link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring
many miles away” (cited in Michael Murphy 2006:140). The logic that emerges from the
foregoing is that which compels us to accept the fact of the dismantling of all boundaries,
both virtual and territorial, as we witness the ascension of a planetary order in which
there is a levelling of all spaces. Such levelling, in principle, provides the groundwork for
the realization of a global equilibrium. In this case, the previously invoked yardsticks of
differentiation between races and nations are pronounced obsolete as the world appears to
be framed by the similar happenings and concerns which call for responses that will
ultimately leave no one in doubt as to the possibility of being governed by certain
irresistible developments and conditions of living. Once this line of thought is pursued
further, it is not difficult to accept the simultaneous philosophical espousal for the
invention of universal patterns of morality by which all, irrespective of where they live,
can have a sense of connectivity and belonging in the global village.
The absence of consensus as to what constitutes globalization may then account for why
Stan Smith (2006:1) concurs with Holdersness and Loughrey in suggesting that “it might
be more accurate to speak of overlapping, interacting and conflicting globalizations , each
with its own teleology of origins and ends, its visions of apocalypse, continuity and
renewal.” Another way of simplifying the notion of globalization is to see it as a concept
that has united and divided scholars and nations into camps such as the globalist and the
anti-globalist (Peter Dicken 2004: 9). While the globalists tend to defend and celebrate
the virtues and benefits, real and potential, the anti-globalists tend to approach the
concept from the angle of the contradictions it inheres and which undermine its
objectives. The fact of the contradictions and the failure to as much hold together all
peoples and nations as envisaged, whereby the mandate of blurring differences becomes
difficult to accomplish, explains why it is no longer uncommon to talk about
“globalisation and its discontents” (Stan Smith 2006: iii). Thus the stretch and
imbrications of globalization which are as convergent as they are conflicting require that
each writer at every point in time identifies a working definition through which he
contributes to the discourse while staying alive to other possible approaches, which hold
useful values of reinforcement and contrast for his argument.