Comment by mrtksn
7 days ago
JD Vance had a nice speech about globalisation lately, he describes how globalisation made the rest of the world advanced and rich: https://x.com/OopsGuess/status/1902396228404674853
So if people were trying to make the world a better place congratulations they succeeded. JD Vance uses a bit different framing(!).
Anyway, back to your question, IMHO the problem in thinking here is that it implies that there must be "They" and "Us". You can't just get prosperous as a humanity, it needs to be a subgroup like "Americans" or "Germans" that do amazing things and they are very unsatisfied that Chinese and Indians got advanced and no longer do the shitty jobs. When they say globalism has failed us, they mean we thought that Vietnamese will keep making our shoes but now they are making cars too.
Essentially the core of the problem(or ideal) is nationalism and borders associated with it, preventing of people move around and pursue happiness.
A group of people like the generations of Americans who pioneered many technologies and sciences built a world, then other group of people(mostly their offsprings or people who caught up thanks to proximity to the ground zero) operated within that world and made some choices and transformed the world into something else. Now, they are unhappy with the current state and propose teaming up around something like religion/attitudes around genders etc. If you subscribe to the idea that people should team around these things and if you think that you won't be suffering that much and you don't care that some people might suffer a lot, then yes the current actions actually makes sense.
> is that it implies that there must be "They" and "Us". You can't just get prosperous as a humanity
This idea of humanity transcending our genetic (due to geographic proximity) tribal groups is a uniquely European one. Pretending we can abandon all tribalism and integrate the entire world into a European model is either immensely incompetent or intentionally malicious (I tend to think the latter). The current billionaire class profits immensely from all the diversity (both generic and ideological) in the west. It’s much easier to parasitically rule a divided people than a unified one. Nationalism is a defense against these parasites.
> needs to be a subgroup like "Americans" or "Germans" that do amazing things and they are very unsatisfied that Chinese and Indians got advanced
The issue isn’t other countries improving. The issue is the average America should not have a degraded quality of life (barring major natural disasters etc) so that our billionaires can be richer. A nationalist elite class would correctly say “no, we keep those jobs here because it benefits my countryman even if I’m going to make less money”. We do not have this and the wealth gap continues to increase.
> If you're subscribe the idea that people should team around these things and if you think that you won't be suffering that much and you don't care that some people might suffer a lot
Do you think parents should prioritize their children? Not saying this snidely - there’s no black and white lines here, but I think universalism can only be accomplished by taking care of our own and growing our tent, as opposed to diminishing our own to lift up others (who in many cases do not share our universalist sentiments).
I fail to understand what is "malicious" about the idea that we, as a single species, can someday achieve an equitable and global state of cooperation despite historical tribal / racial / religious differences.
Just because an idea originated in Europe doesn't make it a bad one out of hand.
> This idea of humanity transcending our genetic (due to geographic proximity) tribal groups is a uniquely European one.
Pan-Arabism, Pan-Africanism, and Simón Bolivar would like a word.
lots of opinions presented as facts.
Says the person who posted a tweet from JD Vance?
> This idea of humanity transcending our genetic (due to geographic proximity) tribal groups is a uniquely European one. Pretending we can abandon all tribalism and integrate the entire world into a European model is either immensely incompetent or intentionally malicious (I tend to think the latter).
I did not realize Star Trek is uniquely European, that explains all the accents they have. It's a good thing Gene Roddenberry was European otherwise all this nonsense would make us Americans less isolationist.
> The current billionaire class profits immensely from all the diversity (both generic and ideological) in the west. It's much easier to parasitically rule a divided people than a unified one. Nationalism is a defense against these parasites.
For as much evidence as you present I'll assert that nationalism in fact profits the billionaire class much more than anyone else, thinking of most marketing campaigns, most nationalist leaders are all backed by the billionaires to win over the hearts of the working class. It's almost like you say yourself, "It’s much easier to parasitically rule a divided people than a unified one" and nationalism is just as much about dividing a nation's people from others than about real unity.