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Three ~Izations, Cecil Arrington

Ed Arrington

Globalization seems more believed than known, somewhat tacit and no less powerful for that. It seems to have outgrown status as a metaphor, but not yet arrived at the twin graveyards of clear and distinct ideas and fixed, lexical meaning. Like other “-ized” terms, it can signify either (or both) transitivity or intransitivity; that is, it can produce understanding and interpretation of either actions or of states of affairs, agency or structure for example. One can “globalize” (perform globalization) or globalization can simply be a way of understanding the nature of things. Such indeterminacy is at the core of moral …