In looking back at our journey through The World is Flat and the discussions it has provoked, I couldn't help but notice somewhat of an underlying theme throughout it all. It seems that many of the topics we have discussed examine the issue of identity in one form or another. Early on, Friedman expressed his view of the necessity for a new identity in the flat world when he told us to become ‘The Untouchables’. Also in our discussions, many of the topics we covered did not directly relate to this theme but certainly could be connected to it if you dug deeper: our strengths of adaptability and resourcefulness could be seen as an identity of our generation, terrorism as a result of humiliation could be viewed as resulting from the vulnerability of one’s identity, or even the success of review-based consumption could be attributed to the fact that our trust emerges from some shared identity with the reviewers. From my perspective, it seems that our discussion was continually based on the changes the flat world has caused in how different groups perceive some aspect of their identity. At the end of our last class, Dr. Tapia brought up the critical question, “What is the right stance for the US to plan for in this new ‘flat’ world?” Since much of what has emerged thus far in our cogitations on the flattened world have been rooted in identity, perhaps taking a look at the future from this perspective might lead us to an answer. After reading Dan’s post Global Futures 2030, examining identity with regard to the one scenario we have continually returned to in these past few weeks, Fragmentation, seemed to be the most logical exercise. This idea is one of the “three main scenarios for what the world would be like in 2030” as proposed by the Global Futures commission, and therefore, a useful jumping point for thinking about the future of our national identity.
As Dan described for us, Fragmentation “is characterized by a de-emphasis on international collaboration. Focus will move towards Asia and away from the Western World and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations will lose their bearing.” Now we have spoken about the amazing adaptability of our generation but I’m not so sure we can accept such a dramatic identity change as this. We have never known a world where we are not the superpower. Now whether that is a good or a bad thing is another issue, but altering our perception of the world as drastically as this could cause a major identity crisis for us as a nation. We have grown up in a climate of ‘American exceptionalism’ so could we stomach being second best? I’m not so sure.
To get a bit more insight, I thought examining how the British national identity was affected during our shift into power might help unravel this issue. I uncovered an interesting article in the American Historical Review, which examines the identity crisis seen in British literature during our quest for independence. Although it was not exactly the time frame of our shift to hegemony, I felt it still provided some useful insight.
“The consequences of this [conflict] . . . led to intense pressures on received understandings of identity and to an insistent preoccupation with its constitution: its inherent versus contingent traits, its natural foundations, its boundaries and their possible permeabilities . . . Ultimately, this situation created a sense of an urgent need to counteract the ever-more-apparent inadequacies of familiar notions of identity with new, more reliable ways of conceptualizing differences between people.”
Now the article cites many examples in literature as to why this claim can be staked but it holds that the American Revolution did cause an identity crisis for the British people. If the same power shift envisioned in Fragmentation were to occur, I think we need to take a nod from history and say that we would have our own national identity crisis.
In trying to get a handle on what this might mean, I decided to look deeper into our identity as it currently stands. During this search, I came across an interesting video interview with esteemed scholar Noam Chomsky on the topic. While he had many insights to bestow, the one that struck me most acutely was his notion that American identity has been marked by “a strong element of fear . . . that we are about to be destroyed by a horrifying enemy.” I think this is certainly true of our identity today. I would venture to say that, among other things, this fear consists of the idea that our reign is ending, our grasp is slipping, and our top seat is about to be pulled out from under us. However, Chomsky went on to say that this fear is also marked by the fact that “at the last minute, a super weapon is discovered or a great hero arises . . . that somehow saves us.” So what happens if no one save us this time? What if the chair does get pulled and we fall to the ground? I’m beginning to think this would cause an identity crisis that, to quote the American Historical Review article once more, will force us “toward a new and largely angst-ridden sense of what identity [is] really all about to begin with.”
So after looking at what our national identity has been and what it could be given what experts say, perhaps our best stance for the future is a double-edged sword. It might need to entail searching desperately for that hero that will pull us back to our height while preparing ourselves and our children for the fact that this time there might not be one.
