neither distant company executives, nor local bureaucrats
who may have a political or commercial interest in the project, but rather a
culturally informed vice-president or cultural consultant with first-order responsibilities.23
The charges of market fundamentalism and too rapid liberalization of
money markets24 may best be left to others more knowledgeable than I to adjudicate, but what can be said is that, even if rectified by better economic and
financial policies, the answer does not lie in economics alone. To address such
23 The frequent absence of such an understanding is, in part at least, why the introduction of modern technical and economic activities into traditional societies often
raises protests from their members, and sometimes violence. It is not enough to point
to the economic advantages that may well accrue to such developments, or to simply
dismiss the indigenous dwellers as backward and ignorant of their own good. Examples of such inter-cultural conflict are many. A recent one may illustrate the typical
character of the conflict: A multinational Canadian mining company, with full cooperation of the bureaucracy of a state in the middle of India, have been met with vehement resistance from the tribal farmers. What is at stake is more than the portion of
tropical carpet of mango and tamarind trees and the small farms whose land will be
expropriated to make way for a 20 kilometre conveyor belt to carry bauxite. Nor is it
only the disagreement over how much land will be uprooted and how many people
will be evicted. A deeply engrained culture of the land is at stake. Whereas some of
the local merchants favor the project, seeing future profits, others including the farmers are not attracted to benefits that are as yet absent and foreign to them, requiring
skills for which they are unprepared, and even more, seriously transformative of their
traditional way of life. (Toronto Star, A1 & 1012, July 3, 2004)
24 For market fundamentalism, see among others, Jos. Stiglitz, op. cit. Regarding the rate of social change, Msgr. Pedro Arrupe, S. J. (in a talk reported in the
Bulletin of the Institute for Theological Encounter with Science and Technology,
Spring, 2002; vol. 35/no.2, pp. 546) recounts an incident from John Adams, The Discovery of the Amazon: Having pressed his porters to the limit, the explorer found
them unwilling to move farther; and when he sought the reason, they replied that we
must now wait for our souls to catch up with our bodies. This is surely emblematic
of the issues of rapid cultural change. Whereas progressive modern thought has
spelled out a directional compass for socio-political change, right, left, centre, it has
paid less attention to the temporal rate: too fast, too slow, just right. For further
discussion, including that of Pope John Paul II, see: Globalization: Christian Challenges, edd. R. Brungs, S. J. & M. Postiglione, RSM (St. Louis: ITEST Faith/Science
Press, 2004); in particular, Edw. O'Boyle (Mayo Research Institute), Norms for Evaluating Globalization, (pp. 5258).

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deeply human change at the level of policy and action impacts upon more profound and integral dimensions of life and needs to take these into account in
ways sensitive to a larger horizon of concern than the immediate benefits of the
project. This is where the rubber hits the road, and no tire company would
design a tire without careful preparatory in-depth studies of the full range of
road conditions. So, too, entrepreneurs must still engage the deeper fact that
globalization implicates the culture and is, at bottom, a cultural phenomenon
itself, impacting upon development, tradition and community, that is, upon human time, space and being. What is needed in such conflicts is more than the
commercial promise of little understood improvements in living standards that
are alien to the culture. A skilled negotiator, with an intimate understanding of
the particular culture, will work to find in that culture those indigenous energies
that will be better able to define and advance the project to the benefit of both
company and community.
Group identity is already grounded in and prepared for by the changes within
individuals that are brought about by cultural formation. And yet the collective
has a dynamic of its own as well, which is embodied reciprocally in the group
and it members, and which is determinative in shaping the members of the
group and the manner of their responses. These cultural energies are the soil in
which the character of individuals and societies takes root and finds nurture.
For older nations, this early process of group constitution is mostly lost in the
mythical past. But cultural identity takes other forms, as well. There are those
who aspire to a national identity not yet certified by others (such as the Kurds,
many of whom look towards a future Kurdistan). And other groups who have
come to nationhood recently, i. e. within the last two or three centuries (such as
the Americans), for whom the initial steps in the constitution of their political
unity as a people is more or less explicitly known and recorded. And finally,
there are those states that have more than one nation and culture within their
borders (as does my own country of Canada).25
III.
If it is true that the process of enculturation is as deep and comprehensive as
I have made it out to be, the question arises: Given the presence of multiculturalism, both at the global level as well as within national states, what institutional forms might best contribute to the peaceful and fruitful development of
cultural identities? There seem to be three possibilities: The first is that of the
exclusion (but not the ethnic cleansing!!) of all but members of the one culture,
25 Which, after earlier unsuccessful attempts at the assimilation of the Inuit, has
recently constituted Nunavut as a vast semi-autonomous region in the Eastern Arctic.
Some such arrangement may eventually occur with the Dene in the Western Arctic,
though that is complicated by the diversity of languages within the Dene.

