Amy Chua, "A World on the Edge," and:

• Mary Kaldor, "Beyond Militarism, Arms Races, and Arms Control"
• Mary Kaldor, "Beyond Militarism, Arms Races, and Arms Control" and Martha Nussbaum, "Women and Cultural Universals"
• Mary Kaldor, "Beyond Militarism, Arms Races, and Arms Control" and Eric Schlosser, "Global Realization"
• Eric Schlosser, "Global Realization"
• Eric Schlosser, "Global Realization" and Alexander Stille, "The Ganges' Next Life"
• Alexander Stille, "The Ganges' Next Life"
• Deborah Tannen, "The Roots of Debate in Education and the Hope of Dialogue"

For more assignment ideas involving this essay, please visit the Chua link-o-mat.

Globalization and Society: Amy Chua and Mary Kaldor

In your first paper you explored the effects of war on contemporary social structure. You began to think about how the world has reacted to globalization, rising nationalism/fundamentalism and new technology. Kaldor talks of the 'new' warfare as having a vested political and economic interest in continued violence (Kaldor 388).  Now Chua discusses reaction to globalization and efforts by highly focused groups to find satisfaction by violently appropriating that which is owned and controlled by the market dominant minorities. What are the connections between Americanization of other cultures, loss of national identity, and a single world community? How is this attempt at homogenization an answer to the violence in contemporary culture? In what way might you believe it is the reason for it?   

Questions to Ponder:

• Is it right to try to impose our values and culture on other countries and societies? 
• Would a more culturally sensitive approach by American businesses to the community make our presence there more palatable?
• Why do you think 'they hate us'?
• How does the 'new' warfare give radical organizations like Al Qaeda, Shining Path, and others a feeling of righteousness, power, and control?

For the rest of the assignments in this sequence, please visit our sample sequences page.

Molly Burke, Rutgers University, Spring 2005

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Tradition and the Rights of the Individual : Amy Chua, Mary Kaldor, and Martha Nussbaum

In "Women and Cultural Universals," Nussbaum maintains that it is important to have both internal and external capabilities to achieve Central Human Functional Capabilities. Although her immediate concern is the plight of women in achieving these capabilities, they have implication for all humans. In previous papers we have discussed globalization and the effect it has had on changing cultures. We recognized that there are several ways to view globalization--some observers might argue that globalization will produce a richly diverse world society. These people might point out that just as American culture flows into places like India and China, so the values and outlooks of other societies flow into the US as well. Others will argue that globalization is a form of cultural hegemony that consumes local culture in an effort to create a single world culture. 

For your next paper, I would like you to examine the concern of balancing society's responsibilities as outlined in Nussbaum's list of Central Human Functional Capabilities against globalization and its effect on established local customs. Rather than arguing "for" or "against" globalization, however, I want you to explore the complexities of the issue.  

Questions to Ponder:

• Is there a connection between the fears that market dominant minorities will "swallow up" a country's culture and the idea that giving women autonomy will undermine the morals and values of society?
• Is Nussbaum's list of Central Human Functional Capabilities biased by her upbringing? Would these capabilities make sense in China, Japan, Senegal, Egypt or Brazil?
• What is the impact of the military and war--in its new and traditional forms--on human functional capabilities?
• What similarities are there to America's global cultural, economic, military and political might to those same controls wielded by countries that oppress women by denying them personal autonomy? 

For the rest of the assignments in this sequence, please visit our sample sequences page.

Molly Burke, Rutgers University, Spring 2005

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Amy Chua, Mary Kaldor, and Eric Schlosser

Writing assignment:

What are the ways in which the US can recuperate its image and reestablish itself as a positive role-model in the apparently inevitable process of globalization? Should the US try to do that at all? Combining all three readings, position yourself towards these issues and present your own argument in a persuasive manner.  

Food for thought:

Kaldor, Schlosser, and Chua explore the role of America in present-day global military, economic and cultural changes. The authors delineate both positive and negative impacts of US dominance on the world scene and the consequences it has on the image of the USA in the eyes of other nations. Amy Chua, in particular, engages in the discussion of anti-American sentiment on the most immediate basis. She perceives in this recent phenomenon not only valid nation-based attempts to resist "Americanization" and humiliation in the face of a culturally and economically dominant state, but also a more complicated process of "demagogue-fueled mass resentment against a market-dominant minority" (Chua 231). The visible (and often terrifying) costs of the anti-American climate cry for a solution to this complex cultural and socio-political development.   

For the rest of the assignments in this sequence, please visit our sample sequences page.

