Globalization

The weather here has been beautiful over the past few days, almost like a warm, late August in New England. I've managed to step into a few more grocery stores and pick up the right vegetables -- I hope -- that will keep me going healthy. A couple friends are talking about a weekend trip to Amsterdam during Halloween weekend, but I wonder if cutting so short a time frame would really be worth it. I should have a talk with my younger sister. On her brief study trip this past spring, she traveled to almost every city where I plan to go.

I also just bought a ticket to an independent musical performance at Berghain on Saturday night. If you follow Indie pop rock, look up Animal Collective. I'm pretty excited for the East-Berlin dance scene. Beforehand, I might spend the day heading around to a museum or two downtown. The Pergamon musem is doing an exhibit on the Babylon Myth, so I think I may check that out. As far as Sunday, I have a friend from UNH coming to visit for a few days' vacation. She is staying until the springtime, looking after a couple kids in Western Germany. I hope I know the rail system well enough to explain, or better yet, maybe her city of Dusseldorf has a system similar to that of Berlin.

Recounting my venture down to Krumme Lanke, I was recently offered to join in with the family for a night of symphony where another friendly acquaintance will be playing the piano. This will be happening next week, on Wednesday.

But wow, look what time it is! Midterms already. I can't believe they snuck up on us so quickly. For one thing, I am really going to have to keep every free second to myself this weekend. For another, I really should not be spending my nights out partying until late and then perpetuating the vicious cycle. I know that Berlin is a great place to go for vacation, yes, and I worked hard for a couple months this summer to make myself believe that hard work pays off. I can't pay for everything on my own so my folks are helping me out with that.

But I gained a sense of self-empowerment, enduring a stay-cation and working through a normal period when I regularly would have been at the beach with family.

Berlin is much better, I believe, for the creative individual. Of course educational background matters too, and that's what I'm working on as I speak.

I already mentioned some things I am missing out on, like my cousing giving birth to twins. Well, as it happens, another cousin has since moved from Providence RI into a house that is no more than a bike ride away from mine. This is also good news. So indeed is that coming from a third cousin, who recently announced plans of a happy engagement. I had nothing but smiles to show when I heard these reports via email.

A lot of what we have been talking about recently in our courses has to do with the effects of globalization. Sociology applies to us all, because the effects of living in a society apply to everyone living in an industrialized nation. I just want to acknowledge one positive outcome of globalization is that I'm very glad that we can all keep in touch. As the internet here steps up in usage (the bandwidth is a bit slower in Deutschland, by the way), other forms of media begin to lose their impact. One good example of a persistent old-fashioned medium is the post mail. I will be receiving my absentee ballot within the next week, by transatlantic post. I don't believe that process will be changing any time soon, so long as the US Government hopes to keep votes away from hackers. But other methods of contact, such as using the telephone, are already being absorbed by the computer. Does anyone else here use Skype? Then you know what I mean.

Returning through history to the German printing press, newspapers from around the world are emailed to Berlin (and presumably every other first-world metropolis) within minutes of their completion. To the business entrepeneur working at an investment firm in Berlin, this marketing tool serves a very important task.

However, to farmers and hunters like those I visited this past weekend in the suburbs, I would imagine the international newspapers might be little more than a distraction -- a hindrance, if you will, on seeing their own native culture. Outer cultural influences are pushing in, whether by media, through style, or through student tourists like myself. It is a little bit disconcerting, but I wonder if there is much that can be done to stop it.

Is globalization a part of human nature, given the technological innovations we have created? Or can it be controlled?


"It is also rarer to find happiness in a man surrounded by the miracles of technology than among people living in the desert of the jungle and who by the standards set by our society would be considered destitute and out of touch."
Thor Heyerdahl