The United States wants one. Israel has its own. India is planning to build the world's largest. In an era where many are celebrating pluralism, multiculturalism, and tolerance as the harbingers of a "new world" political reality is demonstrating something altogether different.

Perhaps it could be looked at this way: during the third wave of globalization ("colonialism"), distinctions were drawn across landscapes and peoples to describe the prizes and possessions of distant potentates. (The first wave I would describe as "exploration," the second as "trade"). Today, we have entered a fourth wave of globalization, which is market integration.

And I can't help wonder at the glowing (iron-hot) inconsistency: that as the global economy "integrates" in an ICT-driven revolution in the mobility of equity, there is a backlash of intolerance that takes the breath away.

It's not jihad vs mcworld. its self-identification run amok.

For years universities in the United States were imploring their staff and students to "embrace" diversity and celebrate the self. Half a world away, cause-minded revolutionaries were suiting up in the same lycra-tight rhapsodies. Except they had guns to prove a point.

We find ourselves at time marked by stake-outs. Hold-out training grounds and rise-up instigators. Everyone has a protest. The celebration of difference has ceded to its enforcement. Alan Bloom probably saw it coming, but I think its crept in on the rest of us.

World on Fire is a pop anthem for some, a way of life for others. If you really knew what it meant, would you still hum along? "Tolerance" is a colloquialism that seems to better describe humankind's relation to alcohol than to one another in the 21st century.