Benjamin Barber's "Jihad vs. McWorld" is popular political science at its best - an important book first published in 1995, but only now, in the aftermath of September 11, getting the attention it deserved all along. One reason for this attention now is the catchy title, which seems to offer relatively easy-to-comprehend answers to questions on peoples' minds like: "why do they hate us so much" and "is this just an isolated incident or part of a broader phenomenon?" And, to a large extent, Barber succeeds in providing answers (or at least in asking the right questions), in neither a "dumbed-down" fashion nor a too-theoretical-for-anyone-but-political-scientists style. In sum, "Jihad vs. McWorld," is an important, timely, serious book that is also highly readable.
What does "Jihad vs. McWorld" have to say? Well...a LOT, and far too much for any Amazon.com review! So, I'll just try to summarize a few of Barber's main points.
First, let's start with "Jihad." As Barber employs it in his book, "Jihad" is not specific to Islam or even to terrorism, but instead is used as a metaphor for the "anti-Western, anti-universalist" struggle against "McWorld" (I'll get to that one in a minute). Although it's interesting that, at the moment, most of the opposition to "McWorld" appears to be coming from the Muslim world, "Jihad" as Barber uses it is not specific to Islam, but exists everywhere, including the American "heartland." Thus, in Barber's view, Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, Aryan Nations, "militias," and Al Qaeda are all manifestations of the same anti-modern, anti-cosmopolitan, anti-democratic phenomenon, and in a way are natural allies (except that - luckily -- they detest each other more than they detest "McWorld"). Jihad is not just for extremists, though, but for any group of people that sees "McWorld" (correctly) as a threat -- to their common identity, to their sense of belonging, to their "elementary justice and morals," to human dignity, to tradition, etc. Unfortunately, though, Jihad is fatally flawed (anti-democratic, narrow, provincial, exclusivist, even racist) in Barber's view. And, in the end, it's probably doomed to defeat by "McWorld" anyway (as the Borg in Star Trek would say, "resistance is futile!"), although in the short-run it can do a great deal of damage (i.e., September 11).
OK, so what about "McWorld?" Barber spends most of his time building the case against (and then bashing away at) "McWorld," which is what he appears to know best, since of course that's the world he lives in. Plus, it's so EASY to bash "McWorld," and in a way it would almost be fun if it weren't so serious (and malignant). Thus, Barber takes aim at: fast food, Hollywood, MTV (sex, violence, misogyny, consumerism, glorification of youth), Disney ("a cultural Chernobyl"), malls, suburbia, consumerism, materialism, technology and "laissez-faire" capitalism run amok, among other things. All easy targets, almost like shooting fish in a barrel, and it's been done by many other authors (see "Fast Food Nation," "Suburban Nation," "Technopoly," "Bowling Alone," etc., etc.), but Barber generally does an excellent job at describing "McWorld" - and trashing it! Barber's weightiest criticism of "McWorld" is that it is an anti-democratic, totalitarian system that leads to all kinds of bad outcomes, not the least of which is reducing us all to mere consumers (as opposed to citizens, for instance).
Ultimately, though, Barber's book really isn't so much McWorld vs JIHAD as McWorld vs, democracy, the "common good," and civil society (the "domain of citizens" which mediates "between private markets and big government"). Barber presents the values of democracy (slow, active, engaged, requiring education, valuing words, ideas, patience, and an informed, mature citizenry concerned with some "higher good") as directly antithetical to those of "McWorld" (fast, mindless, impatient, image-driven, impulsive, infantile, "gimme, gimme, gimme!"). Barber pushes his argument a little too far and too hard here, in my opinion, with little real proof that democracy is dying, and even less that it is dying BECAUSE of "McWorld's" depredations. Still, it's interesting stuff, and personally I think there's a lot of truth here.
In the end, Barber concludes that the only way to effectively fight Jihad and McWorld is by promoting and nurturing democracy and civil society. Barber believes that we could - theoretically at least -- use institutions already in place (the state, international organizations and legal frameworks) to do so. Sadly, though, Barber believes that at the moment the necessary institutions are either non-existent or have been severely weakened. So, having laid out both the world's bleak alternatives at the moment (Jihad, McWorld) as well as the possible solutions (democracy, civil society), Barber in the end comes out as basically a pessimist. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean he's wrong; after September 11, we can only wish that he were!
