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The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman

review by John Fraim

Leading blockbuster products are not created by the use of symbols. Rather, they are symbols. While symbolism can be recruited to market them, it can only be recruited so far. When symbolism is forced to make products into great symbols it reacts like a stubborn donkey.

There always comes a certain 'tipping point' when the collective psychology of the times builds up so much pressure it has to be released somewhere and in some form. Blockbuster products provide this release. When one starts focusing on leading products as symbols, they begin approaching the events and phenomena of their time through the lens of symbolism rather than the fashions and fads of popular culture.

Such is the case with a phenomenon like The DaVinci Code. Almost everyone is concerned with whether the symbols described in the book or true or false. But the real question is what symbol does the book itself represent. And, why the appearance of this symbol at this time?

A current example of a symbol at work is the book The World is Flat by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. While few question the considerable power of Friedman’s employer in recruiting symbols for promotion, the book is more an expression of something in the air than the product of this considerable promotion.

The argument of the book that the world is flat relates to Friedman’s argument that horizontal rather than vertical symbolism dominates today on a global scale. Vertical symbolism relates to pyramid structures of power that the failed communist system was based on. Horizontal (or a 'flat' world) symbolism relates to network relationships and decentralized systems of power which the technology of the Internet is based on.

But under the central metaphors about horizontal and vertical in the book, there is a constant message for Americans to 'wake up' and smell the power of technology they have created or risk getting bypassed by the rest of the world. For Friedman, the 'rest of the world' is basically India and China.

Much of the book involves recounting the wondrous Internet technology created by America in the 90s and how this is changing the world. All of this is not exactly an original or new thought. We hear about the founding of Netscape, the philosophy of 'open source', the decline of pyramid structures in favor of networks. Certainly interesting topics but much of this was discussed ad nauseum in the 90s by an American culture obsessed with technology and its promises.

Why the retelling of the tale of the wondrous 90s now? And, why America has made this recounting a bestseller. And, why a 'wake up' call and why now? It is as if American collective consciousness has turned away from this recent history or possesses a certain type of amnesia towards it. Friedman finds an explanation in all the change in major events such as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the fall of communism, the bursting of the dot.com bubble and the events of 9/11. Certainly this is true. For example, after the bursting of the dot.com bubble there was a noticeable shift away from the American obsession with technology. And, with the events of 9/11 this shift away from domestic technology found a new obsession in terrorist groups in far away lands.

But major events, while they greatly influence the course of history can also be viewed as expressions of the great symbols slowly moving (like great planets) just a little behind history and slightly out of sight.

These grand symbols are in constant cyclic movement between dualities. And so it is with those great symbols behind the American zeitgeist. The obsession with science and technology in the 90s has given way to an obsession with religion and supernaturalism by the year 2005. The fall TV network lineup is one example of this obsession. The rise of fundamentalism and the Left Behind books another symbol. The incredible popularity of The DaVinci Code another manifestation of this symbol. So Thomas Friedman writes a book about what is going on around the world. All stuff that most already know. Or at least once knew. But not many Americans have been interested in thinking about the once great promises of Internet technology in the past few years. Now the daily emails bring a huge influx of spam and advertisements and TV shows like American Idol now attract record TV audiences and garner the attention once reserved for IPOs and hot Internet companies of the 1990s. There are many interesting observations by Friedman in The World is Flat. But more than anything, the book is a wake up call to an American populace sleeping while the rest of the world utilizes the technology America created.

Will the warning call of this modern Paul Revere be heard or will America sleep through it?

© 2005 John Fraim

John Storey's book Inventing Popular Culture (Blackwell 2003) is an excellent introduction to current thinking about culture. The opening chapter discusses folklore and subsequent chapters include detailed discussions of hegemony and other topics close to the scope of foamy custard. Indeed it is the only book I have come across which comes close to the scope of this Web site, although Storey does not venture into mythology or psychology. If much of foamy custard interests you then this book is essential reading. His earlier books Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture (Edinburgh UP 1996) and Cultural Consumption and Everyday Life (Arnold 1999) are also useful.

