One of the fantastic things about Silicon Valley is that it's both the birthplace of technology and it was one of the birthplaces of the counterculture. The Internet and the personal computer were going to be like the communes, where we would all be networked together, and we would be able to achieve this state of global consciousness.

I think that globalization is partly responsible for the spread of the hostile, radical forms of Islam.

Soccer isn't the same as Bach or Buddhism. But it is often more deeply felt than religion, and just as much a part of the community's fabric, a repository of traditions.

The New York Times and PBS are gatekeepers of a sort. And they perform that role of gatekeeping with a set of rules and aspirations about where they want to lead their viewers and their readers. They value objective facts, and they attempt to transmit a comprehensive view of the world. And they do have values. And they do lead their viewers and their readers to certain conclusions. But it's different than such monopolies as Apple or Google which are dissecting information into these bits and pieces, which they're then transmitting to people. And it's about clicks.

Is Islam a tribe or is it a force of globalization? Islam has certainly been studied as a local, tribalistic phenomenon. But Islam is also theoretically a universalist idea, its spread has been facilitated by modern technologies, and it's an identity that people can slip into and out of fairly easily. I don't think Islam has really been understood as a product of globalization. It might be one of these instances where globalism and tribalism ultimately go hand in hand.

I don't think Islam has really been understood as a product of globalization. It might be one of these instances where globalism and tribalism ultimately go hand in hand.

Most of the time the concept of globalization ends up sounding unnecessarily abstruse - even the name itself sounds clunky and highfalutin. And people discuss it in a way that makes it seem so impersonal. But globalization really is a concrete, fundamental fact in everybody's lives, and you really see that come to life in soccer stadiums.