It turns out that globalisation, while promising sameness through brand-name consumption, was fostering, through uneven economic growth, an intense feeling of difference.
Minorities within nation-states frayed by global capitalism are naturally more resentful of hollowed-out but still heavily centralised systems of political and economic domination.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the resentment of marginalized groups towards centralized systems that oppress them, especially in the context of global capitalism.
Pankaj Mishra's quote reflects the frustrations of minority communities living in nation-states that are impacted by the forces of global capitalism. These communities often feel alienated and marginalized by centralized political and economic systems that prioritize profit and authority over their well-being, leading to a sense of resentment against an established order that does not address their needs.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on social justice, one might use this quote to highlight how global capitalism affects marginalized communities.
More from Pankaj Mishra
All quotes βGovernments everywhere that are unable to guarantee equitable growth and social welfare have suffered a fatal decay of legitimacy.
As a writer, I tend to be drawn to marginal people - writers, poet-prophets, seers, eccentrics - who embody the deeper ambivalences of their societies and bear deeper witness to their world than the famous figures we are used to celebrating, or demonizing, in our histories.
The onslaught of new and complex information, the academic and thinktank cults of expertise, not to mention the impossibility of bohemia in the age of high rents, have conspired to assassinate the public intellectual.
The advocates of retaliatory wars will continue to assume a much simpler reality with their hoary oppositions: Religious and secular, backward and enlightened, free and unfree. But if we are to admit how deeply and irrevocably interconnected our world is, then we must find new ways to break the cycle of counter-productive violence.
Economic disasters or foolish wars are hardly guaranteed to bring about large-scale individual self-examination or renew the appeal of truly participatory democracy.
Similar quotes
Democracy cannot be static. Whatever is static is dead.
We need to learn to work with political systems that are not perfect instead of taking the view: let's first fix the politics, then we'll fix the rest.
There is an absence of democratic accountability and control in every sphere of government and the state. To address this debilitating legacy requires determined action and a deep commitment to transforming our society from a crisis ridden present into something all South Africans can be truly proud of.
The government is tottering. We must deal it the death blow an any cost. To delay action is the same as death.
A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
Anti-U.S. sentiment has been born out of many grievances - support and weapons for such dictators as Mubarak, unquestionable support for Israel in its occupation of Palestine, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen that kill more civilians than intended targets.