Sanja Bahun, Rutgers University, Spring 2005

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Amy Chua and Eric Schlosser

As Chua points out, a number of countries have responded occasionally to multinational foreign investment by nationalizing American owned companies.  In the 1930s, for example, the Mexican government nationalized the entire Mexican oil industry which, until then, had been controlled by American and British companies, a move that was wildly popular with Mexicans. Imagine that the Mexican government is considering a move to nationalize the growing operation of McDonald's in that country. What feelings and thoughts might encourage Mexicans to support a government confiscation of McDonald's, and what groups would be most likely to endorse such a move? What would be the arguments against nationalization, and who would make these arguments? Do not confine your paper to Chua's explicit discussion of nationalization. Both essays provide explicitly or implicitly several specific arguments for and against the spread of American multinational corporations, arguments that would be relevant to a debate on nationalization.   

Questions to get you started:

Reread Chua's discussion of various attempts by governments to nationalize foreign-owned businesses. How does her discussion of nationalization fit into her overall argument?  What causes "fear," "resentment," and "envy" toward the US and what role would these factors play in such a decision? To what degree does the economic inequality that Chua describes justify nationalization? What role might "hegemony,"  "cultural imperialism," and "market domination" by a minority play in this debate? What do the various case histories she recounts suggest about the feasibility of confiscation? Why was nationalization popular even when it was not economically successful? Find passages in Schlosser that apply to this debate. Be sure to identify the different factors that are relevant to this debate. Some are economic, some cultural, some political (i.e. questions of power). Do not be satisfied with a partial explanation. If you think that some of the factors suggested in the reading are not relevant, do not ignore them; explain why you think they are not important.

Sally Sevcik, Rutgers University, Spring 2005

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Amy Chua, Eric Schlosser, and Alexander Stille

Stille spends a good deal of "The Ganges' Next Life" considering what he calls "the complex double identity" of Mishra. Drawing on examples from all three essays and what you have learned about globalization from these essays, I want you to think about how globalization contributes to mixed and conflicting identities. How does globalization relate to "complex double identities," your own and those described in the texts? You may focus on your own identity by setting it in relation to examples in the texts or entirely on those described in the texts.  You may consider how globalization contributes to conflicting identities and also consider the problems and advantages such identities offer in a global world.   

Questions to get you started:

Exactly what is a "complex double identity"? Does everyone have one? Compare and contrast figures from the different texts to arrive at your definition. How do examples from Chua and Schlosser differ from the model offered by Mishra? What difficulties and strengths do the conflicts in Mishra's identity create? How is identity developed? What is the role of media in creating identity? What examples of double identity seem closest to your own experience? To what degree is your identity double, triple, or complex? In what ways is your identity related to globalization?

Sally Sevcik, Rutgers University, Spring 2005

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Amy Chua and Alexander Stille

Stille spends a good deal of "The Ganges' Next Life" considering what he calls "the complex double identity" (538) of Mishra, noting that “Like India itself . . . Mishra is trying to incorporate what is best from the West in order to preserve the Hindu traditions that he loves” (540). Stille uses Mishra as an example of challenges faced by India as a whole. He writes that “the battle to clean up the Ganges is about much more than the environmental future of a river. Just as the river is a symbol of India, its cleanup is a test of India’s condition fifty years after independence, and the outcome may answer some of the fundamental questions about the country’s future” (Stille 539) Although Chua is more concerned with global trends than examples taken from the lives of individuals, she argues that the importance of ethnic identity as one of the main factors informing globalization has been overlooked: “It is ethnicity, however, that gives the combination of markets and democracy its special combustibility. Ethnic identity is not a static, scientifically determinable status but shifting and highly malleable (Chua 112).

Questions: How can the complex identities discussed by Stille be used to address the challenges presented by globalization? How could William Oswald’s sensitivity to the national and religious identity of Indians be used as an example to “address the potentially explosive problems of ethnic resentment and ethnonationalist hatred” cited by Chua (115)?

How does globalization inform or even produce "complex double identities"? What problems and advantages do such identities offer in a global world? How do examples of individual and collective identity presented by Chua differ from the model offered by Mishra? What difficulties and strengths do the conflicts in Mishra's identity create? What is the role of media in creating identity? How do the examples discussed in Stille’s essay complicate the idea that accepting/embracing globalization will lead to a loss of identity? Stille discusses the limited utility of a Western model of waste management in India . What are the implications of the solution Stille presents for the difficulty of exporting other Western models such as free markets and democracy as discussed by Chua?

Suzy Ford and Francis Fletcher, Fall 2005

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Amy Chua and Deborah Tannen

Writing assignment:

Could a change of our "adversarial culture" into a "culture of dialogue" (with a concomitant change in political discourse) generate wider transformations in the economical, cultural, and political conduct of the USA? Would this shift in the model of interrelating lessen the amount of resentment other countries feel towards the USA as a "global economical minority" and how? Drawing closely on the work of Deborah Tannen and Amy Chua, please develop your own argument concerning this issue.

For the rest of the assignments in this sequence, please visit our sample sequences page.

Sanja Bahun, Rutgers University, Spring 2005

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