Seite - 51 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Band 2:1

51 | www.limina-graz.eu were experiencing this as well, especially those in the lower middle class and the working classes. They found their incomes stagnating or even di- minishing. The proposed rationality of the growing effects of globalization was being replaced by an awareness of the emotional consequences of los- ing control. Authors such as Francis Fukuyama, who had once lauded an era of unparalleled prosperity were now pointing to the social unraveling that was taking place (Fukuyama 2018). He, and others such as the German phi- losopher Peter Sloterdijk, pointed to the growing response to globalization in terms of the classical Greek sense of thumos –strong and powerful emo- tions of anger and fear (Sloterdijk 2006). Such strong emotions emerge at a time when a basic sense of security seems to be beyond one’s grasp or is even utterly unattainable. Ronald Inglehart, one of the major architects of the European Values and World Values Surveys, suggests that when people no longer have to fear for their physical survival every day, they develop what he has called Postmaterialist values, that make them more concerned about their own self-expression and more open to new information and re- lationships. But when this assurance of survival breaks down, people draw firmer boundaries around themselves, and become willing to gather behind strong authoritarian leaders, and want to exclude anyone considered for- eign or “other” from their physical territory. Such efforts at self-protec- tion and exclusion of others are attempts to regain control and a sense of security against what has been perceived to have been lost (Inglehart 2018). A second factor, most evident in Europe, was the movement of peoples from Africa and the Middle East across the Mediterranean and into Europe. Pope Francis called attention to this phenomenon at the very beginning of his pontificate in 2013 by visiting the island of Lampedusa in the Mediter- ranean. The massive movement of peoples caused by wars in the Middle East, especially since 2015, drew even more attention to one of the conse- quences of globalization—the movement of peoples. Europe had already experienced increased migration in the 1990s, as the expansion of the European Union into Central and Eastern Europe opened the way for the movement of workers into the wealthier EU countries in the West. Xenophobia was already evident in Europe, especially in former colo- nizing countries such as France and Great Britain. But the growing insecu- rity of significant parts of the population (especially in rural areas, among robert J. schreiter | Globalization and Plural theologies When the assurance of survival breaks down, people draw firmer boundaries and become willing to gather behind strong authoritarian leaders.