Globalization and Social Justice: Working the Tensions of the Dialectics of National Character

Antonio & Bonanno paint a fairly bleak picture of the trajectory of our current history in the emergent post-Cold War world. They show how three political discourses – Cold War modernization, neoliberal globalization, and neoconservative politics – all draw on particular elements of American Exceptionalism that have shifted us toward imperialist tendencies that “ignore or diminish the importance of substantive equality and social justice.” Although Langman & Burke stop short of making the same final point, their analysis of the weaker sides of the tri-part dialectic – individual/community, toughness/compassion, moralism/pragmatism – is useful in developing Antonio & Bonanno's point a bit further.