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What can I know (if trust in knowledge has been lost)? 139
‘This does not prevent the majority of political and economic analysts
from talking about the success of globalisation and the equalisation of
economic performance. The development indicators clearly support their
claims, so we have to recognise that these countries stand to win, at
least according to the rules of the global game of capitaly. What they
leave out is that this game is being played in a packed hospital ward and
that success in the game does not have much bearing on the survival of
the players.
Among the incidental effects of globalisation, one should be
highlighted: worldwide economic integration led to an exponential
increase in the demand for the transport of goods and long-distance
travel. A significant part of the burnt fossil fuels drives airplanes,
automobiles, trucks and ocean liners or serves the automotive industry
that manufactures them and the construction of roads and motorways.
Furthermore, humanity, accustomed to constant mobility, has been
seized with a veritable travel frenzy and the victims of mass tourism do
their best even in their free time to facilitate global warming. The
astounding increase in traffic is a major factor of climate change, but is
in large part responsible for the pollution of the air and water as well.
As for the motorways, they eliminate the connection among habitats
and cut off routes of reproduction, thus exercising a fatal impact on
biological diversity.
Among the social consequences, I would like first of all to mention
the fundamental transformation of the nature of political rule. This has
an extremely close connection with the transformation of the social
sphere. The decisions that determine the fate of humanity are no longer
made in one country or another but instead far from all local societies,
in a previously non-existent environment, often characterised as non¬
place, since it cannot be placed in physical space. This environment
(virtual space) was created by the contact between the most influential
actors who transcend local control, in the areas of the economy, science,
culture and politics (taken in a stricter sense) alike. No country can back
out anymore from the effect of the interests and power relations being
developed in the global networks and transnational organisations, from
the opinions being formed there and from the information being
transmitted there. The new situation could be briefly characterised thus:
the deepening and extension of horizontal communicative connections
has come at the cost of vertical communication: the connection between
the social elites and the lower classes, which but recently was known as
social control, responsible government and the accountability of power,