The Defiance of Global Commitment

Today’s hyper-connected global world seems to breed more real discontent than the winners and techno-prophets would like us to believe. How can we explain this disgruntlement? Castellani goes beyond the obvious accounts and delves into the deeper and structural causes underlying today’s societal resentment. He revisits Freud’s seminal works on the human psyche vis-à-vis societal change. The convincing argument is made that people are not just angry because they feel left out but that there is a much more complex set of factors at play. Subsequently, global resentment is not going to disappear with some quick political fixes. On the face of it, the new Strongarm leaders or the decision to retreat from international agreements may seem to offer the way forward, but do little to fix the structural causes indeed. Those people – academics or otherwise – with a real interest in the worldwide reaction to globalization and global civil society will find Castellani’s analysis razor-sharp and urgent. Highly recommended!

Professor Lasse Gerrits

Author, Punching Clouds: An Introduction to the Complexity of Public Decision Making

Department of Political Science

Otto-Friedrich University, Bamberg, Germany

‘The Defiance of Global Commitment: A Complex Social Psychology’ is an important book. It is both useful and grimly realistic to invoke Freud and the aggressive tendencies of humankind in the context of our global responsibilities. This primal level demands to be addressed where the weaker forms of social constructionist theory tend to ignore it. In this sense, ‘a complex social psychology’ is necessary to engage the intersecting global, social and psychological dimensions involved. Freud’s tripartite model applied to social defiance is therefore presented as a necessary struggle of differentiation and directed aggression against a perceived ‘other’ of various mutual forms. The challenge the book presents is not only an analysis of this global condition but a distinction between positive and negative ‘therapies’ of resolution. More generally this text is a key moment for complexity theory’s insistence that social analyses must re-orient themselves to the interplay of global, social and psychological dynamics.​

Dr John Smith

Author, Qualitative Complexity

Department of Education & Community Studies

University of Greenwich, UK

Although it is essential to grasp the practical science and politics of complex global issues, the social psychological is equally mandatory. Trained in both sociology and clinical psychology, Castellani provides a powerful macroscope for readers to understand the nexus of issues involved in globalization today: tracing the building blocks from anthropology and neuroscience, through human psychology, to global societal behavior and policy. ‘The Defiance of Global Commitment’ tells this story of the evolution of global problems through a critical reading of Freud’s ‘Civilization and Its Discontents’ and through the lens of complexity science. The illustrative examples in the book are not intended to persuade readers to take a liberal or a conservative position on an issue; rather they point to a pragmatic method of studying complex issues, encouraging readers to practice this thinking and come to their own conclusions. Especially helpful is the book’s stark realistic, yet hopeful suggestions in the concluding chapter on how we can all take action individually to make an impact. This book is essential reading for engineering, public policy, and business professionals trying to get their arms around the complexity underlying globalization and contemporary global crises.

Carl Dister, M.A. Systems Engineering

Chief Innovation Manager

Reliability First, Ohio, United States

In an attempt to make sense of globalization and recent global events, this is a daring new take on a seemingly disparate set of ideas. Castellani’s treatise – an ambitious and ultimately satisfying account – weaves together scholarly traditions, from psychoanalytic theory to neuroscience, sociological critiques, and the complexity sciences. Castellani argues that the defiance of our global commitments arises from deep instincts, and that our current situation is an emergent phenomenon born of our sociality and psychological drives. Castellani avoids the trap of an easy answer, yet the reader comes away with a broader perspective of the key challenges of our global age and how we may best be within it all.

Professor Michael Seid

Director, Health Outcomes and Quality Care Research,

Pulmonary Medicine and James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence

University of Cincinnati Department of Pediatrics

Ranging from Freud to Wallerstein, as well as Foucault and a multitude of other scholars, this is an extraordinary review of theories of ‘commitment’ and the ‘global’. The binding together of this mix through the deployment of complex systems theory is the basis of its intriguing innovations, whatever you think of its Freudian underpinnings.

Sylvia Walby OBE

Distinguished Professor of Sociology

UNESCO Chair in Gender Research

Lancaster University, UK