Global Culture: Consciousness and Connectivity

Roland Robertson, Didem Buhari-Gulmez

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781134803347
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

The current discourse of globalization is overwhelmingly centred upon the interconnectedness, or connectivity, of the contemporary world; to the great neglect of the issues of global culture and global consciousness. With contemporary worldwide culture increasingly characterized by such themes as astronomy, cosmology, space travel and exploration, there is an increasing disjuncture between academic concern with connectivity, on the one hand, and culture and consciousness of the place of planet earth in the cosmos as a whole, on the other. This book addresses this deficiency from a variety of closely related perspectives, presenting studies of religion, science, sport, international organizations, global resistance movements and migrations and developments in East Asia. It brings together the latest theoretical empirical work from scholars in the US, UK, Australia, Japan, China and Israel on the significance of culture and global consciousness. As such, Global Culture: Consciousness and Connectivity will be of great interest to scholars across and beyond the social sciences working in the areas of global studies, cultural studies, social theory, the sociology of religion and related issues.

Chapter 1
Global Culture and Consciousness

Roland Robertson

In my previous attempts to come to terms with the idea of global culture I tended to restrict myself to what I now consider to be the more obvious aspects of the latter. A few examples are to be found in Nettl and Robertson (1968) and Robertson (1992. 2007c). However, I do not intend here to eschew my previous contributions. Rather, I build upon and to a large extent revise these. In other words, the present effort is more ambitious than previous ones and, more specifically, takes into account many recent developments, even though I think the significance of some of these have been exaggerated (Robertson, 2007a; Groebner, 2007). However, before proceeding, it should be said that even though culture as an academic theme has remarkably and rapidly risen in recent years, notably in the UK, the US and parts of Europe, relatively little has been published concerning culture across the world; although Germany was almost certainly the home of much of the extremely significant intellectual work on culture from the late eighteenth century onwards. The so-called strong program in cultural sociology (e.g. Alexander, Smith and Lo, 2010) has more or less completely neglected this theme. However, there are at least two outstanding exceptions to these generalizations concerning global (or world) culture—namely World Culture by Lechner and Boli (2005) and Boli and Thomas (1999). It should be noted that Lechner and Thomas are contributors to the present volume.

In the chapters of this volume that follow various authors explore, in one way or another, the relationship between global connectivity and global consciousness—a relationship that is by no means simple. In any case, I would like to add to my claim concerning the great emphasis on connectivity in studies of globalization, that a not inconsiderable number of authors compound their mistake by speaking of globalization as involving increasing global integration. A good example of this is the argument of Goldin and Mariathasan that globalization means ‘the process of increasing integration and cross-border flows’ (Goldin and Mariathasan, 2014, p. xiii). Moreover, they contend that this process has been ‘the most powerful driver of human progress in the history of humanity’ (Goldin and Mariathasan, 2014, p. viii). As will be seen, I have strong reservations about such contentions, particularly since they do not even mention, in their volume on the risks created by globalization, the crucial theme of glocalization (e.g. Robertson, 2014a, 2014b). Considering the latter has much to add to the ‘normal’ commentary on, or discourses about, globalization, this is, in fact, a glaring lacuna (Robertson 2015).

Concerning the relationship between connectivity and consciousness, an observation by Durkheim is of great assistance. Durkheim (1974, p. 24) argued that ‘society has for its substratum the mass of associated individuals …. The representations which form a network of social life arise from the relations between the individuals thus combined or the secondary groups that are between the individuals and the total society.’ Durkheim (1974, pp. 24–5) goes on to say that ‘there is nothing surprising in the fact that collective representations, produced by the action and reaction between individual minds that form the society, do not directly derive from the latter and consequently surpass them.’ The point conveyed by this quotation is that neither consciousness nor culture derives directly from connectivity. Rather, consciousness and culture both have significant degrees of autonomy in relation to the latter. Moreover, culture facilitates, or enables, consciousness. Specifically, people cannot be conscious separately from their being cultural participants. In other words, culture makes consciousness possible (Appadurai, 2013, pp. 285–300).

