Critics of Cultural Imperialism - Essay Example

Cultural Imperialism Introduction Cultural imperialists showed remarkable provincialism as they ignored the existence of other states and countries before United States. The European governments for instance, developed a considerable number of cultural exchange programs but they had no intension of expanding their empires through dissemination their culture to other parts of the world. Most colonizers imposed their cultures on the colonies because it was seen as a tool to strengthen commerce, political influence, and trade in abroad. There emerged various forms of imperialism including cultural imperialism, economic, political, and media imperialism1. There are two theories that explain media globalization which include media imperialism and modernization. Globalization is the process by which contemporary society and other countries are connected and interrelated by cultural experiences and trade communication. Global sale of films, media products and the internet brings together people in the developing countries and western countries in direct contact2. Cultural imperialism concept is used to refer to the cultural influence of a developed country on the developing nations. Cultural globalization is the emergence of beliefs and values that are shared by the entire world. Critics of Cultural Imperialism The critics of the cultural imperialism believed that cultural imperialists do not have empirical explanation and practical evidence. Cultural imperialism involves spreading modernity whereby it leads to cultural loss but not cultural expansion. There has not been any group of conspirators who spread any specific culture. However, global economic and technological advancement decreased the value and importance of national culture3. It would be baseless to attribute global development to any one culture. The idea of cultural imperialism or voluntary cultural conquest is not relevant. Instead, all the countries in the world irrespective of their location are subject to worldwide cultural change. Cultural imperialism is not valid because what the people watch in the mass media can be advantageous to them. Certain programs aired by the western media have a positive influence on the third world countries depending on whether to use them or not for instance, some countries staged a revolution after watching certain programs aired by the western television. That does not mean the audience were compelled to doing so but because they found it necessary because they had the belief that it was the best way. Western cultural imperialism is considered irrelevant because some third world countries have strong resistance to United States culture and products. For instance, the countries in the Middle East and the entire Muslim community have strongly refused to embrace the culture and the media products. The orthodox Muslim has opposed the influence of the western culture. They have retained their culture and custom despite the fact that other countries in the world have put blame on the American culture for eroding their culture. Studies in literature, cinematography, drama, and culture showed that the Muslim society rejected individual aspects of American culture in the eve of influence of western goods in the world4. This indicates that it is the choice individual countries to embrace a foreign culture and they can choose to resist the dominance of such cultures on their cultures. The effects of the American consumer products on France demonstrate the local resistance to dominion of American culture by other nations after the post-war France. The French opposed the influence the United States culture because they were afraid they could lose their cultural identity. Although the French went through Americanization, they were successful in defending their local cultural identity. The French consumers acknowledged that some western products were appealing and they consumed them, however, the continued to idealize and cherish their national identity. This phenomenon indicated that cultural imperialism is not relevant as different consumers have the liberty of using the foreign products and at the same time retain their own cultural identity. Cultural imperialism is not relevant as evidenced by average traditional German who tends to follow a more strict culture than the Americans do. The German Kultur stressed very high culture and was ethnically inclined to their cultural practices. They were ethnically bound to their belief and deeply rooted in their history especially in arts, performance, and music, which were funded and promoted by the state. American culture intruded many nations in the world after world war two. However, the West Germany never perceived such intrusion as cultural imperialism. They considered American culture incompatible with their traditional Kultur. This indicated that cultural imperialism is not valid and adaptation of cultural artefacts does not always result to political and cultural adaptation5. Response theorists argued that the concept of forcing consumer products and western ideas is flawed. The American culture and identity was resisted by many countries. The United States diplomats could not determine the nature and scope of their cultural dominance in other parts of the world. The actions of the United States cultural diplomats were easily comparable to those ones of other diplomats from other countries. The western culture is not conquering other countries and the concept of the western cultural imperialism is not relevant. The response theorists do not believe in the conquest of American culture of the world because even the actions of the cultural diplomats from America were not considerably different from the efforts of other diplomats. The concept of poststructuralist suggested that cultural imperialism be replaced by a term that would circumvent the dominator-victim dualism6. Anthropologists and musicologists adopted different concepts that were meant to help people understand global music interaction. They suggested artistic sharing and cultural exchange, which could be, translated easily to different other fields. The critics of cultural imperialism interpreted the exchange of different cultures as cultural transmission. It is adopted from psychological interpretation, which alluded to cultural and genetic interaction and how they were influencing human behaviour. Cultural transmission concept proposes several avenues of rejection, acceptance, and alteration, which other countries may choose in case they are come in contact with the American culture. It explains the various options available for the consumers of American products to choose if they feel confronted by the western culture. Other scholars promoted the concept of globalization to criticize cultural imperialism. The term globalization supports the idea of world compression and the peoples’ view of the world as organic whole. Some people interpreted globalization as just economic development. However, globalization consists of many disciplines in terms of its cause and effect. Researchers took advantage of the vague meaning of globalization to interpret it broadly. They eventually included many characteristics of modernization to interpretation of globalization for example, the spread of technology, western capitalism, scientific rationality were included in the interpretation of globalization. Cultural imperialism was simply considered as a form of globalization. The critics of cultural imperialism argued that all the societies are constantly exchanging cultures and that individual societies have numerous cultures7. The explained that the society’s culture does not reflect the nation-state borders. They proposed the replacement of social scientific system by a new concept. They viewed globe as interconnected, more organic, and single network rather than tripartite worldview. The critics of cultural imperialism argue users’ habits are not imposed and they are personal choice. Cultural imperialism is a fuzzy concept which is invalid because the choice of whether to use a media product depends on individual. There has been rise of other cultures and