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Globalization raises more basic questions about human existence, and about the search for identity and reference points, than first meets the eye. it includes certain religious claims : for some, its vision represents promises for the future, while for others it seems to be a threat of apocalyptic dimensions. The call to deregulate markets or free them from political intervention appears to be a symptom of a new role for politics. Politicians realize they are powerless before the market. is the global market all-powerful because it sweeps everything along in its logic? Does humanity these days measure its worth in terms of money? Does the primacy of the economy leave the question of justice in abeyance? equal opportunity also has economic implications. seen from the perspective of the critics of globalization, things appear differently from the way its partisans present them. The protests of some and the euphoria of others have their ultimate basis not in economic realities, but in different understandings of the world, in diverging visions and hopes. by means of a few examples (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens [ATTAC] on the one hand, and h.O. henkel on the other), we can see clearly the differences amongst the fears that haunt men and women today. The sort of pluralism that ATTAC invokes to criticize globalization at the same time ignores the problem that henkel-style globalization opposes, namely the experience of a (non-negotiable) difference within its ranks. but what we need is not a unified, conciliatory religion which men and women allow themselves to be enclosed and tangled up in. What we need instead is an anti-religion, a religion of difference, by which men and women throughout the world can move forward.