89
at least by restrictions upon aliens. On the other hand, inclusion takes two
forms: first, that of the assimilation of immigrant cultures into the reigning,
main-stream culture;26 and second, that of the integration of several cultures
within an explicitly multi-cultural state.27 In sum, the strategies are: exclusion,
inclusion as assimilation, and inclusion as integration.
The question of an appropriate accommodation of several cultures bears only
indirectly upon those polities in which state and culture are more or less identical. The form of the modern state has taken shape usually as an organized
government with sovereignty over a geographical area. The state can then be
regarded in legal terms as the guardian and expression of a particular language
and culture. For such a state, the issue of other cultures takes the form of international policy in dealing with foreign cultures, though the importance of such
policy is heightened today by globalization.
That is not an option for multi-cultural countries, even where one culture
may be dominant.28 Such countries draw a distinction between the political
institutions of the unitary state (federal, confederated or regionalized) and the
several ethnic groups within it. The form a nation, understood in this original
sense, takes within such a state is principally cultural, even if in some cases it
enjoys a measure of political control over its own affairs.29 The mixture of cultures within some large cities constitutes what might be called an internal cosmopolitan multiculturalism.
Global interaction has made all of these relationships more complex, and it is
a task for a multicultural state (of whatever variant form) to generate the unifying sense of patriotism, pride and loyalty that has been so successfully engendered by nation states and that is required for unified state action. To be sure,
any success in generating a trans-cultural loyalty toward such an integrated
multi-cultural state presupposes civil peace among the various groups. More26 If I have understood Samuel Huntington's argument in Who are We?, he insists that American identity will be best served by an open, generous and inclusive
assimilation of ethnically diverse immigrants (with their sub-cultures) but with strong
inducement to assimilate into the core American values of the original Anglo-Protestant settlers, expressed in the American Creed. (pp. 2133: The Concept of Identity;
pp. 5962: The Cultural Core; and pp. 6669: The American Creed.)
27 An integrated multi-cultural state pursues a different dynamic, even when one
culture is dominant. Some states even acknowledge the propriety and status of several
cultures within the state by having a ministry of multi-cultural affairs, giving the cultural status of ethnic groups an officially acknowledged legitimacy.
28 I use the word country here advisedly, to reserve the original sense of the term
nation, not as a political entity, but to designate a group of people bound together
by an inherited linguistic and cultural patrimony, as when we speak of the French
nation within Canada, or the aboriginal nations. Thus, Switzerland is a country with a
state that embraces four nations: German, French, Italian and Romanch.
29 As do the cantons in Switzerland, the Kurdish region in Iraq, or the province of
Qubec.