In contrast, Terry Eagleton's The Idea of Culture (Eagleton 2000) comes across as an idiosyncratic way of contrasting culture with nature, a decidedly odd dualism considering that 'nature' is a culturally-constructed concept and anything but 'natural'! More crucially his rejection of what the author deems 'post-modernist' approaches seems to wilfully ignore any other people working in the field of Cultural Studies since Raymond Williams in the early 1960s. Despite the recent publication date this is a work that comes across as two academic generations past its sell-by date.

Well past any date for consumption is the basis of Freudian psychology, although the spectre of Sigmund still haunts popular understandings of how we think we think. Todd Dufresne in his book Killing Freud (Continuum 2003) would prefer the ever-growing literature demolishing the Freudian edifice to be termed 'Critical Freud Studies' (although the Freudian faithful attempting to hold back the tide still reveal their own projections by preferring the term 'Freud bashers'). By including assessments of Freud's various successors, Dufresne goes further than previous major critiques of Freud (such as Richard Webster's Why Freud was Wrong (HarperCollins 1995) and Frank Cioffe's Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience (Open Court 1998); see psychology and the study of folklore and mythology for a previous summary of critiques of Freud). These successors include first-generation Freudian 'splinters' (such as Adler, Jung, Rank, Reich, Erikson and Klein); 'neo-Freudians' (such as Horney and Fromm), and post-structuralists who use psychoanalysis as part of their basis (such as Derrida, Kristeva and Lacan). The first half of Killing Freud is essential reading, if rather shrill in its idiom; but most of the second half is little more than 'make weight'.

My attention has only recently been brought to the seemingly overlooked work of David Smail. In his books such as Illusion and Reality (Constable 1984; 2nd edn 1997) and How to Survive Without Psychotherapy (Constable 1996) he shows how anxiety is a natural response to the pressures caused by modern society – indeed any society. This leads Smail to turn the assumptions of conventional psychiatry on their head. So, instead of a 'patient' being 'ill', it is society – especially marketing and the media – which creates the desires we all feel anxious about not fulfilling. In as many words, severe anxiety is socially constructed and not a 'failing' of the person. Resolving these anxieties means not so much 'adjusting' people but rather seeking ways of adjusting society. This places Smail's work firmly within the scope of foamy custard so an article summarising his approach has joined the ever-growing list of topics for future updates. But if I have created a desire to read more about Smail's views which is making you anxious, then go out and read his books rather than expect prompt publication of a summary on foamy custard.

Smail's approach leads on directly from the 'social construction of reality' thesis first propounded back in 1966 by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann in their book The Social Construction of Reality. While giving Berger and Luckmann full respect for pioneering what was then a novel concept, frankly the over-generalised theorising in their book (and most of the book is generalised theorising) now looks decidedly threadbare. Crucially, they do not analyse the ways in which people interact to construct knowledge and social reality. Compare and contrast their approach with two books published 30 years later. The first of these is Representing Reality: Discourse, rhetoric and social construction by Jonathan Potter (Sage 1996) which opens with an explicit recognition of developing Berger and Luckmann's ideas. It is far from an easy read but provides a detailed look at the ways in which we use language to construct 'normative' reality, with specific insights into the social construction of what passes for 'reality', whether in everyday social situations or in more rigorous contexts such as 'scientific knowledge'.

The second is John R. Searle's The Construction of Social Reality (Simon and Schuster 1995; Penguin 1996). The title reveals clear affinities with Berger and Luckmann's work but is different to both their work and Potter's or Smail's. Unusually, Searle combines the rigorous approach of an academic philosopher with an entirely readable style of writing. While Searle goes into considerable detail, this book is certainly not the last word on the social construction of reality – unlike Smail or Potter, for example, Searle does not look in any detail at the processes by which social construction occurs and evolves (i.e. some of the processes key to foamy custard). However The Construction of Social Reality is certainly the foundations on which more specific discussions need to be based and is both essential and enjoyable.

