There is vast literature on globalization. A large part of this literature is abstract and “theoretical.” However, most so-called “theory” is not theoretical at all, in the sense of making testable predictions about the real world. Much of what now passes for “theory” in the social sciences consists of complex words and phrases, often incomprehensible to most people, of little help in understanding the real world. However, if scholars quote each other sufficiently often what passes for “theory” establishes itself as a legitimate area of scholarly activity. The associated journals are able to achieve an imprimatur as “five star” journals and the leading theoreticians achieve high reputations in the academic community. A fast-growing area of the “theory” is the study of “how to research.” “Methodology” now occupies a large fraction of academic activity in the social sciences. Students are urged to read so-called “theory” and spend large amounts of time learning “how to study” rather than encouraged to explore the extraordinarily interesting real world of globalization, using their own critical faculties and developing their independent analytical skills.

关于全球化有大量的文献。这些文献的很大一部分是抽象的和“理论的”。然而，大多数所谓的“理论”根本不是理论性的，从对现实世界作出可检验的预测的意义上说。在社会科学中，许多现在被称为“理论”的东西都是由复杂的词汇和短语组成的，大多数人往往无法理解，对理解现实世界几乎没有帮助。然而，如果学者们经常互相引用，被称为“理论”的东西就成为学术活动的合法领域。联合期刊能够获得“五星级”期刊的认可，主要理论家在学术界享有很高的声誉。“理论”的一个快速发展的领域是“如何研究”的研究。“方法论”现在在社会科学的学术活动中占据了很大一部分。学生们被敦促阅读所谓的“理论”，花大量时间学习“如何学习”，而不是鼓励他们去探索全球化这个非常有趣的现实世界，运用自己的批判能力，培养独立的分析能力。