Article: McWorld vs. Cultural Heritage
Why do so called progressives insist that engagement with the developing world will destroy their culture and rich heritage? What heritage are they referring to: Genocide, slavery, AIDS, Cholera, infant mortality, ignorance, illiteracy, famine, female oppression, a thirty-three year life span? I understand their concern, I honestly do. I mean, I don't like the idea of proud, young tribesmen zoning out on a Playstation or the Serengeti littered with Coke cans and Big Mac containers either, but let's face it, these scenes of Western encroachment degrading the pristine landscape of the "unspoiled" lands and peoples of the developing world are figments of our imagination. Not one of the social dysfunctions of the West can compare to the crushing, Hobbesian cruelty of the maladies listed above that define the lives of millions living in utter, hopeless destitution.
I think its time we put to rest the false, pseudo-sentimental notion that progress and culture are mutually exclusive and that economic prosperity must somehow have an American-flavored homogeneity about it. We're not the Borg! Each culture that has been "assimilated" into the functioning, integrated world has successfully adapted the mostly economic standards and practices into their existing culture and all but a small minority of concerned traditionalists (like our Christian Fundamentalists here at home) consider these developments positive and progressive.
What American influences that have found there way into other cultures is a result of a free and democratic, global competition of ideas. The Japanese may drink more Pepsi than Sake these days, and you may think that a travesty, but then hey, they gave us Anime and Pokemon and yet somehow, we all survived...although Pokemania nearly drove me to commit Seppuku.
The often garish, neon world of Western capitalism can be nauseating to those who have grown up in its glowing, hot-pink embrace and its understandable that there are those who do not wish to inflict the dark and ugly facets of the post-industrial age onto anyone else, but it is not our right to preclude entire nations from making that choice for themselves. I can assure you that there are millions of Africans and Central Asians that would gladly put up with the gridlock, annoying cell-phone ring tones and reality television, just for a drink from your garden hose.
I think its time we put to rest the false, pseudo-sentimental notion that progress and culture are mutually exclusive and that economic prosperity must somehow have an American-flavored homogeneity about it. We're not the Borg! Each culture that has been "assimilated" into the functioning, integrated world has successfully adapted the mostly economic standards and practices into their existing culture and all but a small minority of concerned traditionalists (like our Christian Fundamentalists here at home) consider these developments positive and progressive.
What American influences that have found there way into other cultures is a result of a free and democratic, global competition of ideas. The Japanese may drink more Pepsi than Sake these days, and you may think that a travesty, but then hey, they gave us Anime and Pokemon and yet somehow, we all survived...although Pokemania nearly drove me to commit Seppuku.
The often garish, neon world of Western capitalism can be nauseating to those who have grown up in its glowing, hot-pink embrace and its understandable that there are those who do not wish to inflict the dark and ugly facets of the post-industrial age onto anyone else, but it is not our right to preclude entire nations from making that choice for themselves. I can assure you that there are millions of Africans and Central Asians that would gladly put up with the gridlock, annoying cell-phone ring tones and reality television, just for a drink from your garden hose.
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