How do you think Business and World Affairs might be manifest in your self?

Every country is culture-specific with individual societies possessing unique structures and organization. The world society however, continues to emerge in which the Western-dominated international system plays an increasing role in terms of power, ideas, Christianity, technology and capital. It is the ultimate modernist project that purports to uphold the freedom of thought and pluralism of belief between and within secular societies. And an ideology that promotes progress that seeks to comprise the best guarantee of stability for the enjoyment of human and civil rights.

Rationalism and the use of reason as an end in itself is the foundation of all globalising modernist thought and has created the framework to formulate our own ideals and in a sense, our own values. Western philosophy has also allowed us to conceive of ourselves as individuals, each possessing unique characteristics with a legitimate claim to pursue personal, diverse and frequently contending goals. This persistent drive towards greater individuality has been celebrated by many as both liberating and empowering, and helped define the ground-rules of our own lives. Furthermore, we have been able to determine how our own personalities develop and cement that position within a particular society.

On the whole, civilization has come to accept that with the rise of the West to global predominance, our lives have become conditioned and molded by various systems of particular national cultures, such as the United States. Their influence in particular has encouraged patterned and social behaviours revolving around political values such as liberal democracy, private ownership and control of wealth, freedom and rights under common law and a total commitment to choice.

The supremacy and widespread acceptance of such convictions has become manifest in most of us. In the main, we work for a living, we pay taxes, we invest in the market, we obey authority figures; we vote, we champion consumerism, we conform and remain loyal to commercial and national interests, we join clubs, charity or religious groups and generally, we like to think of ourselves as acting in a rational and unselfish way. Some of us live on the margins, while others occupy a more traditional space.

This idea of the individualistic Self as a modernist construct has shaped who we are today. We have the choice to remain independent from society and speak about world affairs and commercialism from a mental distance, or conversely, express ourselves within existing norms and rules set by governing bodies. We can be subscribe to any number of religious or political alternatives including those members of the Roman Catholic faith, Protestants, Jews, Liberals, Socialists, or Nationalists.

World affairs and business ethics shape and manifest itself in most members of society and I am no exception. I have been taught to accept western culture and so-called progress without question. I delight in the opportunity to think independently and the freedom to act rationally. To understand and behave on my inner world of knowledge while at the same time having my outer world presented to me by influential thinkers and opinion-formers. However, where I may differ from those who subscribe to the modernist project is that I believe we accumulate knowledge through experience, and am convinced there is no certainty in science. Understanding and maturity provides an inherent capacity to better comprehend world affairs and business, and it means that our approach is essentially a humanistic problem-solving one, as opposed to perpetually replacing scientific theory with ultimately more hypothesis. I believe that knowledge can never become an impersonal fact. We are our world knowing itself.