ABSTRACT
Freud’s central thesis in Civilization and its discontents is that, given the massive challenges of life, our best bet at any degree of happiness, no matter how small, is by making a commitment to society, in all of its brokenness. The human psyche being what it is, however, chafes at this reality because, at base, it requires humans to get along with others and make sacrifices. The other issue—as we see with globalization—is that society, no matter how great, is ultimately a doomed project and will inevitably fail to deliver on its promise, given its inherent cruelties and inequalities. Hence the paradox of human existence, which provides our focus in this chapter: the goal is to explore, at the social psychological level, what it means to say that globalization, as a social evolutionary force, is a success or failure? And, who gets to define it as such and on the basis of what terms? In short, this review of globalization is less a sociological assessment of this phenomenon as-it-is. Instead, it is a social psychological exploration of globalization as it is differently understood; and by whom and in what ways and how this links to making a commitment to or defying global civil society.
