McWorld vs. Jihad (Blog 3)

Last week in class we talked about the terms McWorld and Jihad.

First off, lets look at the word McWorld. In the reading, it says "Every nation...needs something another nation has..." Even though this word has many facets and meanings to it, I think this is a quote that fits the word the most. Today, globalization is everywhere. Like this quote says, every nation needs something from another. For example, even if my Birkenstock Sandals say "Made in Germany," they still got some of their supplies from other countries, like the cork that is the sole of the sandal. Also, if I am calling customer service for a national company, I may get someone on the other line that does not live in the United States, but lives in India and works at a call center there. Because we are such a global society, we easily can communicate and share our ideas. For instance, world wide companies are reaching out to each other to help improve marketing skills or improving the logistics of raw materials or finished products. Globalization does sound like it is really improving the world an streamlining things, but there are also some downsides. Another thing that the reading points out that Globalization has caused some issues without environment (i.e. emissions from the thousands of airplanes that are in the sky everyday; taking people all over the world.) and the issue is that some world leaders are choosing to ignore it. Unfortunately, a lot of the developing countries are using up a lot of resources to become and developed country and the leader will not say anything, because regulating resources will inhibit the country from becoming a world power. 

The other word we talked about in class was Jihad. These are groups of people that are resistant to the change the world is making and integrating into the globalized world. Some of these groups include the Amish, the people involved with the civil war in Ireland, a population of Muslims or other religious groups, etc. A more specific example, the Amish close themselves off from the world to keep the influences away. Even when a child leaves the community, the Amish do not like them coming back because the children have the ability to influence their family if they come back.

Here is an example of Jihad caving in and turning into McWorld. This is a clip from the TV show breaking Amish. This is about a girl named Kate. She left the Amish, because she wanted to live in the globalized society. She now is in a career that would make any Amish shudder. The Amish do not like their picture taken and Kate has chosen the career of modeling. She wanted to leave the Amish, because she got a glimpse of the world during Rumspringa and she realized that she wanted the "English" life for herself. 

http://cdn.sheknows.com/articles/2013/07/breaking-amish-kate-stoltzfus-maxim.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMKI_LLC2Lg

Introduction

I first want to say that I am really excited for this class. No, I am not just saying this, because my professor will be reading this shortly, but I am really excited to learn about the topic. Besides being a Sociology major, I also study International Studies and have a minor in German. I love learning about different cultures and how the world works.

In last week's class, we mainly learned about global sociology as a discipline and if it was even possible. The problem with trying to make it an international study is that everyone has a different way of thinking, priorities, ideas of interest, etc. etc. If sociologists wanted to have this be an international discipline, they would need for it to be relativistic. (Relativistic is open-ended, there is no superior country and all countries have an equal playing field.) However, I personally do not think that is possible. I think, at best, it would be a mix of being relativistic and ethnocentric. (Ethnocentric is focused on certain groups and there is a strong possibility for a bias to be present.) I do not think personally someone can exclude biases for their studies, because we all have them. Every culture is different and it would be hard to look at a different culture other than your own in a purely objective way.

In our first class, we were just mainly talking about globalization in general. Right away, these photos came to mind. Two years ago, I went to visit my friend Lilja in Iceland. I think these photos are a good example of globalization. (If you did not know, Iceland relies a lot on imports. The only things they can really produce are wool, meat, like lamb and beef, and they have a good fishing industry. They cannot grow anything on their land, so they have to have countries send in their fruits and vegetables.)  Also, sorry about the quality, one of them I was taking in a moving car and the lighting was bad in the store where I took the other photo.

Sorry, I am posting this one just because this looks cool. This is Kirkjufell (Church Steeple Mountain).