Totality and Ambivalence: Postmodern Responses to Globalization and the American Empire Copyright 2004 Paul Corey Eric Voegelin's resistance to Fascist and Communist totalitarianism stands as a model of ethical protest for us today. If so, then how should we respond to the totality we presently call "globalization" and to the powers that promote globalization � particularly the United States. Clearly, if we refer to globalization as a form of "totalitarianism" it must be qualified immediately. Globalization is not characterized by state surveillance and concentration camps. Still, globalization, like any totalitarian movement, aspires for completeness, and this is causing violence � both intentional and unintentional. This paper will examine reactions to "globalization" in a post-September 11 context by thinkers who are frequently classified as "postmodern." I will concentrate on two prominent French theorists, Jean Baudrillard and Jacques Derrida, who share similar understandings of the general phenomenon of globalization, but who arrive at remarkably different conclusions. Baudrillard, in his response to globalization, wants to free himself from the heritage of the Enlightenment and modernity. Derrida, on the other hand, is not as "postmodern" as people often think, and this has become clearer over the past decade. Derrida wants to curb the excesses of globalization by reviving the spirit of the Enlightenment. He cherishes the heritage of the Enlightenment, but he wants to "intervene," to criticize certain features of it in order to improve upon it and keep its promise alive. Derrida is, in fact, highly ambivalent about modernity, even about globalization, which he believes is "for better and for worse." Postmodernity, Globalization and Universality Let us begin by recalling Jean-Fran�ois Lyotard's famous definition of postmodernity as "incredulity toward metanarratives."1 [1] The postmodern condition is characterized by skepticism or mistrust of any ontology, cosmology, ideology, sociology, psychology, theology, or historicism that claims to be absolute and total. Any form of thought or action that claims to have absolute knowledge of all phenomena, and that promises total control of the human and natural environments, is now immediately suspect. Zygmunt Bauman points out that modern institutions of all sorts, through bureaucracy, science and technology, have struggled to achieve "universality, homogeneity, monotony, and clarity." Progressive liberal societies have certainly aspired to actualize these ends. However, Fascism and Communism were the most radical expressions of this struggle in the twentieth century. The legacy of the totalitarian aspiration to created a unified system that is perfectly regulated, absolutely efficient, and cleansed of all human "contaminants" is one of oppression, war, concentration camps and genocide. As a result, modernity has produced unintended consequences. Bauman argues that the postmodern condition is characterized by "pluralism, variety, contingency and ambivalence" � that is, by the very things that modern society tried to overcome but which it ironically produced at ever increasing rates.2 [2] In advanced Western societies, there is now widespread mistrust of any political or religious movement that claims to be complete. The modern desire to unify has been replaced, to some extent, by a postmodern recognition of, and respect for, plurality and difference. Deconstructionists point out that philosophical, religious and political metanarratives always exclude certain elements or "others" that undermine the internal consistency of a totality. Deconstruction aims to reintroduce these excluded elements, not so that the totality can be destroyed, but so that it can be criticized, destabilized, and modified � so that it can be shown its incompleteness. This emphasis on otherness, difference and destabilization can sometimes lead to nihilistic relativism � an accusation that is frequently leveled at postmodern thinkers. But it would be unfair to characterize all postmodern thought in this way. As Bauman has said, it is possible to identify oneself as a postmodern "without necessarily accepting every rubbish written in the name of postmodern theory."3 [3] If it is true that the modern desire for universality and homogeneity is dead, then what are we to make of the current phenomenon we now call "globalization"? The word itself signifies a single movement that encompasses the world, and is thus ostensibly at odds with the postmodern sensibility. Derrida prefers to use the French word mondialisation rather than globalization so that he can refer to the "world" � or, in French, monde � rather than the territorial "globe."4 [4] Mondialisation is liberated from geography, thanks to the creation of teletechnologies and virtual reality. It presents itself as a movement that creates a unified "world," not by seizing territory and colonizing, but through the expansion of Western markets, technology, values and popular culture. Simply put, globalization is residual modernity. It is a movement that is essentially modern in its ambitions but which emerged just as it became clear that modern ambitions are essentially unrealizable. When speaking about globalization, it is important, as always, to distinguish appearance from reality. There is, first of all, the spectacle of globalization, or, to use Voegelinian terminology, globalization as "second reality." Globalization, as spectacle, is the apocalyptic victory of Western capitalist democracy over all other political forms. As such, it represents the penultimate, once-and-for-all, triumph of freedom and democracy over oppression and totalitarianism. Francis Fukuyama, that popular evangelist of globalization, proclaimed in 1989 that we had reached the "end of history." The Cold War divide between the superpowers was being replaced by a new unified world order. Fukuyama, using terminology borrowed from Alexandre Koj�ve, referred to this emerging totality as the "universal and homogenous state," a world order that, politically, is increasingly democratic, and, economically, increasingly capitalistic. Though there may be some setbacks along the way, the movement toward the universal and homogenous state is inevitable. All other political and economic forms � monarchy, aristocracy, theocracy, totalitarianism, slave economies, feudalism, socialism � have exhausted themselves. With globalization, we have reached the eschaton; the apocalyptic events are occurring as we speak, and the news is good, notwithstanding Fukuyama's own ambivalence about the shallow "last man" produced by such an apocalypse. Markets and borders will open up, the human race will become more interconnected, there will be universal access to technology and consumer goods, and there will be equality of opportunity. Authoritarian states around the world will collapse under the momentum of this movement. Indeed, there will be a general diminution of state power around the world. The universal and homogenous "state" operates by an ethos of "deregulation," which is perhaps a postmodern acknowledgement of fragmentation. However, the desire for a world with a single political and economic form is entirely modern. The guarantor of this final world order is the world's only remaining superpower, the United States, which, ostensibly, has the military and economic strength to protect Western democracies, markets, and values as they become global. But so much for the dream. First of all, the spectacle of globalization suggests that Western political values spread naturally with Western free markets � as if the two are inseparable and necessarily linked. This is not, however, the case, as has been pointed out time and time again. One need only mention China to demonstrate how easy it is for a country to embrace free market capitalism and Western popular culture without accepting liberal democracy. Thus, while it might be correct to say that Western markets, consumer goods, technology, and popular culture are spreading, the same cannot be said of Western democratic values. To explain this reality, Baudrillard makes a distinction between "globalization" and "universality." He writes: "Between the terms �global' and �universal' there is a deceptive similarity. Universality is the universality of human rights, freedoms, culture, and democracy. Globalization is the globalization of technologies, the market, tourism, information."5 [5] Universalists desire to see the worldwide recognition of human rights, the application of international law, the rise of the global standard of living, the decrease of the disparity between rich and poor, and the spread of more representative forms of government. Globalization, on the other hand, facilitates the spread of free markets, consumer goods, technology, information, and telecommunications. We see the conflict between universalizers and globalizers in the protests that frequently accompany meetings of the IMF or the G8. However, the "antiglobalization" movement protesting out in the streets is not, in fact, against world order per se. Though the motives of the protesters are many and varied, and often at odds with each other, there is a general sense that these protesters desire to curb economic deregulation. In their eyes, the unregulated market is compromising human rights and aggravating economic disparity. Thus, the tense standoffs in places such as Seattle and Genoa were between two different visions of what constitutes the best form of universal world order.