The homogenization of the world of Stefan Zweig, a short and prophetic text is this week’s sentence. Small but miraculous. Through his juicy brevity, he articulates in the clearest way the symptoms of the world we are experiencing today, he tries to explain the causes and of course he also suggests ways of resistance! What he says seems to be about contemporary situations, those that make many of us sad, distressed, worried, and even angry.
Stefan Zweig in 1925 in his book The Homogenization of the World, warned of globalization
And yet it is a 1925 writing by the famous writer Stefan Zweig in which he prophetically sees the danger of the homogenization of the world and the rapid tendency towards uniformity, many decades before globalization.
“… Everything becomes uniform in the outward manifestations of life, everything is leveled into a homogeneous cultural shape. The special customs of the peoples are eliminated, the dress is assimilated, the morals are internationalized. The countries seem similar to each other, the life and actions of the people are included in the same context, their cities are more and more the same in their external features”.
This quote alone is enough to show the power and importance of this text. The reader reads the first pages and spontaneously nods, seeing the imprint of what he lives. But Zweich does not stop at the simple recording, but also gives explanations for why these things happen:
“For if humanity today is becoming more and more uneven and uniform, it is suffering because deep down this is its desire. Autonomy in the way of life, even in the pleasure of life, is now the goal and ideal of so few people, that most people do not even realize that they are turning into molecules, into individuals caught in the vortex of a gigantic force…”
And of course it also has to propose ways of resistance for those who feel that this structure of the world does not fit them and are looking for something different that will possibly satisfy their searches, their concerns and also their wants in the present and in the future.
“… While the tendency of the many becomes monotonous, mechanical, one-way, so let us manifest various interests turning towards constantly new, open horizons of the spirit! And without arrogance! Don’t worry: we are aliens!…”
Each week, we recommend a book we’ve read that won us over to book fanatics! This week our suggestion is, The homogenization of the world by Stefan Zweig thirty short pages and all the text, but so comprehensive that you will refer to them again and again! It enchanted us and deserves a place in our Favorite books
