Bridget Milot October 28, 2001
International Studies Seminar
Global culture is not necessarily inevitable. Cultures and icons of certain cultures will certainly move and transcend the boundaries of the nation state. Global communications has rapidly accelerated the rate at which certain ideas have spread across the globe and it has become increasingly difficult for people to live in any place culturally isolated from the rest of the world. Sure there are some definite ‘agents’ of cultural globalization, most notably McDonalds, Coca-Cola, and other fast food chains. Yet these icons of ‘cultural globalization’ are simply businesses in the job of pursuing profits by selling to populations that will consume. These agents themselves will not ever create a global culture. Never will everyone in the world give up the unique goods, services, practices and beliefs that they have shared within their communities over hundreds of years because of mass marketing, increased technology, or more aggressive businesses. Rather, the world will remain a place of competing and sharing cultures and people will add certain characteristics from other places to the laundry list of qualities that make each person and culture unique. The way I view a ‘global culture’ is wherein ALL people abandon the majority of traditions that are specific to their own national, tribal, racial, religious, etc culture for a new global culture that is equally shared, maintained, and invented by all groups of people.
There are certain modern phenomena that I believe create a new ‘risk society’ or grouping of people that transcends all boundaries and creates what I would call a ‘global grouping’. These phenomena include environmental and population threats such as global warming or a nuclear holocaust. However, instead of really creating a global culture these agents make each person identify with all others and see that there are some common elements in every life. Moreover though, people must be educated about these issues so that they may share a global fear or global identity. Traveling into deep rural China, most notably Guilin, you will see that not only have people there never heard of a McDonalds or experienced running water (they still use an irrigation system that combines water buffalo, bamboo sticks, and human labor). These people have their own cultural beliefs concerning why the earth is getting warmer, for example, and are not sharing the same global awareness or set of beliefs as another from a different place might. Thus, we are a long way off from ever having a truly global culture.