Globalization: A Non-Western Perspective: The Bias of Social Science/Communication Oligopoly

Abstract

This essay asserts that the discourse on globalization—as filtered through the social science oligopoly of Britain, France, and the United States—is an extension of the dominant (classical) modernization/development paradigm*, traceable to Weber and Hegel, whose views contributed much toward what critics identify today as Orientalism* and Eurocentrism*. Anthropocentrism* and the belief that progress involves emulating the West (center) by the rest (periphery) are part and parcel of social science,* which tends to project its European universalism as universal universalism. This essay argues that an alternative view of globalization is possible through the perspective of Eastern, particularly Buddhist, philosophy,* which sees globalization as an ongoing dynamic process involving the entire environment in which humanity is only one actor. Daoism sees globalization as increasing diversity (engendered by the interaction of yin and yang) in perpetual interaction within unity, which the ineluctable Dao represents.