Lunamania

Although much of my professional work deals with the myriad consequences of global migration of individuals, families, industries, capital, and values, with a small handful of exceptions, I am ill-read on the various Big Thinkers of Globalization. So, I took it as some cosmic sign (or maybe just good product placement by the folks at Cody's Books) when I found Thomas Friedman’s, “The World is Flat,” and “Alternatives to Economic Globalization” next to each other -- a concise pairing of the Pep Rally for Globalization and the Grumblings from its Malcontents. I’ve made it through the first third of Friedman’s book and don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to the end.

I know I’m under-employed and working out more regularly and all, but I don’t know if I am fit enough to suspend reality for 400 more pages. Even if I can, it may result in addiction to heavy psych meds to quiet the voices in my head providing color commentary to wide-eyed passages along the lines of, “I walked into the Infosys campus in Bangalore where I passed a young man who looked like he could do my taxes, a woman who looked like she could build my computer, and a woman who looked like she could write all of the software for it!” What exactly does this mean? If that wasn’t enough of an illustration of his ability to identify mental agility and professional skills with one glance, less than 50 pages later, Friedman let's us know he can also predict SAT scores based on what one looks like-- something along the lines of being surrounded young Indians, “who looked like they had scored perfect 1600s on their SATs.” I’m told that the middle and latter sections of the book deal with the parts of the world that are “less flat,” but I don’t know if I’m up for such an extended suspension of my reality.

To be fair, Friedman’s analytical faults --massive over simplification, sweeping generalizations about not just individuals, but entire countries, and a disturbingly Darwinian approach to history -- are not unique to his neoliberal ilk. If I read it keeping in mind that Friedman’s primary moral queries of himself as he embarked on this book was, “Is this good for America?” and “What’s gonna happen to MY American kid?” then there’s a lot to learn about how to advance a political agenda by telling a great story.

He has that unassuming, “gosh, I started knowing as little as you. We can figure this it out together!” approach that is inviting with any complicated topic. He also lacks that annoying patronizing tone of many political reads--well, at least as directed to the reader if not to the Indian and Chinese call-center folks (who according to Friedman are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to labor for $100 month so Their Countries can assume their proper place as drudge labor in the “inevitable” global economy).

All that means, unlike the “Alternatives to Economic Globalization,” millions of people read this book. Sifting through the “Alternatives" book, I once again realized our side could really benefit from balancing our ever clever exercises in political analysis and “breaking shit down” with some readable writing/story telling (and not of the slam poet variety).

Comments are always open to recommendations for good reads.