The Rest of the West

Kishore Mahbubani illustrates that despite the dramatic progress the world has made in the 19^th century, the underlying construction of power relationships has not changed significantly either in the “hard military and economic dimensions or the new soft dimensions of cultural and intellectual power”. I agree with this point, but I feel that he was slightly dismissive towards the progress the world has made. He is really only focusing on the past two centuries, so I feel that a certain amount of patience is necessary here. Two centuries is really a split second of time on the large scale.

He expresses the consequences of interdependence: we have a common stake in each other’s economic well-being, which is either good or bad. Countries are forced to pay attention to each other, essentially. On a positive note, interconnectedness has begun the process of integrating the third world into the modern world. Slowly, Mahbubani expresses, we are including third-world countries into the future. Environmentally we are interconnected by natural disasters and disease. I feel that though he is surely correct in his statement that interdependence in inevitable, growing interdependence and changing economic realities will not be the only forces reducing western domination, and I feel that he could have further illustrated his point with more examples.

Mahbubani argues that in the 21^st century, for the first time in centuries, we will have a two way street in the flow of ideas values and people. He concludes that the West will remain vibrant and vital, but as part of this continuing dynamism the West will itself undergo a drastic renovation. It will have a smaller influence of the new interdependent world. He writes, “western ideas and technology will enable other societies to accumulate enough affluence and luxury to rediscover their own cultural roots.” I agree entirely with this particular point, and I enjoy the idea that a “two-way-street” of cultures, ideas and people will be a part of both ours and the rest’s futures.