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Chris and the Glomelet ...

Note: The following is the second in a series of columns on subjects of a philosophical or ethical nature by a Schuyler County resident who prefers to go by the nom de plume of A. Moralis -- a reference to what the writer sees as the lack of a moral compass in this country during this rapidly changing Age of the Internet.

In this entry, the writer uses Christopher Columbus's voyages as a starting point for a look at globalization ... a subject so complex and facing so many entrenched and diverse problems that it has, folded within it, a mixture of competing elements, like an extreme omelet. Thus the title....

By A. Moralis

Schuyler County, Oct. 7 -- Americans have long celebrated an annual holiday known as Columbus Day, the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's landing at what he thought was the Indies -- in the area of East Asia.

But he had actually landed in the Bahamas. He later visited Cuba and then Haiti on that voyage -- and on later voyages discovered the South American mainland and visited what became Central America, all of which triggered the European exploration and takeover of the North American Continent. But he never did visit the mainland of what ultimately became the United States -- a curious fact when you consider how we in the U.S. tend to revere the man. (We might also, when revering, seriously question his policy of dealing with natives, described by various sources as genocide).

Columbus's 1492 voyage came during a contentious sociopolitical era marked by a distinct spike in national imperialism -- a desire among developing nation states to tap into the wealth of the unexplored portions of the world, some of which were reputed to hold great wealth. Trade routes and colonies were the buzzwords of the time. Columbus’s navigational plans consisted of a westward route to the Indies -- the thinking being that such a course would be shorter and more direct than the overland trade routes to the East. If true, Spain with its ships would be able to jump into the profitable spice trade.

There is a sustained belief that Columbus and his crew -- and indeed, most Europeans -- thought the world was flat, and that the three ships on Columbus’s historic voyage might go tumbling off the edge into oblivion. But in truth, most sources attest, folks who mattered -- which is to say the explorers and their backers -- knew the world was round, although nobody knew its circumference for sure.

In fact, Columbus underestimated it. He thought that he was sailing to one place, and ended up in quite another. It was a mistake that ended up boding quite well for the white men from Europe who emigrated to the New World, and not so well for the natives, who Columbus dubbed Indios, thinking (perhaps naturally) that that’s what you should call folks living in the Indies.

It’s ironic, I suppose -- all these centuries later -- that the distances that seemed so daunting then are but of a moment now, thanks to Internet communication. Circumference means little. We communicate from flat screen to flat screen -- and in that sense the world is once again flat.

And it is through that irony that we are again -- or is it still? -- in a charged sociopolitical era marked by the usual nationalistic ids rattling sabers while seeking riches from something quite different than trade routes.

The goal now is the quick buck -- and profit sheets that investors can love -- accumulated through a coordinated movement of regional economies (and, often by extension, cultures) toward globalization -- a term with various definitions but generally referring nowadays to the effort of those economies and cultures to "increasingly integrate" into one worldwide system or something approximating it. This is not Take Over The World globalization -- which could be applied to certain efforts or desires in the long-ago past -- but rather He Wins Who Has The Most Money When He Dies globalization.

Money was a catalyst back in the days of Columbus, and it's a catalyst now. Without realizing it, Columbus did more than just put Spain in an enviable position economically and strategically by finding this continent and the one to our south. He jump-started the world toward whatever it is today.

I suspect, if you could today ask old Cristoforo Colombo of Genoa (one version of Chris’s name) what he thought of what he had wrought, he would, after studying the matter -- the rapid rise of technology, the bombs we’ve created, the overpopulation in many countries, the continuing widespread poverty, the enhanced discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots, and the breakdown of traditional moral values, seemingly accelerating in the wake of the Internet’s arrival -- wring his hands and shake his head and say: “I didn’t know.” I also suspect he would add: “This can’t be good.” Or at least the Genoan equivalent.

That’s not the attitude you’ll find in the history books, of course -- at least American history books. They expound on the grandeur of the European colonization of this New World, of England’s ultimate control of the colonies, of the revolt here, and Independence, and the Alamo, and the Civil War and Reconstruction, and the Rough Riders, and the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam. Those books focus largely on personalties -- ours is, after all, a society that prizes celebrity -- with brief discussions (in sometimes vague and, thus, perhaps misleading, terms) of the philosophies and religious fervors that drove the influential men of history. For they were almost always men, the male having longstanding dominance that the books declare lasted until the 20th century. (Okay, let’s be truthful here: How many female Presidents have we had? And how many female Senators and House members are there? And what about the number of women heading up corporations, or the continued presence of a glass ceiling in the workplace? So can there really be an argument that the male dominance has significantly shifted in the 21st century?)

Inexorably -- and the argument could be made that it would have happened anyway, even if Columbus hadn’t stumbled upon this region -- we have marched onward with the same zeal that he and his explorer cohorts exhibited in their drive toward their own sort of globalization -- a colonizing, explorative kind that likely had world dominance, or least dominance of a good portion of it, on their minds. It’s just that the game of globalization has changed with the rapidly changing times.

A problem with that movement today is the barriers between nations -- symbolic often of vast cultural, economic and religious divides. We have many different economies based on different monetary structures. We have different markets which affect one another, often adversely. We have trade restrictions and trade barriers and sanctions and other impediments, all of which have a firm foundation in nationalism -- in the desire of countries to protect their workers and their economies from incursion by outside forces. And yet those forces have been at play, wreaking havoc on such stalwarts as the American auto industry (with a firm push from the Recession.)

It seems odd that in the drive for globalization, there is little chance of its success -- not in the sense of establishing, say, one currency and one economy for all. We are too often leaving globalization -- in the purest sense, without barriers and boundaries -- to the outlaws of the world ... the druglords and other culprits who operate rather successfully between nations and regions without worrying about the regulations that hinder the rest of us. Maybe, just maybe, governments should take a look at those operations for guidance.

As always -- but more stridently now, given the easy access to the public eyes and ears around the world -- the arguments abound: socialism vs. capitalism. That old standby curmudgeon, Michael Moore, has produced another movie, this time a misbegotten attack on capitalism that calls into question whether his once entertaining powers of movie-making are on the wane.

Conservative and liberal commentators ramble on, columnists and bloggers weigh in, and the economy tilts wildly toward oblivion, only to be propped up by questionable means ... and yet nothing is done to further a move toward what seems logical and reasonable, were this a more perfect world: a uniform economic system worldwide, of a single mind and single currency. But of course that’s too much to ask. Too much has been built in its stead; too much has happened in terms of unique and very different infrastructures, cultures, religious bases and moral foundations.

Considering a widespread suspicion that the government’s bailout and stimulus funds are only stopgap, and that this Recession might yet take a nasty turn, it seems as though there must be a better financial way, global or not ... a way that doesn’t leave us at the mercy of profiteers on Wall Street who mount such economy-bending policies as have been so recently permitted.

But maybe there isn’t.

Anyway, on the upcoming Columbus Day -- celebrated for years on Oct. 12, but now dependent on when we can give our federal employees the nearest Monday off (the second Monday of October) -- it's time to thank old Chris again for his efforts and his zeal and for being the triggerman who sent us onward to where we are today.

Although, as I said, we might have -- probably would have -- reached this point, anyway.

And that, as Chris might say, can’t be good.

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Photo in text: A book on display in the Watkins Glen Public Library with the approach of Columbus Day.