not have the emotional makeup or energyrnor time to care about and be able torntake care of more than a few people. Yournknow from your own experience thatrnfriendship is work, and that you cannotrnhave 18 best friends. And that does notrnmean you are a limited person: thatrnmeans you are a normal person.rnThere is also the problem of yourrnidentity. Being young adults you arernfighting to figure out who you are—rnand it is a fight, a fight to respect thernwishes and expectations of your parentsrnand grandparents and friends and teachers,rnbut still to know who vou are in particular.rnPart of what you are is a Knoxvillian, orrnat least a Tennesseean. I am serious. Arnkid who has grown up in ten differentrncities is not from Des Moines and Atlantarnand Portland, Maine. He is fromrnnowhere, and that is not healthy, anyrnmore than it is healthy to be an orphan,rnor to lose your house in a fire. Losingrnyour family or your home will not killrnyou, but it is a real hurdle, and the samerngoes for being without a hometown.rnAnd with that privilege of being a Tennesseeanrncomes the responsibility to findrnout who you are. If you are lucky yournhave a good Tennessee history coursernhere at Webb, and Tennessee writers arernassigned in your English classes. Lackingrnthat, you have the responsibility to findrnout on your own. Do you know whornDonald Davidson and Andrew Lytic are?rnIf you do not, you ought to—they arernpart of your tradition, and even if yournhave every intention of rebelling againstrnall tradition, still you ought to know whatrnyou are rebelling against.rnIf I have learned anything from reportingrnit is that life is so much funnier andrnstranger and more interesting than anythingrnI or most other people could makernup. Those of us from a real place, fromrnplaces as interesting as Kentucky andrnTennessee with all the stories andrnstrengths and oddities we can draw on torndefine ourselves, have it so much easierrnthan those people who have the burdenrnof needing to choose where thev arern”from.”rnAnd the problem I have with globalismrnis that it encourages us to give uprnthat advantage. It takes us away from thernpeople who deserve our best energy andrnattention: our friends and family. Nonernof us is an individual in the sense that werncreate ourselves out of nothing. We arerncreated by our connections, and takingrnaway those connections does not makernus more international, it makes us lessrnourselves.rnIf you get out of school and go to workrnsomeday for a big corporation, you willrnfind that multinational businesses—rnglobal businesses, that is, with plants orrndistribution centers in many countries—rngenerally demand that their employeesrnmove around in order to be promoted.rnThere is a large multinational manufacturerrnbased in Louisville which hasrnseveral plants around the United Statesrnand abroad. The men and women whornare successful here generally move everyrnthree years, and not just from Louisvillernto Connecticut, but from Louisville tornHong Kong. To rise in that organization,rnyou must be willing to take a longtermrn—let us say two years—internationalrnassignment.rnTo you in high school this mightrnsound great, but remember this is workrnand not a field trip, and for people withrnkids in school it is tough. One Louisvillernemployee of this company, a womanrnwhose husband worked and who hadrnyoung children, was offered an assignmentrnin China and given three days tornmake her decision, yes or no. That isrnwhat the global economy is about; mobilernhuman resources.rnIt is about mass culture, too, and thernend of any ability to amuse ourselves.rnThere is something weird about watchingrna music video that is played from SaornPaulo to New York to Liverpool, or eatingrna certain brand of corn chips along withrnmillions of other snackers, or turning onrnthe Worid Cup on television rather thanrncheering for the local Triple A baseballrnclub in person. It is so passive, being arncog in some great global marketing machine.rnThese days, given how widespreadrnpackaged entertainment is and how easyrnit is to give in passively to mass amusements,rnanybody who forms her own jazzrnband, puts on a public rant poetry performance,rnhangs out with a bunch ofrnskateboarders, or even plays football insteadrnof watching the pros on televisionrnis a radical. It is a radical act, to makernyour own fun instead of buying it—to dornsomething yourself, instead of payingrntelevision network executives and advertisersrnto do it to you.rnPackaged and global go together handrnin glove, because you cannot make moneyrntransporting music or art or theater orrnsports unless you can persuade people allrnthe way from Lima, Peru, to Peru, Illinois,rnto have the same taste and buy thernsame product. Uniqueness, localness, isrnexpensive, inefficient, not cost-effectivern—it does not sell, and so we are supposedrnto abandon it.rnThe same goes for careers, as I havernmentioned. Part of the global economyrnpropaganda is an effort to persuade usrnthat we must adapt ourselves to thernneeds of international business if we intendrnever to earn a living. I hope thatrnnever becomes true; certainly it is notrntrue yet. If it is important to you to livernin a certain place, you can do it.rnFor me that meant making somernLIBERAL ARTSrnLET YOUR FINGERPRINTS DO THE WALKINGrnAccording to the FAIR Immigration Report in June, the Immigration and NaturalizationrnService recently admitted that it has no way of carrying out its pledge to revoke therncitizenship of immigrants whose criminal history should have made them ineligible tornbecome citizens. The INS has no means of forcing citizens to provide fingerprints, andrntherefore cannot catch and deport naturalized criminals. Since 1994, those seeking torncome to the United States have had the option of submitting their fingerprints by mail,rna flaw in the system that allows many criminals to slip into the United States every year.rnThe Clinton administration allegedly ignored this problem in the hope of naturalizingrnone million immigrants before the November 1996 elections under the “CitizenshiprnUSA” program.rnSEPTEMBER 1997/47rnrnrn