90
Kenneth L. Schmitz
over, inter-marriage compounds the mixture, so that it is an open question, in

these states, whether integration will over time give way to assimilation, not
however to a dominant cultural group but by mutual interaction. In any event,
it would result in a new identity, thus adding to the diversity of cultures!
It is in this milieu, both in the world and within a country, that civil associations should be encouraged and supported to come into possession of their own
medium, using the resources of research, information, education, the call to service and persuasive activism, often in cooperation with national and transnational organizations, sometimes in opposition to them. Globalization is a reality already forcefully underway, building an emerging civilization, understanding the term civilization to be distinct from that of culture. It is a process
amenable to human direction. I have stressed the metaphysical underpinnings
that need to be in play in the process, but it is not with the intention of ignoring the ethical. It is, rather, that the acknowledgement of the analogical texture
of being encourages us to allow the ethical values and promptings within it to
point the way, grounded as they are in the ontological dignity of the person, the
community and the environment.30
The best directive instrument of globalization is a judicious mix of national
states, transnational agencies (including their umbrella, the UN), and the manifold of civil associations, which, after the manner of pilot fishes, being lighter
and quicker, often show the way forward into unexplored waters giving new
direction to larger and more encumbered national and transnational bodies.
Within this mix, what grounds do we have for thinking that the diversity of
cultures will survive, and for wanting them to survive?
There is, first and most fundamentally a personal motive: it is the deeply
rooted process of cultural formation in the building of the identity of the individual in the group. As already mentioned, this includes the early transmission of
traditions in the formation of the individual, in which family, language acquisition, neighborhood, school, and other cultural institutions play a formative role.
Secondly, there is an anthropological reason: it is the need and present opportunity for humanity at large to profit from the experience of the inescapable
partiality of one's own culture. Every culture that has survived is in some sense
universal; that is, it has proven itself capable of meeting the basic material,
30 In the Address to the Seventh Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of
Social Sciences (2001), Pope John Paul II observed that: Globalization, a priori, is
neither good nor bad. It will be what people make of it. No system is an end in itself,
and it is necessary to insist that globalization, like any other system, must be at the
service of the human person; it must serve solidarity and the common good. And
further that, ethical discernment in the context of globalization must be based upon
two inseparable principles: First, the inalienable value of the human person, source of
all human rights and every social order . . . Second, the value of human culture which
no external power has the right to downplay and still less to destroy.

91
physical, cultural and spiritual needs of its members. It meets these, however, in
a way that does not foreclose upon other possibilities of cultivation and expression, possibilities that enrich the total human experience. What is needed for
the radically diversified human group is to find support-systems for the maintenance and development of cultures through organizational forms. On the one
hand, trade is the great affirmation of our common humanity, based upon negotiable needs and wants. It can be a positive factor in advancing the unity of
humankind. On the other, however, when relied upon exclusively, with its
powerful modern energies, many fear that it may tend to level everything into a
cultural flatland.31 Fortunately, the deeply held personification of culture in the
individual and the anthropological nature of the group should moderate this
process, as long as human beings come into the world through other human
beings and grow in time and space within their company. And it is here that
civil society associations have a legitimate and potentially creative role to play.
Finally, I come to the fundamental ontological ground; and rest the durability
of the diversity of cultures upon the texture of being and its own analogical
character, whereby diversity and unity are intrinsically reconciled as mutually
expressive of the very nature of reality itself. Even the most unpromising desert
is a cradle of diversity within a unity. Why should we expect humanity to be
different? In sum: both diversity and unity reside together in person, human
nature and being itself.
Still, after this has been said, the contribution of metaphysics is not to preempt the final decisional role of economics, politics and social praxis in the
formulation of policies that engage the situation. It is, rather, to offer an ontological, anthropological, communal and personal basis and horizon for the determination of particular strategies and decisions. It seems to me that the framework suggested by metaphysics is consonant with the texture of being and its
principles, and above all with the analogical character of being as a unity that
is embodied and realized in diversity, even as our shared humanity is embedded
in the diversity of cultures.
31 Benjamin R. Barber (Rutgers) puts the issue starkly, if somewhat colorfully, in:
Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Ballantine, 1996): McWorld's war proceeds by inadvertance, circumventing heart and mind in favor of viscera and the five senses, seducing peoples with the siren call of self-interest and desire where the self is defined
wholly by want, wish, and the capacity to consume. (p.188) Somewhat more moderately, he argues: Neither Jihad [exclusivism] nor McWorld [indiscriminacy] promises
a remotely democratic future. (p. 220) And eventually, in an even more temperate
tone, he concludes: Humankind depends for its liberty on variety and difference. We
are governed best when we live in several spheres, each with its own rules and benefits, none wholly dominated by another . . . McWorld has virtues, then, but they scarcely warrant permitting the market to become sovereign over politics, culture, and
civil society. (pp. 296298)

