Global Economy, Transnationality and Third World Cultural Exodus

What	Meeting
When	May 30, 2006 from 06:30 pm to 08:00 pm
Where	Universität Köln,
Contact Name	Prof. Dr. Valentin Y. Mudimbe
Contact Email	fk-427
Contact Phone	+49 (0)221 470-6770
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The paradox of the contemporary global economy can be understood from an ethical position which, analyzing the fact that its theories have become a business in the ordinary sense of the word, might emphasize a critical suspension of judgment, making one choose not to qualify any affirmation made in good faith as an error, a failure or a sin; but instead, each time, as an unexpected response approximating not a truth, but a more truthful expression of a need. Such a position should be seen as non-negotiable, insofar as human dignity is concerned, and in this sense, as an entry to an evaluation of the rationality of today’s global economy. Three axes could be magnified for a critical analysis: (a) A theoretical formulation of the international new global geo-political and economic order, as exemplified in three statements: one, the 1962 Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolution; two, the 1976 Marilyn Ferguson The Aquarian Conspiracy. Personal and Social Transformation in Our Time; three, the 1993 Don Tapscott and Art Caston Paradigm Shift. The New Promise of Information Technology. (b) The agenda of economic integrations and the general paradigmatic field of gamble and power as it is organized today: one, the new rivalry for world supremacy and the economic game among Japan, Europe and the United States; two, the symptomatic tension regulating institutional conventions; three, the rational and the unethical in grids of evaluation, such as, for example, in hypotheses of gedankenexperiment. (c) Cultural difference and politics of identity, as it can be qualified thanks to the singularity of three main entries: one, temporality; two, reflection on oneself as a cipher; three, existing as being for-others.

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