這是我這學期的一份英文作業。請多指教。 ---- _Childhood's End_ And the Eurocentric Globalization _Childhood's End_ is a science fiction story by Arthur Clarke published in 1953. It is a story about the end of human race. The is a plot of science fiction. However, Clarke's scenarios of the future brought by aliens, are very similar to ours of that brought by eurocentric Globalization. Their resemblance is not superficial, for they are fish out of the same river. Of course, Globalization is now understood as a complex subject. When I use the term in article, I mean the idea that believed soon the logic of international economics would erose national sovereignties and prevail. It begins with alien race "Overlords" arriving the Earth in late 20th century, while USA and Soviet Union were both competing in a "Space Race". Overlords promise to give humans utopia. In a 50 years project, Overlords end all conflicts between nations, and then end all nations. The world is unified by technology brought by Overlords. Quality of life of humans improves greatly, and people live happily for decades. And then humans' childhood ends. Overlords are actually only servants sent by a more superior alien race, "Overmind", to prevent humans from self destruction, and to prepare the childish human race for the next step of evolution. Now the preparation is done, and all children of humans grow into a new supernatural species similar to Overmind, which is completely different from humans. There's no offspring for humans. The race of humans ends here. In the story, the Overlords stopped the Cold War, and then ends the nations without wars. In the real world, Cold War stopped, then Soviet Union collapsed, and then (at least for a period) people believe that after the struggle of ideology, the nations too would end without wars. The key is the improvement of communication. Technology of transportation and communication brought by Overlords eliminates the slightest distinctions between tribes most distant from each other. Clashes of civilizations become things of the past, since there is only one civilization. Meanwhile, the quality of life improves unpresedentaly. This scenario is also envisioned, or at least imagined, by optmists of eurocentric globalization. In economic contexts, globalization is a process of improving international free trade. With incentives of modernization, the drive of international trade would demand more freedom across national borders. During this process, local and national cultures would be influenced by the trend of world, and sovereignties of nations would be weakened. Eventually, through more efficient allocation of resources achieved by international free trade, life standards of humans would be improved. Clearly, both globalization optimists and Clarke's aliens think the best way to improve life standard of human race is to make the world into a small global village. And they both believe that increasing transportation and communication would eventually eliminate cultural gaps and make global village come true. Not only do they share the same view on the basic principles, they also noticed similar obstacles of this process. For example, religion is a well known road block in the way of globalization. Interestingly enough in chapter 6, Overlords provides a machine that can show what really happened in history, such as the truth of specific historic religious event or legend, since then the charms of religion subside. Although I wouldn't make the assumption that globalizaton optimists expect TV and other modern educations to weaken non-western religions. But they both noticed at least some religions would conflicts with the trend of globalization. So far, this is the basic principle how the world peacefully integrate into global village. But there are something remarkable in the words "peacefully" and "integrate". Internet communication with China can not garantee peace of the strait, nor can planes fly directly from Taipei to Shanghai. Transportation and communication are powerful forces. But they alone can not keep peace, nor can they brake down borders set by national sovereignty. Clarke knows that moving the current world to peaceful integration requires a single military superpower, which is capable of keeping the peace and willing to promote integration. In reality, at least for a period, the fact that USA is the single military superpower in post-Cold-War world is critical to the imagination of globalization. In the first chapter, Overlords keep the peace easily with their much superior technological power. Humans noticed that Overlords keep their promise to respect sovereignty of nations for most of times, but they would intervene when basic human rights are violated. And when they do so, no nations can stop them. Doesn't this sound like many of USA's recent intervention in the name of "universal values"? The role Overlords played on Earth, is the role of "World Police", which USA has been trying to play for years. Clarke's idea of power is similar to USA's. On one occasion, the leader of Overlords on Earth speaks of the source of their political power. He says the "correct" use of power is "efficiency". The leader gives an example: if he is to stop Hitler from wagging a war, instead of using his technology to create super bombs to vaporize Hitler's cities, he would use the technology to make a low but unbearable and unstoppable noise to disturb Hitler's sleep, to make him quit wagging a war. This leader's ideas can be compared with US military's "surgical strikes" in "limited conflict" in order to reduce civilian casualties. For example, in the recent war with Iraq, instead of using atomic bombs to vaporize Hussein's city Baghdad, USA use smaller, cheaper but "smarter" bombs to try to attack his residence without affecting other parts of the city. While Overlords successfully achieved efficiency without firing one bullet, US military still causes lots of unnecessary damages. But both of them are more concerned about "efficient use" of power, since they have already out-powered their opponents so much that they are not concerned about their own security. Being merely powerful enough to pursue "mutually assured destruction" can only bring the world into Cold War. Only being powerful enough to pursue "efficient use" of power, which is the way of "World Police",can ahieve the goal of Overlords and globalization optimists. The story ends with the end of human race. The end comes when Overlords' utopia is completed. In reality, interestingly enough, after seeing the collapse of Soviet Union and begining of globalization, Francis Fukuyama published his book The End of History and the Last Man. In the book Fukuyama thinks that the prosperity brought by American superpower and free trade would continue until end of human history. In short, I think these similarities are not superficial, but because Clark too believe many things believed by globalization optimists. *References* "Surgical strike." _Wikipedia_. 16 Aug 2005, 19:40 UTC. 15 Jan 2006, 13:54 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surgical_strike&oldid=21159485>. "Globalization." _Wikipedia_. 14 Jan 2006, 22:55 UTC. 15 Jan 2006, 13:57 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Globalization&oldid=35199667>. ---- 多謝DaNee網友指正. 這個錯誤太好笑了. 不只是第一段沒貼完, 整篇文章都有漏貼. 我用BBS還用的不好. ※ 編輯: attfl 來自: 140.113.4.15 (01/19 06:39)