Conversation with globalization - Essay Example

At first glance, it actually seems that globalization can become one powerful tool to gain better understanding and appreciation of different cultures, and break historically-rooted cultural stereotypes, given that globalization has enabled different peoples around the world to know more about the culture and way of life that other people from other corners of the globe possess. The sad thing is, despite the opportunities that globalization has offered for people to understand and appreciate more other cultures and other ways of life, it has even fostered adverse reactions among other people, wherein certain cultural groups now even identify themselves in a way that they are able to perceive themselves as opposed to others; in other words, despite globalization, other cultural groups reacted in a way that they would like to differentiate themselves from other cultures (in a negative way), and make this differentiation the defining aspect of their own culture.

This attitude only breeds suspicion and misunderstanding between different cultures. Take for instance the division between “pro-soccer” and “anti-soccer” Americans as described in the work of Franklin Foer (Foer 235-248). According to Foer, globalization has actually failed some of its expectations, both economically and culturally, given that majority of the world’s nations remain poor, and that some cultures actually fear that “globalized culture” will eventually erode their own unique cultural identities (Foer 4).

In order to illustrate the failures of globalization, particularly in its failure to promote the homogenization of culture (and even attracted the reversion to old cultural identities and hostility to other cultures), Foer actually used the ever famous worldwide sport of soccer (Foer 235). Looking at the feud between pro-soccer and anti-soccer Americans, Foer actually found out that Americans who hate soccer even stated that “that hating soccer is more American than apple pie, driving a pickup, or spending Saturday afternoons channel surfing with the remote control…” (Foer 240), and that “people with actual power believe that soccer represents a genuine threat to the American way of life” (Foer 240-241).

In fact, as Foer wrote, “The former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jack Kemp, one of the most influential conservatives of the 1980s, a man once mentioned in the same breath as the presidency holds this view. In 1986, he took to the floor of the United States Congress to orate against a resolution in support of an American bid to host the World Cup. Kemp intoned, “I think it is important for all those young out there, who someday hope to play real football, where you throw it and kick it and run with it and put it in your hands, a distinction should be made that football is democratic, capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist [sport].

’’ (Foer 241) In this case, it can be seen that despite the windows that globalization has opened, particularly in letting other people see the dynamics of other cultures, or even other pastimes for this matter, some cultural groups actually resist