Is the West too Powerful?

Is the West too Powerful?

           

“The concept of culture has traditionally meant the knowledge that people share. This knowledge includes all manner of shared meanings, such as religion, myths, technology, political ideology, language, music, art fashion, and consumption patterns” (E & Z Reader).

In a globalizing world, such as our own, cultures spread at a drastic rate. Almost anyone anywhere can go out and experience an aspect of a different culture in their backyards. Many would see this as great, as this spread of information and culture opens the world up to so many different perspectives, but there is controversy. When examined, it seems like there is an imbalance of how the different cultures spread across the world. Most notably Western culture seems to have the greatest influence on the world. 

 
For example, in class we watched a Kenyan music video for a hip-hop song, in which the rappers made American cultural references, and wore American clothing. That’s a huge impact on an African country such as Kenya that is thousands of miles away. Yet here in American when was the last time you witnessed references to Kenyan culture in our society?  Not that often. Yes, I’m sure that you can find Kenyan restaurants in major American cities but I would not say that that constitutes as Kenyan culture having a major influence on us. But why does this occur? Why in a world that is theoretically supposed to be about exchanging and sharing ideas equally with everyone else does this occur. I would argue that it’s because the West is a global Hegemon. Western nations are the most powerful nations in our world, and other less powerful countries may see the culture of the West as the more successful and therefore more desired cultures. A personal example of mine involves my parents. They grew in Poland, a nation that until 1989 was behind the Iron Curtain and under an authoritarian USSR backed regime. As a child my parents would always tell me stories of when they were growing up, and often talk about how people would smuggle things in from the west such as coca cola, or listen to American songs on pirate radio, etc. They would always say that things from the west were desired, and in fact the Hippie movement in the U.S was what inspired the Solidarność movement in Poland that liberated them from the USSR. To them America was a place where you could be free and they must have attributed that American cultural value as the reason to why America was as great and powerful as it was. These values of freedom, and coca cola, and hamburgers today are spread across the world at a rapid pace through globalization, and because they are attributed with power and success, other nations, especially developing nations, incorporate them into their cultures.

So my final question would be is this problematic? And the answer is that it’s complicated. Continuing my personal example, my parents were so heavily influenced by the “greatness” of the West that I think they developed an unrealistic view of how great America was. Them coming here and realizing that America wasn’t as great as they thought proved to be an anticlimactic experience for them, and I feel like that’s an issue. America is something that it’s not to a lot of other nations, and because of that those nations incorporate aspects of our culture to be like us when we aren’t that great. This may cause other cultures to want to forsake aspects of their culture to be like us and to create a bland uni-world culture which everything is driven by American capitalism, or a “McWorld” so to speak as Benjamin Barber called it. And I would certainly say that this is at least partially true. I mean the introduction of McDonald’s to Japan has sparked the fast food industry in Japan, which has lowered the rates of cooking at home, a practice that was highly valued in Japanese culture, and traded in for the speed and convince of American fast food. The Japanese lost an aspect of their culture and became more like America, and that certainly contributed the idea of the McWorld. However, other’s argue that there positives to the greater spread of Western ideals such as economic development, or the introduction of democracy, and this certainly is true. For example as I mentioned earlier the hippie movement in the U.S inspired the movement that overturned the USSR backed regime in Poland. A country that was basically oppressed by another nation was able to break free because they were inspired by the West to do so. There is also the issue of human right violations in other nations such as child weddings in which young girls are sold to older men. Many of those girls are uncomfortable with this, and the spread of Western culture through globalization has empowered them to speak out about it, such as the girl in the video we watched in class, and that led to a positive outcome. The West may have it's issues, this whole situation of culture molding and predominance of the West in that process may seem questionable at times. Ultimately it brings the world together and even at times inspires positive change on some places, all of which are really positive outcomes.

Untimely yes Globalization spreads Western culture more often than the culture of non-Western nations. And while that may have its negatives, there are plenty of positive outcomes that come from this exchange. All in all the imbalance of cultural spread caused by globalization is a complex issue, that I feel doesn't really have a right or wrong answer, and some may  choose to view this process as a means to make the world blander, and that's a completely valid observation. But I do personally think that the positive outcomes that come from this phenomenon are strong and at the end of the day do push to world forward.