It should here be emphasized, a little ironically, that it is probably in the realm of contemporary historical studies that the global turn has been most conspicuous (Robertson, 1996; 1998). This may well be due, at least in large part, to the absence of obsession with the primarily economic use of ‘globalization,’ as well as the fact that historians came to the study of the global somewhat later than social scientists. Moyn and Sartori (2013, p. 1) have articulated this issue cogently:

Among the last decade’s most notable developments in the historians’ guild has been a turn toward ‘global history.’ The roots of global history are older, in different tendencies in international history to strain beyond its usual diplomatic agents or in world history to make into approved topics the transnational flows of populations, diseases, and goods. But the citizens of the post-Cold War world … conceived of themselves as living in an age of ‘globalization’ and pushed this trend to impressive heights.

As far as historical studies are concerned, where it could be argued that the global turn has been most evident, particularly since the late 1990s and the early 2000s, and in spite of some historians alarm at the very idea of globalization, it is highly relevant to mention a little later in this chapter, somewhat selectively, a few examples of recent concern with globality among professional historians. In any case, the entire issue of the pedagogy of global studies has increased rapidly in recent years and has, in the process, manifested the phenomenon of glocality (Baker, 2014 and Baker and Le Tendre, 2005). Conversely, schooling has become a major product of global culture.

Quite apart from books on the subject of global history in the large, a considerable number of more specialist books by historians have shown that the world has been much more global than recent history has suggested both in the sense of extensive connectivity and (increasingly) reflexive global consciousness. Undoubtedly this is largely due to the fact that we are now very conscious of the global circumstance, via such phenomena as climate change; space exploration, travel and potential tourism; electronic communication of various kinds and related phenomena.

Closely related to these are various developments in science fiction and what might be called the apocalyptic, or millennial, imagination. Science fiction has, of course, become increasingly significant in culture(s) across the world. And even though many may consider this to be a form of Americanization, particularly via Hollywood film, the fact is that it has by no means been merely an American phenomenon (Conrad, 2015). This is excellently demonstrated by Jameson (2005) in his extensive writings about Utopian science and other forms of science fiction. In his discourse on what he calls ‘fear and loathing in globalization’ Jameson cogently demonstrates the global significance of science fiction.

On the other hand, writing in particular reference to Russia, Banerjee (2012) amply demonstrates the great and continuing convergence of science, science fiction, psychology, philosophy, and other disciplines; and the relevance of this convergence to a vast range of conventional and near-global issues, issues including such matters as higher consciousness, neurological processes, space exploration and conceptions of immortality. A good example of Russia’s global significance with respect to science fiction is the way in which the virtual completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad came to feature so prominently in published scientific, illustrated magazines, as well as in science fiction generally (Banerjee, 2012, p. 33). To quote Banerjee, ‘rushing past the windows of the train Siberia was the only place in the world to offer an unlimited view of the deep past preceding human history and Promethean promises of a technological future.’ In fact, the Paris World Exposition of 1900 featured ‘The World Railway.’ Banerjee goes on to state that the train transports Russia itself ‘into a mobile, ever-expanding East that eventually merges back with the West and encompasses the entire globe.’

This is probably the most appropriate place to emphasize the importance of the World Expositions that have taken place since they first began with the Great Exhibition held in London’s Hyde Park in 1851. This is widely considered as the first modern world’s fair. Rydell (1984) has provided an excellent audit of the world fairs held in the USA from the Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1876 to the Expositions in San Francisco and San Diego in 1915 and 1916. Both of the latter were designed to commemorate the opening of the Panama Canal, that opening obviously being of world-historical significance. However, it should be emphasized that, during the twentieth century and the early part of the present one, such small fairs have become increasingly global and spread around the world. Needless to say, most world fairs and expositions have been particularly celebrative of the national culture of the countries concerned. On the other hand, they have also almost always paid much attention to the cultures of other countries. The latter is well exampled by the Milan Exposition of 2015.

