olive tree AND lexus

[Jumbly Girl]

   <<... he still seems to write of globalization as not only an
overwhelming inevitability, but seemingly as an
   ultimately desirable one ...>>


>I read it similarly.  His premise and task is one of description, but it seems fairly >clear he
sees globalization as
>ascendent and regionalism, tribalism, as a finger in the dike.  I don't sense he frets >over
that.

He seems to ....  I don't sense .... 

Each of his books presents two convincingly argued, alternative
positions
on a particular issue. The Lexus **AND** the Olive Tree. 

One P-Lister complains that Friedman lacks guts or conviction ... 
failed to take a position on the war blah blah blah can't write his way
out of a paper bag or hold a bic lighter up to Thomas Almighty .... but
what Friedman does, when he's at his best, is to encourage his readers
to weigh the arguments and come up with a synthesized position of their
own. This is dialectic,  the essence of critical thinking.

Since the focus here has been on the Lexus in Friedman, I suggest we
look at the Olive tree next. 

Olive trees are important. They represent everything that roots us,
anchors us, identifies us and locates us in the world – whether it be
belonging to a family, a community, a tribe, a nation, a religion or,
most of all, a place called home. Olive trees are what give us the
warmth of family, the joy of individuality, the intimacy of person
rituals, the depth of private relationships, as well as the confidence
and security to reach out and encounter others. Indeed, one reason that
the nation-state
will never disappear, even if it does weaken, is because it is the
ultimate olive tree – the ultimate expression of whom we belong to –
linguistically, geographically and historically.

The claim that one can describe Friedman in one breath is absurd. He's
pro-Israel? 
What is that? Nonsense. Even with a gun to your head, forced to describe
a man with one breath and one word this claim is useless at best. 

However, as MalignD points out, Friedman has lots of experience in the
ME and not just in Israel. Is he Jewish? Does it matter? 



Conflicts between Serbs and Muslims, Jews and Palestinians, Armenians
and Azeris over who owns which olive tree are so venomous precisely
because they are about who will be at home and anchored in a local world
and who will not be. Few things are more enraging to people than to have
their identity or their sense of home stripped away. They will die for
it, kill for it, sing for it, write poetry for it and novelize about it.
Because without a sense of home and belonging, life becomes barren and
rootless. Ands life as a tumbleweed is no life at all.

Those that have either not read his books or have forgotten what they
read or whatever should take a closer look: 

The biggest threat today to your olive tree is likely to come from the
Lexus – from all the anonymous, transnational, homogenizing,
standardizing market forces and technologies that make up today’s
globalizing economic system. 


I still think that Dave Monroe's point is a valid one and that MalignD
is right when he says that Friedman's task is to describe globalization.
Moreover, I think Dave is spot on when he suggests that some other text
(Barber, Neil Postman,  ... is useful for a contrast/compare dialectic
whatever...). 

That being said, I'd say Barber and Postman are the same sort of
cultural critics and both write a light and easy to read Intro. to these
complex issues. 

Pynchon is not in the business. He's a novelist. 

Something light, something heavy, something imaginative and wild....

Friedman, Chandler, Pynchon. 

Toss in Charlie Chaplin Modern Times, Charles Dickens, Orwell, Huxley,
Vidal, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Pynchon's Luddite Essay, Mumford.... blah
blah .... a little olive oil a robot and ... WAM OH GIRL!