Searle's more recent books have brought his incisive philosophical approach to consciousness studies. The Mysteries of Consciousness (Granta 1997) is a most useful – and probably the only easily readable – critical assessment of consciousness studies in the first half of the 1990s. It mostly remains a valid introduction to the key debates (although Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works (Norton 1997; Penguin 1999) was published in the same year so is therefore a notable omission from the targets of Searle's critical broadsides). In contrast Searle's apparently more recent Consciousness and Language (Cambridge UP 2002) is actually a collection of papers written in the 1990s which mostly address quite specific issues.

One of the leading whiz kids in French philosophy is Alain Badiou, although his work is only just beginning to be translated into English. His book Infinite Thought: Truth and the return of philosophy (Continuum 2003) translates articles which were first published in French between 1992 and 2001. The Introduction by the translators Oliver Feltham and Justin Clemens is especially informative. While I find myself disagreeing with a number of Badiou's points, the nature of my disagreement with him provokes some fascinating thinking, especially when read 'back to back' with John Searle's discussions about truth in The Construction of Social Reality. Badiou is anything but an ivory tower philosophiser – for example, Chapter 8 is called 'Philosophy and the "war against terrorism"' and begins with a discussion of the destruction of the World Trade Center on '9/11'.

The writings of Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Zizek – and the substantial literature about their writings – would seemingly offer some interesting parallels to the scope of foamy custard. So I have recently immersed myself in Julia Kristeva by Noëlle McAfee (Routledge 2004); The Kristeva Reader edited by Toril Moi (Blackwell 1986); The Cambridge Companion to Lacan edited by Jean-Michel Rabaté (Cambridge UP 2003); Slavoj Zizek by Tony Myers (Routledge 2003); Zizek: A critical introduction by Sarah Kay (Polity 2003); The Sublime Object of Ideology by Slavoj Zizek (Verso 1989); Looking Awry: An introduction to Jacques Lacan through popular culture by Slavoj Zizek (MIT Press 1992) and Welcome to the Desert of the Real by Slavoj Zizek (Verso 2002) plus a seemingly vast number of Web sites. McAfee and Myers are to be congratulated on providing informative and enjoyable overviews of difficult-to-summarise thinkers. However, the sum total of this reading did not inspire me in the ways I was expecting. While this probably reveals more about me than the books themselves (but isn't that what all reviews achieve?) let me digress for a couple of paragraphs.

Lacan's concept of 'Symbolic Order' being distinct from 'Reality' is undoubtedly relevant to foamy custard. But this is a concept broadly shared by people from many diverse backgrounds (including the sociologists Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, the philosopher John Searle and the psychotherapist David Smail – all mentioned above). Lacan also emphasises the way we create a sense of an excluded 'Other' whenever we attempt to construct any concepts – so for example 'The West' is defined in contrast to 'the Orient'. But this concept too is shared by a great many other thinkers, starting with Lao Tsu in the Tao te Ching about 2,300 years ago. Despite 'Symbolic Order', 'Reality' and the 'Other' being regarded by some almost as Lacan 'trademarks', clearly Lacan's exploration of these concepts is only one among many.

While some of Zizek's observations about specific cinema films provide neat illustrations of the role of mass media in the social construction of reality, I have yet to find anything in the work of Kristeva, Lacan or Zizek that adds any real depth to the interdisciplinary explorations of foamy custard (although I would welcome feedback persuading me otherwise!). One reason may be that the thinking which led to foamy custard had already been influenced by a wide range of people who had themselves – directly or indirectly – already digested much of this thinking. And perhaps I am over-concerned about these writers taking their inspiration more or less directly from Freudian-derived ideas. Not only does this in itself makes me cautious about their ideas but also raises the bigger – and arguably very unfair – question 'If these thinkers are as clever as their 'fan clubs' suggest, why didn't they see the blatant weaknesses in Freudian theories?'

Bob Trubshaw July 2004

Reviews of interest elsewhere on the Web

Bodies of Inscription: A Cultural History of the Modern Tattoo Community Margo DeMello

The New Elites: Making a Career in the Masses George Walden

No Logo: Taking Aim at The Brand Bullies Naomi Knopf

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