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Kenneth L. Schmitz
Two ontological factors ground this fundamental framework: the formation in

depth of the cultural identity of the person and the group and which a tradition
serves to cultivate; and secondly, the analogical character of the reality within
which that formation takes place, which seals the unity of mankind within a
diversity of cultures. A global order of unity-in-diversity realizes the texture of
being and participates in its principles through the discovery of truth about the
way things are and are meant to be, and the pursuit of the good that perfects
the community of men and things. To absolutize either unity or diversity is to
let a partial aspect of reality lead us astray from the balance inherent in being.
For if metaphysics tells us anything, it is that the reconciliation of unity and
difference of Weimar and Welt is the very ethos of being itself.
Summary
Personal and community identity comes about through a process that involves genetic and cultural forces. Beginning in the womb and continuing in the family, neighborhood, school and larger society it is a deeply embedded process of acquisition and
formation. Globalization is also a process, largely economic, yet entailing profound
changes in the lives of individuals and communities. The interaction occurs in the
medium of culture. It is here that NGOs and CSOs can help with their intimate knowledge of the receiving culture. At the same time, the international corporation can advance its own interest and that of the community by appointment of a senior executive in charge of cultural affairs, hopefully to the benefit of both parties.
Zusammenfassung
Die Identitt von Personen und Gemeinschaften bildet sich in einem Proze, der
genetische und kulturelle Krfte involviert. Er beginnt mit der Menschwerdung im
Mutterscho und setzt sich fort in der Familie, in der Nachbarschaft, in der Schule
und in der greren Gesellschaft; es ist ein stndiger Proze des Werdens und der
Formung. Globalisierung ist auch ein Proze, der vornehmlich die wirtschaftlichen
Verhltnisse erfat, zugleich aber tiefe Vernderungen im Leben der Individuen und
der Gemeinschaften hinterlt. Die Wechselwirkung ereignet sich inmitten der Kultur.
Auf diesem Feld knnen Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) und Civil Society
Organizations (CSOs) hilfreich wirken durch ihre gute Kenntnis der Verhltnisse.
Ebenfalls kann ein internationales Unternehmen seine eigenen Interessen und diejenigen der Gemeinschaft verfolgen, wenn es ein erfahrenes Vorstandsmitglied beruft, das
fr die kulturellen Belange verantwortlich ist. Dies kann sich fr beide Seiten gnstig
auswirken.


By Thomas R. Rourke
I. Introduction
What is known in scholarly and political circles as globalization is widely
recognized as the wave carrying the world into the next epoch.1 The sociological weight of academic and political opinion lies with the conviction that globalization is either the solution to endemic problems of economic, political and
cultural underdevelopment or at least inevitable. Those holding the latter opinion, the less optimistic, are less sanguine about the prospects for globalization
as a panacea for a multitude of social ills, but nonetheless see no realistic alternative in the face of economic, political and cultural processes of such overwhelming force. The latter perception only heightens the tendency to accept
globalization as a given and proceed to examine how a given nation can best
take advantage of the opportunities it provides. It is extremely difficult for any
political leader or party to find traction on an anti-globalization platform. The
academic world is somewhat more open to more critical views, but even there
one risks at least the penalty of marginalization for being decidedly anti-globalist. Anti-globalists are rather quickly characterized as being on the extreme
right or left, lacking in the required attribute of accepting the powers that be,
otherwise known as being realistic, the absence of which tends to leave one's
political rationality in question.
Globalization is a process, which is at once economic, political, and cultural,
making attributions of cause and effect particularly tenuous. What is not in
doubt is that there is a confluence of variables in each of these fields, which
work together in ways sufficiently powerful to create at least the appearance
that the processes cannot be reversed. Briefly, we can characterize the processes of globalization as follows. Economically, technological advances, particularly in computer and communications technology, have multiplied the opportunities for international economic activity and opened up vast new vistas
of profitability. Investments are not for all that completely interchangeable with
respect to location, but there can be no question that there exists a strong ten1 The author wishes to thank Lexington Books for permission to publish excerpts
from Thomas R. Rourke and Rosita A. Chazarreta Rourke, A Theory of Personalism
(Lanham MD and London: Lexington Books, 2005).

