Lets Talk About Globalization! | Charles Beem | TEDxUNCPembroke

[Music] thank you I bring the world with me I have one mission in life make this world a better place to contemplate such a thing is to wear the hat of a philosopher and when you get right down to it that's what philosophers have been doing from Confucius and Plato to Bob Dylan and Beyonce time immemorial she might ask what am I doing to make this world a better place well I start with the little things like being nice to people even when I don't want to and having a smile ready for everyone I meet but are there bigger things that I can do to make this world a better place I think so for the past 25 years I've been teaching a history course called World civilizations it's a survey a runaway train of 4 500 years packed into 15 weeks and a few years back it came to my attention that the the textbook I have been using for years have become quite expensive and I thought to myself rather than pick another textbook I would write my own I'm a writer I like to write and over the years I developed a truckload of ideas concerning the history of civilizations namely how and why we got from early isolated civilizations like Egypt and Mesopotamia to the globally interconnected world we all live in today I know that sounds terribly philosophical but let me tell you what I think in fact let me tell you a little secret for the past 25 years I've been trying to convince my students that making this Earth a more globally interconnected planet is a good thing something to build upon to preserve to cherish but what to call this globalization works really good and you know the world it goes round and round so what is globalization it is a misunderstood concept today and to call someone a globalist isn't exactly to pay them a compliment but I wear that hashtag proudly and with purpose but what are the things that allow globalization to happen you know what are those processes that make that work well we have to get past the idea that it is something associated with you know predatory International capitalism imperialism and colonialism the erosion of national identities the destruction of tropical rainforests and of course the challenges of climate change and pandemic diseases I know it kind of makes you want to maybe build a wall around your house or maybe around your country but walls never work in the long term from the walls of Jericho to the Berlin Wall of the 20th century eventually they all come tumbling down I think Bridges work a whole lot better the peoples of the world have been building bridges to one another since Egypt and Mesopotamia emerged from the Stone Age to create systems of writing which tell us the story of how civilizations became more sophisticated more powerful more interconnected Through Time but what word to call this process I think globalization works really good so I'm just going to take this word and I'm going to sign my own meaning to it the processes by which the peoples of the world come closer together so what is the engine that makes globalization happen I tell my students that it is human capital human capital what is that it is the the result of human productivity humans are resourceful in his novel Robinson Caruso Daniel Defoe imagined a man who could Master an entire Island but what happens when you take a whole lot of Robinson carusos combining their human capital the usual results is an exponential increase in sophistication as The Chariot gave way to the carriage as the carriage gave way to the car and I've been waiting impatiently since a kid for the Flying Saucer to replace the car but you get my drift so what does this have to do with globalization well let me tell you a little story as we historians do two thousand years ago the Chinese invented gunpowder which they used to Delight themselves with fireworks and firecrackers it didn't occur to them to use it to power firearms but China was the Eastern destination of the Silk Roads which traversed Asia from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea on this bustling trade route traveled religions like Islam and Buddhism luxury goods like Silk porcelain spices and Technologies like the formula for gunpowder it was the civilization of Islam that came up the idea of of using gunpowder to blast large cast iron balls out of cannons which they used to blast Down the Walls of Jerusalem and Constantinople Europeans took note and put artillery on the decks of their ships which they used to blast their way into the Americas and Asia all right let me give you a more relatable example of how sophistication works when I was a kid in the 1960s my family had just one telephone it was plugged into the wall so you couldn't take it anywhere for a private conversation there was no way to text you had to talk and when the phone rang you had absolutely no idea who was calling now is the world a better place today I don't know about you but I really like my iPhone a lot so what is that engine that actually makes globalization happen I've talked about that before but it is what I term the Cosmopolitan spirit yes the Cosmopolitan spirit I tell my students that I possess the Cosmopolitan spirit I I'm a Cosmopolitan guy what is this it is a willingness to interact with and learn from people who are different from yourself it is the Cosmopolitan spirit that allows human capital to come together in big bold exciting ways like the emergence of universal religions like Christianity or Buddhism that anyone anywhere can believe in or creating Global Systems of trade that allow me to eat Peruvian blueberries in January or a world in which everyone knows who the Beatles are so this is a history of globalization that I have created for my students so they can go forward and help me make the world a better place from the world of Alexander the Great the world's first globalist to the Roman Empire with its wide-ranging contacts with China and India and the rise of an amazing Cosmopolitan Islamic civilization and the European age of discovery civilizations Rose and fell but through time and space they shared their knowledge they increased their Storehouse of knowledge they increased their sophistication and they solved their problems the world today faces Global problems climate change pandemic diseases world hunger and violent Rogue Nations unwilling to play by the rules of civilized conduct it is my desire that the peoples of this world continue to come closer together to combine their human capital in big bold exciting ways like the way in which the vaccines for the covet came up with that is how the history of this pandemic is going to be written that it was a globalized effort of human capital that came together that saved in warp speed Millions if not billions of lives I say that is a ringing endorsement for globalization so do what you can to help me make the world a better place and be nice to people whenever possible thank you [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 26,333

Keywords: Academic, Classroom, Conflict, Development, Education, English, Global Issues, Globalization, TEDxTalks, [TEDxEID:51784]

Id: IH4gSwAeraQ

Length: 11min 39sec (699 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 02 2023