Somewheres, anywheres, creative class, echo chambers and globalization
- By Eugene Clark
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E-mail China.org.cn, July 27, 2017
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Recent events demonstrate the fragility of globalization and the challenges it faces. [Xinhua] |
Recent events demonstrate the fragility of globalization and the challenges it faces. Some of the reasons are provided by Professor David Goodhart’s latest book, The Road to Somewhere, in which the head of the thinktank "Policy Exchange" argues modern society contains two distinct "tribes" he labels the "somewheres" and the "anywheres."
The latter are the global elite-professionals working largely in leading cities. They possess skills that are in high demand and the consequent mobility this provides enables them to work almost anywhere. They have little attachment to place, being citizens of the world greatly benefitting from globalization.
The former are those in the working class, employed in declining industries or in positions that have been much diminished by technological, economic, social and political disruption. This group has been especially threatened by waves of immigration, for example in the U.K., where over a million migrants in recent years have taken over jobs, strained infrastructure and challenged traditional and local values.
This analysis is used to explain BREXIT, and the rise of populism in the case of the election of President Donald Trump amid growing voter opposition to agreements such as the PPT, NAFTA and even used by some to oppose the WTO.
These events point to the underlying reality that the liberal elite and major press who dominate the ranks of the anywheres have underestimated the anger and fear of those seeing themselves marginalized by the forces of globalization, technology advancement and other changes impacting the interrelated world economic order.
Goodhart’s work is an extension of an earlier article, Too Diverse? in which he contended that those with local and longstanding connections to a place object to housing, social welfare and other assistance freely provided to those who have little attachment to the values of the pre-existing "tribes" there long before them.
This theme is also reflected in Professor Richard Florida’s work describing the "Creative Class." According to him, the creative class, in America for example, comprises approximately 40 million workers. He divides them into two major sub-groups, the super-creative core of professionals whose major role is to design innovative and creative products and services, and creative professionals, workers in the knowledge industries and focused especially on such areas as finance, education, law and healthcare.
The American academic argues the creative class will be the leading force for growth in modern Information Age economies. In Flight of the Creative Class, he extends his argument to the global competition for creative talent for the new industries. He also discusses a growing cultural divide between the new creative class and those employed in traditional "Industrial Age" occupations.
Another aspect of this debate concerns the "echo effect" of the Internet. In the early days, it was hoped the Internet would be a unifying and liberating force because it would expose users to a multiplicity of views. The reality is that more than ever people tend to get their news from their own social media groups (e.g. Facebook; WeChat, Twitter) and spend their time with sources with which they already agree. People thus surround themselves with echoes of pre-existing views that become intensified as amid even less exposure to diversity of opinion.
The harm of this "echo chamber" effect is stressed in another new book, Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media written by Harvard Law School Professor Cass R. Sunstein, who suggests social media habits such as the echo chamber effect tend to make society more divisive and polarized so that becomes harder to achieve the common ground of comprise that is the essence of politics and effective democratic government.
So, what can be done to address these concerns? First, recognition of the role that different disciplines -- history, political science, sociology, anthropology, psychology, media/communications studies and the humanities -- in helping us to understand what is going on and why.
Hopefully, such research will help us to act proactively to ensure that modern advancements in technology work to enhance our lives and organizations rather than produce unintended consequences such as isolating us from a diversity of opinion.
Secondly, there are several implications for education. We need to re-enforce the importance of listening skills. The average person spends more waking hours listening than in any other activity and yet school curricula often fail to give sufficient emphasis to this vital skill.
Also important is learning how to evaluate and assess the credibility of sources, especially since traditional "gatekeepers" have disappeared and knowledge has become democratized, requiring greater focus on logical and critical thinking so we can critically evaluate and analyze information.
One reason people fail to expose themselves to diverse views is our tendency to distrust those who disagree with us and to attribute "ill intentions" to them, so we need to rebuild trust levels in our institutions and society generally.
Transparency is also important. As governments look to media reform, perhaps attention should be given to requiring Facebook, Google and others to be explicit or at least more transparent about how they choose what we see on our page -- or don’t see! Amid the "fake news" phenomena, social media needs to be more responsible in minimizing our exposure to false information.
Finally, one result of modern capitalism is the growing divide in many countries between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, the digitally empowered and the digitally deprived. To avoid building walls between people, organizations and nations, we have to ensure that all stakeholders are consulted and their views fully considered.
Eugene Clark is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/eugeneclark.htm
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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