MAKING OF THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD

What really intrigued me in particular was the idea of a redivision of impoverishment. That is, poverty becoming more concentrated in cities instead of the countryside. Having taken classes in urban studies before, this assertion resonated with what I learned regarding the relative redistribution of wealth in many countries, especially in most U.S. cities. The rapid movement of middle and upper-class people from U.S. cities to the suburbs in response to growing numbers of lower-income city neighbors is an example of what Bright and Geyer suggest. In turn, they would be correct in presuming there are no longer nations, at least in countries where this has occurred or is still occurring.

The cities that are supposedly filled with culture and interaction, facilitating shared national identity, are now being repurposed as large-scale attractions and theme parks in a sense, largely ignoring the plight of their lower-income residents in favor of catering to tourists and young professionals. In fact, cities largely cater to an implicit locational segregation between much of the higher and lower income peoples in their city, removing any chance for a unified national identity through constant interaction. This is intensified further with those who have moved out to the suburbs, who go further in distancing themselves from lower-income persons to create their own suburban strongholds and “utopias”. A national mindset is then harder to manifest in the populace in the modern era.

If any nationalist mindsets would manifest themselves in these differing communities, they would most likely manifest along cultural, ethnic or racial lines (for example, white nationalism and supremacy in the U.S.). This would do more to harm any national unity than to enrich it, as various national identities could spring up amongst willingly (and unwillingly) segregated communities.

Bright and Geyer argue that the great divergence “does not project well to the end of the century” (295) as countries all over the world created their own “modern” societies by adopting some western practices and developing their own. The ideas of westernization does not result in some form of enlightenment but instead, one way of development. Thinking of  the world needing to catch up to the west assumes that the west is doing something, in terms of human development as fundamentally right. This is seen as the great convergences has “los[t] cogency and descriptive power,  at least since the 1970s” (295). Each country has its own idea of right and wrong and moving towards a western European model is not fundamentally what each country wants to do. I agree with the authors in stating that the west of the world finds its own ways to react to the changing western Europe instead of trying to being it. Fighting to keep their social and political independence as more and more competitors appear in a more global economy is the main focus in non western nations.

I believe that in most ways the world in becoming more globalized. As times progresses it seems that countries are starting to work together and help each other get through things. But on the other hand I also have seen that this really doesn’t apply everywhere.

This past summer I took a cruise to Nassau, Grand Turk, and Cozumel.
Walking around some of theses third world countries and islands I noticed that, they didn’t have the technological advances we have around here. They drive cars with no air conditioning, they have no running water in a majority of homes, majority of people sleep on the streets, and one thing that really stuck out to me was I noticed their houses weren’t built like ours back here. Seeing these things made it very clear that not a whole lot of jobs were attainable and money was limited. Therefore I believe not everyone is as caught up as all countries and I believe that there should be an organization to help these countries prosper.

On page 295, Bright and Geyer comment that, “the ‘great divergence’…does not project well to the end of the century,” then follow immediately with the statement that, “narratives of a ‘great convergence’…have been losing cogency and descriptive power.” I agree with Bright and Geyer that neither of these ideas hold much water. The ‘great divergence’ is spoken about extensively in their article, but they only really mention the idea of a ‘great convergence’ once. I think this is an important point that underpins much of recent history as well as these arguments of the ‘great divergence’, globalization, modernity, and survivalism.

The idea of the ‘great divergence’ suggests that the entire world was moving towards a single point of modernity, but somewhere along the way, paths diverged. Some nations rapidly continued toward that point while others fell behind and were forced to ‘catch up’. Globalization embodies this idea of a ‘great convergence’ fundamentally. They both present the idea that all the various actors in the world will live in a single homogenous, modern society. Only the idea of survivalism rejects this idea. There are many different paths and end points to the idea of progress and an advanced society.

The in Bright and Gayer article the authors dicuss how after the 1800s there was a change refered to as “The Great Divergence” during these period certain parts of theworld begane having succesful industrialization which resulted is increase in the countries wealth. The aritcle states, “the regional balance of power in the world in favor of European-based empire, meant aggressive assertions of western power” (Bright and Gayer 289). During this, the authors dicuss how historians can view the following events differently. The author discuss how the rest of the world then scrambles to match these levels. The authors refer to this as “survival” and is hesistant to use the words “catching up.” We have previously been dicussing Bayly in class and adressing “the motors of change.” These changes are what has driven history to be the mordern world we live in today. One of the biggest changes that drives history is the rise and fall of Ecomonic wealth. The idea of catching up is impossible, instead countires attempted to do anything they could in order to at least compete with European Empires, which is survival.

I agree with Bright and Geyer, that the strategies adopted to cope with the conditions of globality have changed over the last 150 years, rather than the idea of globality itself. This is true because every country has always wanted to expand and globalize to have more control, power and just better economic status and continue to do so. So that hasn’t changed but the ways to globalize and the ideas about globalization has changed.

I also agree with their idea that the parts of the world that aren’t as stable as the countries that are, are no longer trying to catch up with them-rather they are just trying to survive. Some countries that aren’t as stable may be trying to ‘catch up’ in a way so that they can be more peaceful and/or economically stable; but they are  really trying to survive. They might be too far behind financially, economically or politically to catch up with more successful and powerful countries, so all they can do is try to survive in the today’s society.