I went up to Columbia University to see Jeffrey Sachs talk about technical innovation a while ago, and I summarized the speech for Science Progress.
Sachs’s talk unexpectedly rekindled my interest in global studies. I had wonderful experiences in graduate seminars at the University of Califiornia (thanks to the faculty who allowed me to participate), and I know I could expect more of the same, so I may want to continue at Santa Barbara. I like that the professors, Giles Gunn and Mark Juergensmeyer, eagerly challenge seventeenth century nationalism. (Gunn, for instance, even criticizes methodological nationalism in the humanities.) I am beginning to see that not all scholars of international politics are willing to venture into this ambiguous space where easy answers are unavailable, yet I think that space is where I belong. I don’t want to study at an institution that hasn’t yet moved beyond easy Westphalian ideas. By this criterion, as it happens, I have bad feelings about Georgetown University (which is close to my present apartment).
My hope is that a detachment from nationalism can ultimately enable various breakthroughs, drawing from the best that different institutions have to offer to meet the world’s needs. This leads me to an optional, second criterion for grad school: a concentration on science and technology. I have no illusions of being an engineer, but I think I may be able to connect some dots between technical experts, political and economic centers of power, and people who usually have not benefited from technoscientific invention. This might even be a vocation.
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Is the main issue of globalism the problem of how to get beyond nationalism? There have been no substitutes for the nation-state. The United Nations, even if it can be regarded as an experiment in global thinking, is organized upon the assumptions of the primacy of national interests. Global organization remains a dream of those who reside in the world of ideas. It will remain so until some immediate cosmic threat demonstrates the folly of defining ourselves as anything more than simply human.
Academic globalists who entertain themselves with tirades against nationalism, however right they may be in their perspectives and correct in their contentions, will not succeed in getting humans to redefine themselves in terms that transcend past history. That will only happen when some threat, perhaps larger than earth itself, makes the arguments of scientists, politicians, historians and others obviously irrelevant.
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