Freedom, order, and security in a globalized world: Part Three
By Mark Wegierski
web posted October 15, 2007
It could be argued that one way for the current-day West to become more secure in the world would be an ever-accelerating process of cultural globalization. It is anticipated that non-Western societies will become increasingly like the West today. That is, they will increasingly exalt sexual and personal freedom. Their birthrates will decline, they will become increasingly prosperous and consumerist, and American pop-culture will become the global culture. However, a strong U.S. military will almost certainly have to be maintained for a considerable time, to deal with the possible final backlashes of traditional societies that are being assimilated to the global culture.
There is also the issue that some societies, for example, in sub-Saharan Africa, face such great obstacles today, that they might never be able to become prosperous and consumerist. Another serious question is whether the extension of the consumer society and consumer habits will not result in the destruction of the ecosphere. While on the one hand, population is expected to decline as a result of consumerism, the populations of Third World countries are already comparatively high, and the shift in consumption-styles from those typical of Third World countries, to those typical of richer Americans, will place an even greater stress on the environment.
The main alternative to the universal globalization model would probably be some kind of conservative restoration in the West. In regard to security issues, this would allow the West to defend itself more vigorously, sometimes with rather punitive and draconian methods – but at the same time to disengage from many “global democratizing” projects. Such a restoration would also presumably curtail the global reach and lifestyle extremes of American pop-culture.
In such a scenario, most non-Western societies could probably better maintain their cultural distinctiveness, but the planet could possibly resemble a series of armed camps, as these civilizations would almost invariably clash. However, the renewed self-confidence, and willingness to exercise its power, including technological power, of the West, would presumably shield it from the dangers posed by rival power blocs. Nevertheless, there would possibly be a series of "cold wars" and/or peripheral skirmishes.
While these neo-traditionalist Western societies would claim to properly balance freedom, order, and security, they would doubtless be considered as highly repressive by left-wingers and libertarians. There would be far less freedom of sexual and personal lifestyles.
The global culture society, on the other hand, would probably be characterized by various combinations of extreme sexual lifestyle freedom, left-wing political-correctness, and capitalism. It is difficult to see if any one of those tendencies would ever gain a global ascendancy. This kind of society could be seen as an ever-shifting kaleidoscope, as various ad hoc accommodations and coalitions between these three main outlooks would occur.
As the global culture society was getting underway, there would be a period of extreme danger with a possible final backlash from some traditional societies. Thereafter, the primary dangers to security in most of the global culture society would likely be internal, such as those arising from violent crime and economic disturbances in a society with few stable anchors. Among the forms these economic disturbances could take would be: the overstretch of the welfare-state, which would in the end entail massive cuts to entitlements; declining living standards in advanced economies because of competition from the less-developed world; a presumably transitory period of extreme exploitation of cheap labor in the less-developed world; possible business malfeasances such as those at Enron; ever-increasing numbers of various fraudulent or semi-fraudulent money-making scams -- a society-wide collapse of trust; and the tendency of people to define their lives by their consumption habits, abandoning thrift, and falling into massive debts. A global culture society would be extremely unsettled, hyper-modern, and in many ways vulgar and coarse. And, while organized warfare between countries might disappear, violence arising from organized crime, or between ethnic and cultural groups, or simply between individuals, might intensify.
The global culture society -- which is far from being the utopia some might imagine it as – looks to be the more likely outcome, from the current vantage-point. 
Mark Wegierski is a Canadian writer and historical researcher.