94
Thomas R. Rourke
dency over time to make the cites of investment geographically flexible. At the
same time, there is a related explosion of international trade; as corporations
move production around the globe, the international transfer of goods becomes
as normal as the production and marketing of goods at the national level. The
technology that makes all of this possible is spurred on by the drive to reduce
the costs of production; in the competitive world, the company that can produce
at the least cost is likely to be the most successful. A second cost-cutting
method is to reduce the price of human labor, making job security largely a
thing of the past throughout even the developed world. Finally, the globalization of production and marketing has brought the world of finance along with
it. In fact, many observers would contest that the financial power has now become overarching. Financial transactions, often involving no more than punching a few keys, are the easiest to globalize. Much of the global financial market
is in fact speculative, that is, unrelated to the actual production of foreign goods
and services. The value of the holdings of people all over the world has increasingly been in fewer hands.
All of this has the most profound political ramifications. First and foremost,
the traditional methods of national economic regulation to a great extent no
longer function, or at least work in unpredictable ways. Changes in taxes, interest rates, inflation, and wages create global waves that no particular government
can control. Elected leaders feel determined by macroeconomic variables over
which they exercise decreasing levels of influence. The entire regulatory power
of the state is increasingly checked by the capacity of multinational enterprises,
most notably financial institutions, to alter their pattern of investments and the
location of their financial resources. Meanwhile, elected governments everywhere feel the pressure to attract new investments and sources of employment.
In the Third World, where rates of unemployment are often at what used to be
considered depression levels, this pressure is particularly acute. In order to attract capital, regimes must create a good investment climate, which can be
read as a euphemism for abandoning regulations of all kinds, from protections
for the rights of workers to the environment. Included among the goals laid
aside are ends which the social teaching of the Church has long considered
legitimate: minimum wage guarantees, health care and other benefits for workers, guarantees of collective bargaining rights, workplace safety, and the elimination of child labor. What makes matters worse is that governments compete
with one another to attract investments precisely by promising more freedom to
global capital and to eliminate regulations, even when the latter are palpably for
the common good, in what William Greider revealingly terms the global jobs
auction.2 This trend, long recognized as evidence of the weakness of Third
2 See William Greider, One World: Ready or Not (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1998).

