Abstract
Nothing has shocked, angered, and confused the modern, secular sensibility more than the return of religion to the mainstream of political life in an array of settings around the world. Mocking both our capacity to overcome our past and anticipate our future, this religious resurgence converges with an era of unprecedented and radical technological innovation that is also subverting the sensibility and lifeworld of modernity in ways that we are only beginning to realize. Such a start for the new millennium presents both extraordinary opportunities for enhancing the material and spiritual life of peoples inhabiting the planet and severe dangers to the well-being, and even the survival, of the human species. Among the ironies of the present is this strange mixture of technological dynamism that exceeds the most grandiose promises of the Enlightenment and a new wave of skepticism directed toward the role of science and reason in shaping our sense of reality.
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Notes
Orhan Pamuk, The Black Book trans. Güneli Gün (New York: Harper Collins, 1994), p. 183.
For a range of views on the breadth of the right of self-determination, see Wolfgang Danspeckgruber, with Arthur Watts, ed., Self Determination and Self-Administration: A Sourcebook (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997).
For an excellent assessment of the civilizational perspective as approached from the West, see Jacinta O’Hagan, “Conflict, Convergence or Co-existence? The Relevance of Culture in Reframing World Order,” Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems 9, no. 2 (2000): 537–567;
also Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Knopf, 1993), especially the latter chapters.
I have been particularly inspired by the work of Ahmet Davutoglu and Chandra Muzaffar in moving toward this understanding. See such representative writings as Davutoglu, “Globalization and the Crisis of Individual and Civilizational Crisis,” in Globality versus Democracy? The Changing Nature of International Relations in the Era of Globalization, edited by Hans Köchler (Vienna, Austria: International Progress Organization, 2000), pp. 185–2020;
and Muzaffar, “Globalization and Religion: Some Reflections,” in Globalization: The Perspectives and Experiences of the Religious Traditions of Asia Pacific, edited by Joseph A. Camilleri and Chandra Muzaffar (Selangor, Malaysia: International Movement for a Just World, 1998), pp. 179–90;
also Sulak Sivaraksa and Chandra Muzaffar, Alternative Politics for Asia: A Buddhist-Muslim Dialogue (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: International Movement for a Just World, 1999).
See chapters 1 and 4 for elaboration; the legal aspect of the post-Westphalian orientation is the subject of an earlier book, Richard Falk, Law in an Emerging Global Village: A Post-Westphalian Perspective (Ardsley, NY: Transnational Publishers, 1998).
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© 2001 Richard Falk
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Falk, R. (2001). Introduction. In: Religion and Humane Global Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62975-6_1
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