English 1A: Improvement!

Globalization: Politically Correct Prejudice

Is globalization the world’s cure for all things prejudiced, or is it just a way to transform racism into a more politically correct institution? In How Soccer Explains the World, Franklin Foer argues that globalization doesn’t reduce racism as modernization theorists claim, it only hides it slightly better so as to make it more acceptable to the general public. While almost every race and religion has suffered through some form of prejudice, the Jews have been one of the most persecuted. Anti-Semitism was what caused Jewish athletes to be considered a joke, and today this kind of racism still exists, albeit in a less dangerous way than it once was. Foer believes that anti-Semitism combined with globalization led to WWII, and that Globalization hasn’t rid the world of racism; only changed it. He also claims that to eradicate racism is possible, which I think can never happen because prejudice is a part of human nature which can never be extracted.

Of the many stereotypes that have become fodder for comedians, Jewish stereotypes have been used more throughout history than any other, and have generally caused much amusement. Just one of these numerous stereotypes is the idea that Jews are the world’s worst athletes. Ironically, before World War II and one of the world’s greatest ethnic genocides, Jews had become some of the world’s finest soccer players.

For many years, Jews believed that to do well in sports was to prove to society that they were as good as anyone else, to prove that they belonged. As Foer demonstrates in detail, “An entire movement of Jews believed that soccer, and sport more generally, would liberate them from the violence and tyranny of anti-Semitism” (Foer 69). While many people thought that Jews engaged in soccer just to prove their superiority over others, this was not the case. Foer explains that Jews did want to show their sense of nationalism to the rest of the world, but the purpose wasn’t to alienate, it was to assimilate. They just wanted to be accepted as an equal part of society, and not as strangers in their own home. They wanted their efforts to be noticed, and they wanted the achievements of Jews to be known all over the world, to be globalized.
Jews believed that if their successes were known around the world, they would be accepted into society. Unfortunately, while their Jewish pride was strong, anti-Semitism was stronger. Even the Jews themselves felt the pull of this anti-Semitism, feeling that they were somehow less than others and must go to extra lengths to prove themselves. Foer postulates that “Zionism and modern European anti-Semitism dripped out of the same fin–de-siecle intellectual spout” (Foer 70). Foer talks of seeing this kind of Jew on Jew racism when he hears Max Nardau’s description of fellow Jews being physically inferior and describes it as “creepy” (Foer 70). He is referring to the effect racism often has on its recipients, especially the kind of open racism that went on just before the Holocaust. This kind of racism changes people’s opinions of themselves; it makes them think that they have something to prove to others, some extra step they need to take in
order to belong. Oftentimes, no matter how hard you try, racism gains the upper hand, as it did with the coming of World War II. Instead of Jewish pride being globalized, only Jewish hate was, and Hitler actively spread his ideas of a world cleansed of the Jewish people through the same techniques globalization uses today: the media, mass propaganda, personal bias, and the need to have a universal culture. The Nazis even went so far as to try to use a documentary of Jews in the concentration camps to prove how well they were being treated and that there really was no genocide, just so people could keep pretending they didn’t know it was happening and could feel they had no active part in it.

Foer argues that while globalization should have eliminated anti-Semitism, especially in our modern age of what is supposed to be racial equality, anti-Semitism has never really gone away. “By most counts, continental anti-Semitism is as prevalent as it has ever been in the post-war era, or even more so”(Foer 71). He agrees that anti-Semitism has changed, but only in that it is now harder to see, and therefore harder to get rid of. He believes that this is one of the main factors supporting his idea that globalization doesn’t work; that if it did anti-Semitism, along with all racism, would be in the process of being eradicated, but it is really only growing and becoming a stronger entity. Foer believes that to wholeheartedly support globalization is to support a new kind of hidden racism that society may never recover from.

In many ways I am in complete agreement with Foer and his controversial ideas. Before WWII Jews all over the world began to rise in social status; from having higher paying and more prestigious jobs, to becoming world renown musicians, artists, and athletes. Yet, most of these Jews, along with millions of others, were brutally murdered in the Holocaust, and nations all over the world either openly or quietly supported the extermination of Jews. The idea of extracting Jews from society spread across the world, and rather than horrify the general public as globalization theorists would argue it should have, many nations supported erasing Judaism out of existence, although not all would openly admit to supporting genocide. Interestingly enough, the Nazi party never actively tried to hide their efforts to rid the world of its pesky Semitic residents, it only tried to gloss over the ways in which they were going about it. A German Nazi named Eichler wrote an essay on the effects of Jewish persecution at the start of WWII claiming, “The world paid attention. It saw that it was no longer a matter of theory, that it was not merely the anti-Semitism of an earlier age, but rather that the final reckoning with Jewry had begun” (Eichler). While some countries did fight back against the Germans, it was more because they didn’t want to give up power than a need to protect Jews.

One thing that Foer and globalization theorists would agree on is that prejudice is something learned which may be un-learned. However, I believe that prejudice is really a reaction to competition, more of a natural instinct than anything else. When we compete we place ourselves in levels of superiority, a kind of social stratification which exists in every society, and trying to resist this instinct to feel that we have done better than someone else can only be a temporary action. In Social Behavior[Its Elementary Form, George Casper Homans conducted an extremely interesting sociological experiment using young children as his subjects of study. He watched how they played a beanbag game to judge how they responded to competition, and discovered that when a team felt cheated because they were losing or superior because they were winning they began to openly show hate and disdain for their fellow teams and began to form close bonds with their own team members. Homans concluded from his study that, “As for competition between groups, it is…likely to increase the hostility members of one group express towards members of the other” (Homans 144). When we compete against each other, our instinct is to form bonds with those on our side, and to compete against those who aren’t.

Humans would argue that the way to solve this problem of inequality breeding prejudice and discrimination is to eliminate competition altogether and become a socialist or communist society. In my opinion, this is a romantic, idealistic point of view which cannot be supported by history or sociology. Socialism can never and will never work because it goes against human nature; the desire to achieve a higher status, to receive recognition for the things you do well, and the need for independence. One editor on Ideas on Liberty strongly stated, “The regret about socialism turns out to be a regret about human nature” (Richman). Socialism, like globalization, can never work because it doesn’t reflect the human race’s natural desire to form groups and compete against each other. The theory of globalization is based on an assumption that human beings essentially want to get along and be at peace, but in my opinion that is completely false. What human beings really want is conflict, and this is why globalization can never work in the way that many hope it will; as a long term solution or racism.

Globalization has modernized and diversified the world, and made a lot of positive advancements in technology and communication, but it has failed in bringing what it hoped to be a world of peace, unity, and an international culture. While globalization theorists argue that soon the world will be almost entirely free of racism, and therefore will have a UN kind of world peace, the evidence tells us that this idea is not only impossible, it’s hypocritical. Globalization has done more to spread prejudice across the world then to quench it, and over and over again globalization theorists are being proven wrong for their ridiculous theories on human nature and the state of the world. Foer also thinks that it is possible for racism to be extinguished, and while I agree with him on his theories of globalization spreading anti-Semitism across the globe and being a cause for the greatest genocide in history, I think his theories on racism are baseless and come from the same kind of idealism that encourages people to believe in the possibility of a society with no social hierarchy, which just isn’t possible.