How Much Globalization Can We Bear?
Rüdiger Safranski
Polity
According to current deabtes, 'individualization' has frequentlybeen proposed as the conceptual counterpart to 'globalization'. Ithas often seemed that nothing would be left once these processeshave fully unfolded, other than individual human atoms dispersed ona globe without any political, economic or culturalstructures.


Regardless of whether this description is based on any good andvalid observation, nobody drew the conclusion that suddenly emergesas evident after reading Rudiger Safranski's lucid and timelyexploration of the issue: globalization, if it occurs, means aradical change in the human condition. It brings human being indirect confrontation with the world in its totality. Almostunnoticed in broader debate, the scenario of globalization entailsa return - in new a radical guise - of the time-honoured questionof the ways of being-in-the-world of human beings.


In this compelling new book, the philosopher Rudiger Safranskigrapples with the pressing problems of the global age: 'BigBrother' states, terrorism, international security and the seemingimpossibility of 'world' peace. He suggests that the eraofglobalization should not be thought of as that epoch in worldhistory in which all human beings will see themselves in the same,indistinct situation. There will always be, Sanfranski argues, someneed for understanding one's own situation by drawing boundariesand conceptualizing 'otherness' and individuality.