Wow. I love the way Friedman writes sometimes. He is so eloquent and yet so direct. His mirror-image comparison of these two dates is startling, to say the least. It perfectly describes the eerie similarities but vast differences between the fall of the Berlin Wall, which opened up the door to start the collaboration that would become the flattening of the world, and the September 11 terrorist attacks that threatened to destroy all that we had worked for.
Friedman starts out with the comparison story between David Neeleman, cofounder of JetBlue, and Osama bin Laden, co-founder of the greatest American tragedy. They each had big ideas brought on by strong imaginations, they both took advantage of the current technologies to implement their plans. One created airlines, another created mass panic.
Friedman stresses in this chapter that America is the country of imagination, the "dream machine" that the rest of the world, whether they want to or not, relies on. This country must try not to dwell on the negative events like 9/11. They must try to take advantage of events like 11/9, do good with the technology that we have been given, and make the new, flat world a better place to live.
WHOO, that was a good book.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I think his comparisons/similarities between those two dates were staggering. Yes, 9/11 devistated lives forever and spurred the current war we are involved in, but the unity felt after 9/11 among our whole country was of a level that I had never witnessed or heard of in my life. Why couldn't we keep that going? And why did we have to experience a life/world altering event like 9/11 to get there?
I think to some extent we have started to dwell. Friedman pointed out in the book how things like terrorism will hurt the flattening of the world. In a sense it will cause us to "build walls". I think that is what happened here after 9/11. I hope that one senseless act will will not shut us off from the flat world.
I agree with Erica. The days after September 11th, people were coming together like there was no tomorrow; however, then everyone started to be more "strangers" than before. People are building walls - even in ridiculous situations. Although the world is flattening, I do think that September 11th has caused it to dwell. It's harder for people to trust others now.
I hope that we haven't started to dwell. One thing that I can say that GWB did well in his tenure as president was to encourage the country not to focus on that tragedy and to move on. Especially at this point. It's been 6 years, if the country dontinues to dwell on the horrors of 9/11, we will never be able to progress and we won't be able to become a better nation. Not to mention the whole trust issue that Freidman talked about. We have to be able to trust others in order to survive in this flat world.
Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =). If possible gives a last there on my blog, it is about the Flores Online, I hope you enjoy. The address is http://flores-on-line.blogspot.com. A hug.
Post a Comment