Richard Shweder's talk

Professor Shweder's key points were about the three prophecies about the new world order. They were:

1. The western world will globalize the rest of the world in its image, socially, in government and in economy. 
• History and human ideological progression will end.
• 'Barbarian cultures will end and shift towards a more 'ideal' society. This will eliminate historical ethical community (which is a social obligation over free chice)
• The world will have law without nations; all cultural ties will be removed and replaced with a constitutional patriotism.
• This will occur because some argue that cultural ties and practices block cultures from progressing economically.
2.  The world will become divided into specific cultures.
• This is based on the idea that globalization can be easily resisted and should be narrowly perceived, meaning that trade should not be stopped due to varying beliefs and cultural practices.
• Countries will become separate not only in border but will regain and solidify their culture and national identity while fighting against others. 
• Cultural homogeneity will be rare
• The idea that there is no need to be American in order to benefit economically is pervasive; separate but equal will be a leading idea because materialism and individualism are not related.
3.  There will be a return to a global empire (or as I like to call it, the empire strikes back).
• Empires are more pervasive than democracies, the western democratic ideal will not withstand the test of time. 
• Areas will be divided into 'states'.
• Because of these culturally diverse states, there will be no standard of life and all ways of living will be protected.
• This global empire will be a weak power that allows and accepts for cultural diversity and the empire will only gather taxes and protect boundaries; local rule will play a larger role in organizing states.
• The empire will be ruled by cosmopolitan elites that come from many different cultures. 

Part 2: I didn't have enough time to do this part when I made this post. So, here we go.

 The indicators that would predict global change would be:

1. Some sort of all ruling government; either a westernized government or an empire.
• This means that umbrella governments will begin to form (and are kind of starting to, the EU anyone?).
•  The one thing that will make this go either way is if the American government tries to take over these groups or if a cosmopolitan elite does.
2. All of the countries breaking apart from one another completely into separate homogeneous cultural groups. 
• This would require tons of immigration and would have a huge movement of people around the globe.

 Now, for the big money question: how important is culture in shaping economic outcomes? A lot of people would argue that it's in inverse relationship: as culture goes down, economic outcome goes up. I disagree with this. My biggest question here is: is money really important in some of these cultural areas? That's not the questions although I'd bet it's a reason why some strongly cultural areas are not wealthy; their culture says money isn't the most important thing. Regardless, I would argue that the relationship is actually linear: as culture goes up, economic outcome goes up. Professor Shweder even said that the most culturally homogeneous the area, the most well off Everyone in that area was. So, if people are culturally similar, regardless of the culture, they will work more efficiently, have the same economic values and have a better economic outcome overall.
All in all, I really liked that lecture. It (nearly) made me consider changing my major. The chemistry department doesn't really go into a more philosophical discussion where fact does not reign. It's nice to use my brain on something that isn't necessarily 'true'. It was a nice change of pace.