Returning directly to historians turn to the global it might well be argued that Jardine and Brotton were among the very first to globalize what was previously considered to be a purely Western phenomenon: Global Interests: Renaissance Art between East and West (2000). Before that book was published the Renaissance had almost always been considered a European phenomenon. Wills considers the significance of 1688 in his 1688: A Global History (2001). Armitage explores the global significance of the American declaration of independence in his book The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (2007). Another example is that of Desan, Hunt, and Nelson (2013) in their book The French Revolution in Global Perspective. Yet another illustration of the global approach to a particular historical problem is the recent book by Doyle (2015), entitled The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War that explores in considerable detail the manner in which the civil war in America involved parties and interested participants from numerous parts of the world; at least—more accurately—in the Western parts thereof. Much more global, however, is the book by Beckert (2015), Empire of Cotton.

A particularly outstanding case is provided by Osterhammel’s The Transformation of the World: a Global History of the Nineteenth Century (2014). A key feature of the latter is the author’s commitment to overcoming what he indicates as being narrow Eurocentric conceptions of world history. Osterhammel argues that only two or three decades ago a history of the modern world could still blithely proceed on the assumption of ‘Europe’s special path.’ To quote Osterhammel (2014, p. xxi) ‘historians are trying to break with European (or “Western”) smugness and to remove the sting of “special path” notions by means of generalization and relativization.’ He goes on to argue that the nineteenth century must be reconsidered accordingly. His book is particularly significant in the present context because it deals simultaneously with the world as a whole and the post-enlightenment period in Europe. Even though he declares his intention to be the relativization of Europe he, nonetheless, is not of a subaltern or a post-colonial persuasion.

Perhaps the most significant and continuous contribution to the kind of history that I have been discussing is to be seen in the oeuvre of Linda Colley, who has consistently cast her numerous works in a global frame, ranging from her Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (1992) to her The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History (2007) and Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, 1600–1850 (2010). Moreover she has explored the significance of the global-cosmopolitan turn among American historians in her short piece, ‘Wide-Angled’ (2013). Another case, of a rather different nature, is provided by Sachsenmaier (2011) in his book that is mainly devoted to the global histories of the USA, Germany, and China, Global Perspectives on Global History: Theories and Approaches in a Connected World. This is an important contribution, even though it emphasizes connectivity and relegates consciousness.

A somewhat different approach that incorporates global perspectives (but again, stressing connectivity) is provided by the volume edited by Edwards and Gaonkar (2012), Globalizing American Studies. In fact, even though the concept has no explicit presence in this book, the issue of glocalization is absolutely, if only implicitly, central; since the volume as a whole clearly illustrates the ways in which the study of the USA varies from place to place and, indeed, over time.

One of the major rationales for invoking these examples is that they raise the question as to why we have come to have national histories at all. Why should we think of the world as being constituted by nations, amalgamations of nations, or even regions within nations? Why, in other words, do we not start globally (or even cosmically)? This question may appear to be somewhat out of line with my own analytic depiction of what I have called the global field insofar as, in the latter, the nation, or the nation-state, is included as part of the global field itself (Robertson, 1992). However, my response to any such query would be that what we have come to call, over the last two decades or more, globalization has, in my view, been in part constituted by developments directly concerning changes in the form of the nation-state and not the obliteration or disappearance of the latter.

To a considerable extent the global point of entry has been adopted by the work of a number of anthropologists or combinations of historians and anthropologists (e.g. Tsing, 1993; Gluck and Tsing, 2009). In the latter...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Global Culture and Consciousness
• 2 Globalization and Global Consciousness: Levels of Connectivity
• 3 Connectivity and Consciousness: How Globalities are Constituted through Communication Flows
• 4 Globalization’s Cultural Consequences Revisited
• 5 Dynamics of World Culture: Global Rationalism and Problematizing Norms, Again
• 6 Rationalizing Global Consciousness: Scientized Education as the Foundation of Organization, Citizenship, and Personhood
• 7 Jesuits, Connectivity, and the Uneven Development of Global Consciousness since the Sixteenth Century
• 8 Glocalization and Global Sport
• 9 Global Culture in Motion
• 10 China in the Process of Globalization: A Primarily Cultural Perspective
• 11 ‘America’ in Global Culture
• 12 Taking Japan Seriously Again: The Cultural Economy of Glocalization and Self-Orientalization
• Conclusion
• Index