Global Civil Society

March 13, 2010 nightvole
Tags: blog, Communication, community, culture, Global, grassroots, induvidual, internet, Israel, ISTB01, Metal, network, ngo

Civil society is the element of our world which resides outside of traditional government and commercial spheres. In other words it is the grassroots component of society which allows for organization and enterprise on an informal level between all members of a community. From a modern perspective communities have ceased to be closed entities of concentrated individuals but rather have evolved to a point where an individual no longer has to identify so much with his local place, but is rather free to participate and interact with a variety of other people worldwide who may share the same interests. This is all made possible by globalization and in particular the internet which has increased horizontal networked communication to the point that as long as you are in the network (not everyone has the means) then you are truly globally connected with the whole world. Now this offers massive potential to affect the world we live in: this can seen in the sharp rise of NGO’s that correlates with the adaptation of the internet. NGO’s are not constrained by any government or commercial interests as such they can be powerful agents for change as they are able to unite many different people in the name of a particular cause. This would immediately appear to be a good thing as the rise of these Ngo’s contributes to a greater sense of self within the community at large, and providing the means of agency for many individuals. Also global civil society manifests itself in other forms such as culture movements and general interest groups. This is good because it fosters a greater sense of unity, creating the aptly named global village: where people, who according to the old rules should dislike each other, are to see past racial/cultural fault lines so as to share a common identity from another interest that they both enjoy or identify with. I.e. a Metal band from Israel has Jewish fans in its native country, while also having many Arab supporters in other Middle Eastern countries. Their fandom allows them to come together and transcend their differences through shared interest. While it easy to see the good aspects of this system, we must also contemplate the bad if we are to realize an accurate portrayal of global civil society. I find it a positive thing that the internet comes to spread western values and integrate and unifies the rest of the world along these lines. Yet there are many who would argue that it is a problem because it threatening individual identities and cultures, by over imposing western values at the expense of other value systems. Another issue is that because of the very fact that it is so informal, it lacks any sense of leadership with the activity generated online often amounting to little more than talk. In other words despite the potential that global civil society offers you still need to do the grunt work on the ground, if you want to do anything meaningful small concrete steps within your actual local community must be take so as to put in affect the discourse that takes place online. Overall I think that the positive outweigh the negative and we are now only beginning to see the real impact that a true global society can have.

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