"smaller" and more interdependent.

We have no choice but to recognize

the historical, political, economic, ~echnological,and ecological stmctures
of increasing global intcrconnecredness.
In this regard we may point to a paradox of much contemporary life. Pre-
modern, precapitalist, agrarian peoples, though relatively isolated, tended to
conccive of themselves in terms of transparently social, Interrelated, and in-
terdependent cultural communities, whereas modern urban people, increas-
ingly dependent on others throughout the world for their food, clothing,
transportation, information, recreatiorr, and culture, conceive of themselves
as isolated, atomistic, nonsocial, egoistic individuals. It is possible to view
the recent resurgence of rejigious and politicai fundamentalism in South Asia
and elscwherc as rt resistancc to modern Western concepfs of the self and
their intended worlds of meaning, and as an attempt, at least in parr, to re-
constitute the essential structures of a premodern, more communal self.
Increasingly, we realize that we are economically politically, milirarily,
and culturally interconnected global beings. O u r cultures, our views of self,
our very exist-emcs are shaped and determined by "'regional warsm in the
Persian Gulf and elscwherc; nuclear and chemical accidents at Chernobyl,
Three Mile Island, and Bhopaf; the ecological devastation of Brazilian rain
forests and of our ozone layer; multinational corporate and international
bankixlg; global military-industrial-state complexes; and imperialist exploita-
tion of others. O u r mutual dependence, then, must be recognized, as when
opponents of rhe nuclear and conventional arms races remind us that we ei-
ther must learn to live rogeriler or W shall perish together. We must commu-
nicate on this level of interdependence, empathizing with and relating to
other concepts of self, in order to comprehend the necessary conditions for
humanity's development and survival.
Fifth, empathizing with and relating to other concepts of self, created by
orhcr cultures and even other hktorical periods, may serve as a c a d y s t to
our o m creative process of self-development and self-constitution. My E-
lational view of self is not unrelated to Hegel's general structural analysis of
the dialectical process of self-development and self-alienation in T h e He-
nomeaologY of M i ~ d To - become a more sensitfve, conscious, and e~hical
self, Hegel tells us, the self, while maintaining its autonomy as subject, must
"objectify" and "externalize" itself in relating to that which is "other." Self-
alienation may result either when the self defines itself internally and re-
h s e s to exterllalize itself and relate authenticaffy to the external other; o r
when the self objectifies itself and then gives up its capacity as an au-
tonomous subject, thus allowing itself to be defined as immanent, nontran-
scending other. Through this dynamic process of self-externalization, the
relation to the other provides the necessary basis for the dialectical move-
ment of self-transcendence--for the reconstitution of the new? more con-
scious, more fulGtled self.