READING REPORT
Savannah Benton
The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. Pp. 533-579
April 21,2015
I. Four noteworthy quotes or key insights from the assigned reading.
1. “I believe that capabilities create intentions. If we create an Internet where people can open an online store and have global suppliers, global customers, and global competitors, they will open that online store or bank or bookshop…The history of economic development teaches this over and over: If you can do it, you must do it, otherwise your competitors will—and as this book has tried to demonstrate, there is a whole new universe of things that companies, countries, and individuals can and must do to thrive in a flat world.” Pg.536
2. “There is a huge political vacuum now waiting to be filled. There is a real role today for a movement that could advance the agenda of how we globalize—not whether we globalize. The best place such a movement could start is rural India.” Pg. 551
3. “It has always been my view that terrorism is not spawned by the poverty of money. It is spawned by the poverty of dignity. Humiliation is the most underestimated force in international relations and in human relations. It is when people or nations are humiliated that they really lash out and engage in extreme violence.” Pg.563
4. “The flattening of the world is making low-impact people into high-impact people faster, in greater numbers, and with greater impacts than at any other time in the history of the world.” Pg. 571
II. One significant question for class discussion as a result of the assigned reading.
1. What really interested me in this portion was the topic of terrorism and humiliation. If we were to be a nation united under God and a world under God, we wouldn’t need to be humiliated before one another. Are they humiliated because they wish they were better? Or because they want to be on top? It is a very confusing and interesting topic for me to think about.
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