Ajun Appadurai and George Ritzer

George Ritzer offers us a "hyperreal" view on globalization and the modern society. Indeed, in his opinion, consumption is becoming more and more influenced by non- real things that stimulate it. The non- real society is formed of things like credit cards or telemarketers or Las Vegas and Disneyworld. Take for example Las Vegas. A city built in the desert, out of nothing, and populated with some of the most extravagant constructions in the world. A place where you can lose all your money over the weekend and wonder where you were all along. Hence, one of the best examples of what the hyperreal is actually all about. I prefer to refer to it as the globalization of the hyperreal than the globalization of nothing as George Ritzer names it. However, we cannot deny that globalization nowadays does tend to insist on things that do not necessarily have a spiritual or cultural value and, even more often, not even a material one.

Ajun Appadurai, on the other hand, introduces specific terms when referring to global flows. Things like technoscapes, finanscapes or ethonscapes are chosen to describe in turn global flows of technology, of capital or of people. However, with the exception of global flows of people, I don't really see any difference in his way of thinking as compared to Ritzer's, from this point-of-view. Indeed, many of these global flows are immaterial, not necessarily in the nothing form that George Ritzer uses.

On the other hand, interesting aspects are pointed out in Appadurai's ideas when he refers to the fact that globalization may produce "violent forms of difference and separation," with threats to the national security and identity.

A may thus conclude that both authors have a rather grim outlook on globalization. A form of promoting nothing for one and a source for tensions for another, the global flows of virtually anything is deemed to have less positive consequences on humanity.

Bibliography

1. Fuchs, Christian. Globalization and Self-Organization in the Knowledge-Based Society. On the Internet at (http://triplec.uti.at/articles/tripleC1(2)_Fuchs.pdf

Fuchs, Christian. Globalization and Self-Organization in the Knowledge-Based Society. On the Internet at (http://triplec.uti.at/articles/tripleC1(2)_Fuchs.pdf