Globalization and the Tower of Babel

It is pointed out that according to present-day visionaries, man is heading toward a new form of social organization, a `borderless world´ in which people will live as citizens in a `global village´-a change enabled by communications and information technologies. It is further noted that, in the absence of a clear-cut understanding of the direction of technological change, rhetoric takes over as people seek to make sense of the power and place of these new technologies. The visions of `borderless worlds´ and `Towers of Babel´ fall into this category. The authors examine these two metaphors as a means of making sense of how globalization will re-shape the image of the world in which they live