Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Globalisation of culture
My opinion is obviously the evidences give no definite results; presented together, they show no consistent support to any of the single hypothesis discussed earlier: there are signs of Western dominated cultural expansion.
Globalists may be severely disillusioned after the 9-11 event and the intensified war between the West and Islamic fundamentalists/terrorists. The world is hardly harmonising. Therefore, I shall argue that contemporary culture globalisation is an enormously complex phenomenon.
Firstly, contemporary development of global culture is advanced by the West America, but the process is much more dynamic and complicated than simple Western culture expansion to the rest of the world. For example, it could be argued that in terms of politics and economy (such as business culture) the world, driven by the idea of democracy and free market capitalism, is more Western, whilst popular culture such as music might be genuinely more hybridized and cosmopolitan.
Hard evidences show that globalisation creates, or fails to remove, interest for traditional loyalties and identities. people’s interests to the loyalties and identities with a historical past: they serve to provide people symbolic meanings and needed sense of belongings in the post-modern world. It is imperative that we understand the process of globalisation and its impact on culture as a complex, dynamic and dialectic phenomenon subject to multifarious historical contingencies. Any over simplification of trends should be avoided.
However, i believe that it is save to claim that there is an emergence of global culture at least in the realm of popular culture and consumption; as indicated earlier, whether this limited global culture would be the basis of a broader cosmopolitan value and serve to diminish traditional loyalties such as national identities, is a different matter, and is enormously difficult to predict.
bowei :)
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Labels: Globalisation of Culture
avoid the aliens;
12:01 PM
