As the title suggests this chapter is about two dates that have forever changed not only the United State but also the world. 11/9 was about tearing down walls and opening up the world “so every human being would realize his or her full potential.” During that time, we saw the world open up like never before and for the first time ever we had the opportunity to be truly global. The events of 9/11 served a different purpose. Hate and power forced us to put up walls once again and served to close up the world.
What Friedman focuses on here is both of these events took imagination. With the tools we have available to us today we really have the power to create almost anything. We are only limited by our imagination. This reinforces one of themes throughout the book, the power of the individual. Never before has an individual had so much power as we do today. In earlier posts and comments, I was concerned about how we are to compete in this flat world and this chapter made me realize something. We as individuals have as much access to the flat world as anyone in India or China. We as individuals need to focus on how we can utilize this to our advantage! I love the quote from the text, “We need to think more seriously than ever about how we encourage people to focus on productive outcomes that advance and unite civilization- peaceful imaginations that seek to minimize alienation and celebrate interdependence rather than self-efficiency, inclusion rather than exclusion. The phrase describes how we can ensure future world changing events are more in line with 11/9 and not 9/11. As Friedman put it, we have the options of brining everyone up to the same level or bringing everyone down to the same level.
Another key thing to pull from this chapter is the fact that we cannot live in fear of what could happen. We cannot let events like 9/11 change us into a fearful nation. When we do we all become small minded and essentially put ourselves in our own cave.
This chapter also answered a question for me. Why are things like Wikkipedia and open-source communities so popular? I honestly could not see what could motivate people outside of the financial gain. Well apparently, the sense of ownership is enough to motivate people to contribute. People also get a validation that is perhaps greater than any financial award.
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I will be posting every weekend on what I have read in Thomas L. Friedman's The World is Flat. My goal is to cover 2-4 chapters a week and post on each chapter individually.
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3 comments:
After reading a bunch of post's from beginning to end I have two different opinions about this book. One Friedman may be a genius, cause he seems to be breaking down readers and having them think in one direction, then slowly building them back up thinking in a whole opposite direction. It's alomost like hazing. Everyones thoughts have diversed through this book. Or Friedman has just convoluted this text so much its just a bunch of nonsense. He seems to be contradicting himself the whole book. I'm sure you'll see many of my post talk about this. As for the chapter, Imagination is a powerful thing, and an individual has a lot of power these days. But I dont want to keep being negative, but the power of one individual to actually make a difference is slim to none. It's a collective effort that makes changes.
That's an interesting point, Nick! I agree with you, but I feel like that's how the world is today too. People seem not to be as constant anymore with all of these changes taking place. Also, Friedman does switch positions throughout the book making it easy to think in the opposite direction as before. I noticed that too ... it's weird :)
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