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The experience of American towns analysed by Sennett points to one well-nigh universal regularity: the suspicion against others, the intolerance of difference, the resentment of strangers, and the demands to separate and banish them, as well as the hysterical, paranoiac concern with ‘law and order’, all tend to climb to their highest pitch in the most uniform, the most racially, ethnically and class-wise segregated, homogeneous local communities. No wonder: in such localities the support for the ‘we-feeling’ tends to be sought in the illusion of equality, secured by the monotonous similarity of everyone within sight. The guarantee of security tends to be adumbrated in the absence of differently thinking, differently acting and differently looking neighbours. Uniformity breeds conformity, and conformity’s other face is intolerance. In a homogeneous locality it is exceedingly difficult to acquire the qualities of character and the skills needed to cope with human difference and situations of uncertainty; and in the absence of such skills and qualities it is all too easy to fear the other, simply for reason of being an-other – bizarre and different perhaps, but first and foremost unfamiliar, not-readily-comprehensible, not-fully-fathomed, unpredictable.

— Globalization by Zygmunt Bauman

Unlike the ontological insecurity, the identity-focused uncertainty needs neither the carrot of heaven nor the stick of hell to cause insomnia. It is all around, salient and tangible, all-too-protruding in the rapidly ageing and abruptly devalued skills, in human bonds entered until further notice, in jobs which can be taken away without any notice, and the ever new allures of the consumer feast, each promising untried kinds of happiness while wiping the shine off the tried ones.

— Postmodernity and its discontents by Zygmunt Bauman

[T]here seems to be an intimate kinship, a mutual conditioning and reciprocal reinforcement between the ‘globalization’ and ‘territorialization’. Global finance, trade and information industry depend for their liberty of movement and unconstrained freedom to pursue their ends on the political fragmentation of the world scene. They have all, one may say, developed vested interests in ‘weak states’ –that is, in such states as are weak but nevertheless remain states. Such states can easily be reduced to the (useful) role of local police stations, securing the modicum of order required for the conduct of business, but need not be feared as effective brakes on the global companies’ freedom. It is not difficult to see that the replacement of territorial ‘weak states’ by some sort of global legislative and policing powers would be detrimental to the extra-territorial companies’ interests. And so it is easy to suspect that far from being at war with each other, political ‘tribalization’ and economic ‘globalization’ are close allies and fellow conspirators. What they conspire against are the chances of justice being done and being seen to be done; but also the chances that neighbourhood responsibilities swell, stretch and eventually grow into the consistent care for global justice – and result in a politics effectively guided by ethical principles.

— Postmodernity and its discontents by Zygmunt Bauman