Self discovery and the development of an identity are certainly two of the most important processes we go through. In the Micklethwait article on page 14, he discusses the way globalization allows and prevents self-identification. Globalization allows the freedom and opportunity to develop a personal identity outside of local or national boundaries. It also permits society to become isolated preventing the maturity of self. Micklethwait states, “In the same breath that he praised America’s faith in individualism, Tocqueville warned of the danger that each man may be ‘shut up in the solitude of his own heart'” (14). Globalization allows the growth of self-identity while at the same time providing the tools for the suffocation of individualism. This idea relates to page 60 when Sklair discusses the transnational capitalist class. Here it says that people of transnational capitalist class “consider themselves citizens of the world as well as of their places of birth”. Paralleling this idea to the previous one, there could be great potential to create a more profound identity drawing from many cultures and viewpoints. However, there is also the possibility of stifling one’s preexisting identity with overwhelming change and displacement.
http://www.theasianeye.net/en/node/110
