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What is the controlling metaphor of Barber's "Jihad vs Mcworld"? What are the four imperatives of...

What is the controlling metaphor of Barber's "Jihad vs Mcworld"? What are the four imperatives of McWorld?

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  • In a changing scenario, well known two types of political features can be seen in the contemporary society: Jihad and McWorld. They are completely opposite of each other. Benjamin Barber writes- "One driven by parochial hatreds, the other by universalizing markets, the one re- creating sub national andethical borders from within, the other making national boarders porous from without". They offer nofuture for any kind of democracy.
  • The Jihad is the war between cultures, countries, and tribes. The McWorld is the the fast music, fast computers, and fast food.McWorld is tied together by technology,ecology, communication and commerce. The war in the nations between two different culture can becalled a modern day Jihad. Similarly, the McWorld can best describe the condition in the United State andother Western European countries. These two extreme thoughts can be understood by the America's current conflict with Islamic fundamentalist.
  • McWorld comprises four dynamic imperatives: a market imperative, a resource imperative, an information- technology imperative and an ecological imperative.
  • Market imperative is a mechanism of free trade, open banking and enforceable contract. According to Barber, if everyone is consumer, no one is a citizen, and without citizen, democracy wouldn't exist. The market imperative has led to the quest for international peace and stability. The markets are enemies of war and isolation. In fact, market psychology erodes the psychology of ideological and religious cleavages among the narrowly conceived national or religious culture. Global market demands common language, common currency and common behavior which indeed oppose the national sovereignty. As an example,Barber said- In Europe, Asia, Africa, The South Pacific, and the American markets are eroding national sovereignty and giving rise to entities- international banks, trade associations, world news services like CNN and BBC, and multinational corporations that increasingly lack a meaningful national identity- that neither reflect nor respect nationhood as an organizing or regulative principle.´
  • Resources Imperative:-Dependency has been a universal character of any business organization and consumer as well. The resource imperative is the basicneed for one nation to depend on another nation for a resource. Developed countries need huge financial as well as non financial resources for the smooth operation of their business. Generally developed and developing countries enter into the under developed or least developed countries to extract the natural resources. For instance,United State, China, Japan and similar other countries can be seen rushing for the natural resources. However, some of other countries compel to search new resource centers as they are not having sufficient raw materials on their own. Thus, resource imperative creates dependency and dependency eventually leads to theglobalization
  • Information -Technology imperative:-This is the age of information andtechnology. It flows mass information over a long distance in a short time. This imperative creates a vast interactive communication and information networking among the people and therefore, nothing can be hidden. It can destroy distinct nation and parochial culture and their ethnicity. Barber said-This kind of software supremacy may in the long term be far more important than hardware superiority, because culture has become more potent than armaments. McDonalds in Moscowand Coke in China will do more to create a global culture than military colonization ever could´. Thus, Information and Technology can facilitate high tech commercial world but it is not democratic. In the same context, Barber argues- It lends itself to surveillances as well as liberty, to new forms of manipulation and control as well as new kind of participation. The consumer society and the open society are not quite synonymous. Capitalism and democracy have a relationship, but it is something like then a marriage. An efficient free market after all requires that consumers be free to vote their dollars on competing goods, not that citizens be free to vote to their values and beliefs on competing political candidate and programme.
  • The ecological imperative:-The ecological imperative suggests that an ecological consciousness has brought about a heightened awareness and inequality amongcountries in various stages of development. Ecological imperative includes the problem that modernization attributes to the world- e.g., destruction of forest, ozonelayer depletion etc. It is being criticized through the world. For instance Barber sais-in America the green house effect is being mistreated and in German forests can be destroyed by Swiss and Italians driving gas-guzzlers fueled by leaded gas.´The jungle trees being turned into boards of wood are destroying the oxygen level.
    In this way, above described all the imperatives work toward a world which needs no borders, ultimately leading to a world with a shallow culture based on consumerism

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