Many students today are afraid to study religion. Religion as a field in the social sciences is very different from the study of theology. The field of religion is a comprehensive academic study of not only the history of religion but the culture and existential how, and why of religion. Religion acts as a means to many ends in the organizational pattern of many cultures; studying religion is a most excellent entry point into understanding and learning about laws, cultural habits, and policy actions. However students aren’t afraid because of the material, I think it is because of the deeply political religious conflicts that they hear about on the news and the fear of offending or getting sucked into a messy argument over the existential rights and wrongs that exist between religions and what those differences mean.
I study Global Affairs which is not just the study of international relations or governance theories, although it does incorporate both of those disciplines in its discourse. It is more a concentrated study on the world and how it is being affected by Globalization.
So what is it? The going working definition that I will use is that Globalization is an idea that describes the ongoing process of the inclusion of a variety of ideas regardless of their origin on the hopes of future optimization (or truth) in spite of the short term conflict that occurs when two ideas of different salient origins meet. This definition is rough and generic however because it is an ongoing process that affects so many dimensions of reality, Globalization is unknowable, and subject to interpretation.
My definition of Globalization has conflict built into it because as an ongoing process conflict no matter the scale will be involved in the meeting of worlds. If the definition of conflict is a problem I will submit that conflict is a problem of miscommunication over basic identity that causes tensions which can escalate or not. Conflict can be resolved by a meeting of minds over mutual or shared interest that bridges the communication gap and allows for real progress for all parties involved.
The conflict that is storied between internationals over religion is so deep and rich because, while religions can share many things in common. Ultimately they disagree on the unknowable fate of one’s immortal soul and that is the deepest stakes that any conflict can seemingly achieve. This harsh truth was then paved over by years of violent history which has created a powder keg of newly violent super nationalists that are living in the shared ethnic traumas of the past and wrongly view globalization as THE problem which is endangering and explaining away their happiness (or lack there of) in this world, and what is worse it is threatening to take it away from them in the next world. They are in effect exorcising fault to an unknowable unstoppable, phenomenon (globalization).
I hope you have kept up, because I reframed this idea in this way because a broad-scope view of religion is exactly this. Religious faith more than usually involves the submission to a belief in the unknowable and the unstoppable (usually some form of god), and globalization is creating a new undefined cult of globalization where everyone believes, regardless of whether they hate it or love it. The global-philes and the global-phobes of this world are a perfect paradigm of the ultimate identity conflict over religious grounds. The only difference is that the religion over which the two conflicting parties are fighting over IS globalization. The sad part is no one realizes it.
I am not writing this to take away anything from religion. In fact I am not offering a value judgment what so ever on whom or what is right. However religious identity conflict in my opinion is being framed in the wrong way, and so is globalization. All of this in-group versus out-group, them or us paradigm is never going to be resolved until we can reframe the world’s viewpoint into seeing what the actual stakes of this conflict are. If you worship Globalization and drink the Kool-Aid© it does not matter what side on the debate you take. The stakes are peace or not.
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