95
World states, has now come full turn and impacts governments in the First
World as well. In what is euphemistically termed, corporate retention, local
and state governments feel compelled increasingly to grant more tax breaks,
subsidies and other public benefits to corporations or face their quick departure,
a powerful threat to political leaders particularly in election years.
The cultural front of globalization presents more complicated issues of interpretation. The banners of multiculturalism, cultural and religious pluralism,
and postmodernism suggest that cultural globalization is a victory for democracy, the elimination of cultural imperialism, and the expansion of the legitimate domain of liberty. The purveyors of such doctrines are ever ready to remind us of present or previous failures of modern democracies to preserve the
rights of minorities. It is the contention of this paper that such doctrines tend to
be philosophically obscure, are manipulated to serve arbitrary ends, and are in
the final analysis self-contradictory. What is more, they mask the reality of a
deeply disturbing centralization of cultural power allied with related political
and economic centralization.
II. The One and the Many: The Christian Paradigm
The claims of the multiculturalists, pluralists and postmodernists have to do
with the traditional metaphysical conundrum of the relationship between the
one and the many; questions about multiplicity cannot ultimately be answered
without reference to some kind of underlying unity which renders the many
intelligible. We owe it to Hans Urs von Balthasar for demonstrating that only
the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation ultimately solves the problem of the
one and the many.3 In philosophy, the issue arises in the conflict between empiricism, which emphasizes the particular and the concrete, and rationalism,
which emphasizes the universal and the abstract. Yet, neither approach gives an
adequate account of what it omits. Empiricism in its extreme reduces to positivism and jettisons the universal. Rationalism in its Hegelian extreme eliminates
the particular as part of the development of Absolute Being. Nor do non-Christian theological approaches arrive at satisfactory conclusions. In eastern mysticism, the many are absorbed into the One; in polytheism, pantheism and animism, the one is diffused among the many. Short of God Himself entering history in the way indicated by the Incarnation, it is not possible that any
particular revelation could in the final analysis lay claim to properly universal
significance. For no matter what revelation a Buddha or Mohammed might
bring, there are only two possibilities with reference to the universality of its
3 The following summary of von Balthasar's treatment of the one and the many is
from Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, Vol. I, Seeing the Form., trans.
Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982), pp. 496506.

96
Thomas R. Rourke
truth. Either (a) the revelation is particular to those who receive it, thus lacking
in universality, or (b) the revelation is truly universal. If the latter, the character
of universality can only be derived from something itself universal, and hence
transcending the particularity of Buddha or Mohammed, in which case the particularity of the latter would be without universal significance.
Only the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation solves the dilemma. In von
Balthasar's words, Jesus Christ is the concrete universal, concrete in that He
is a particular person and universal in that He possesses the absolute universality of truth and goodness. By becoming flesh, He is as particular with respect to
time and place as any human person. In Jesus, the universal is concrete and
particular, and the particular is the universal. In possessing a human nature,
Jesus is no less human, and in possessing a divine nature, no less divine, as the
Council of Chalcedon made clear. He enters history at a particular place and
time, yet all historical norms are forever to be judged by him. He includes
within Himself all that is true, good and human, and is the concrete and universal norm by which truth, goodness and humanity are to be measured in all
times and places.
Two important conclusions emerge from this theological starting point that
are at the core of any attempt to formulate a political, economic and social
philosophy grounded in the person. First, the particular has the capacity to embody the universal; otherwise, the I

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ANTON RAUSCHER (Hrsg.

Nationale und kulturelle Identitt

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Soziale Orientier ung

Karl Forster Hans Maier Rudolf Morsey

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Nationale und kulturelle Identitt

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Bibliografische Information Der Deutschen Bibliothek

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Die Europisierung der Welt

Mistaken National Identity: Samuel Huntington's Who Are We?

Culture and the Individual: The Psychological Impact of Globalization

Multiculturalism within the Gates

Globalization, Religion, and Cultural Identity

II. Strukturprobleme der internationalen Ordnung

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Die kirchliche Friedenslehre vor neuen Problemen

IV. Zur konomischen Dimension der Globalisierung

V. Christliche Verantwortung in Gesellschaft und Politik

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konomischen Dimension der Globalisierung wurden ebenso angesprochen wie

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I. Die Herausforderung der Globalisierung

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Santayana was not alone in his assessment. Philosophers and theologians as

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Modernity since the European Enlightenment has acquired an implacable

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Having acknowledged the influence of Christianity, Valry turns to the role

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Valry means by Europe is almost identical to what is referred to today to as

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Valry, op. cit., p. 407.

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wark against the neopaganism which seeks to replace Christianity throughout

New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

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Die Europisierung der Welt

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Die Europisierung der Welt

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suche aufs Ganze gesehen irreversiblen globalen Europisierung. Damit ist

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Die Europisierung der Welt

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Die Europisierung der Welt

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ten, die weil anderen kulturellen Entwicklungen machtpolitisch berlegen

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Die Europisierung der Welt