soft power from non-western countries like Indian firms and Mexican television dramas. There is contra-flows of media as other media from other countries is dominating certain niches for example, the Indian films dominates Asia and other parts of the world. This has raised questions about the validity of cultural imperialism. Proponents of Cultural Imperialism Apparently, the critics of cultural imperialism revised their arguments about cultural imperialism. The use of world systems theory revisited the arguments about cultural imperialism. In 2006 edition of Elteren’s US cultural imperialism, he described a transnational and expansive corporate authority, which has replaced the dominion of America in influencing cultural and economic activities. He developed literary critic, which assessed Orientalism in America and acknowledged that United States culturally dominated the world and created a cultural vision of entire world because of its different ideas, personality, image, and experience8. The arguments put in place by the critics of cultural imperialism are not relevant and are invalid. The Western and Industrialized states export and impose their social and cultural values on weaker countries in developing world9. This is because the flow of entertainment and news was biased and only favoured the industrialized countries. The biasness could be evidenced in the quantity of information since the western countries exported the media flow while the developing countries imported the media flow. This indicates that there is flow of information in one direction as developing countries were on the receiving end while western countries were on the providing end. The biasness of the information flow was also in terms of the quality evidenced by the fact that the developing countries were provided with prejudiced and scant coverage in the developed media. Cultural imperialism has a negative impact on the developing world as it has led to extinction of their rich cultures, epistemologies, and worldviews10. This has resulted to uneven deployment and information social control of cultures of developing countries. Cultural imperialism resulted to replacement of the languages of the developing countries with the western languages. Apparently, there are some developing countries in the world that has English as their official language, a situation that has been brought about by cultural imperialism. It has also led to devaluation of ontology, which is explicitly individualistic. Cultural imperialism involves interaction of regimes extensively and may result to identity deformation of the poor countries. The dominant culture overshadows the local culture of the poor countries, which may lead to misrecognition, deteriorated self-efficacy, and little self-esteem11. Through the media products that the developing countries consume from western countries, they adopt the western culture, as they perceive it better than theirs. According to the epistemological assumptions, the one truth does not change no matter the circumstances. Epistemological theory asserts that as long as the developing countries continue to consume the media products of the western countries, they are bound to act, think, live, and feel like the western countries. In the process of acting like the western countries, they end up embracing their culture and side lining their own. According to the ontological assumptions, human beings lack the free will to select how they act, think, feel, and live12. That is the reason they react to what things they watch and hear on the media because they have nothing to compare it to apart from their lives. They usually perceive their own lives and cultures inadequate compared to other cultures they watch on the media. This phenomenon promotes cultural imperialism as the developing countries integrate the western cultures in their daily lives leading to erosion of their own culture. The western culture as perceived in the media is appealing and may seem superior to the cultures of the developing countries. The ontological theory explains that people will always copy what they view on the media may negatively affect their own cultures. Due to cultural imperialism, the western countries normally sell their consumerism and dependency at the expense of the developing countries. It promotes the consumption of western products by the developing countries. This results to more imports in developing countries leading to poor performance of the local good. Western consumerism leads to dependence of the local consumers on the imported products, therefore promoting dependence on the imported goods13. Due to dependence on the western products, the local are controlled and dominated by the west both politically, socially, and economically. The opponents of cultural imperialism argue that such dependence and western consumerism result to distortion of the cultural values and independence of the developing countries. The proponents of cultural imperialism argue that expanding modernity in other part of the world by the developed countries does not result to global culture14. A global culture does not facilitate memory since it is not restricted to particular group and specific place. Therefore, it does not satisfy the needs of the people and has no identity. Cultural imperialism results to changes in cultural identification and experience in terms of cosmopolitanism and hybridism. Many aspects in the society like economy, technology, political, and environment affect culture. Globalization does not produce global culture but promotes globalized culture. Cultural imperialism resulted to individualism and competition of self-interest in most part of the world15. Due to adopted western culture by the developing countries, individuals and unfair competition has emerged. This is because western countries are capitalists and the every individual is concerned with his interests. Capitalism was not practiced widely in most developing countries as most communities valued communal ownership and cultural values. The adoption of western culture in these countries has led to the introduction of individualism and promotion of individual interest. As a result, traditional values of developing countries have been side-lined and their culture ignored. Cultural imperialism has led to introduction of status consciousness based on the wealth and material possession. The emphasis of status consciousness has resulted to increase in thirst for power and wealth. Each individual strives to be as wealthy as possible leading to promotion of individualism and personal interest. The need for more wealth led to increased social decadence like corruption, crime and prostitution. People in the undeveloped countries want to copy the kind of lifestyle they watch in the media, which has a negative effect on their culture. They have become more conscious to wealth and riches leading to individualism16. Cultural imperialism has led to excessive hedonism. Hedonism refers to the process of pursuing pleasure and self-gratification. The theory that pleasure is the highest good that human beings pursue in life. Embracing excessive hedonism results to emergence of social problems in the society. It may lead to violence and sex desires which are mostly detested by most cultures of the developed countries. Immorality was not common in most poor countries and the consequences of such actions may warrant death penalty if not excommunication. The values of undeveloped countries were intact and immoral behaviours were heavily punished. Cultural imperialism has led to erosion of these values and there has been massive moral decadence. Cultural imperialism gave rise to covert racism and the feeling of superiority of the western value to undeveloped ones17. The favouring of the western products over the local products evidences the increase in racism. The western products elements that are favoured include their fashion, forms of music, and beauty. The western countries perceive other cultures as inferior and archaic but only values the superiority of their culture. They believe that their fashion, beauty, and music are not comparable to others. Before the cultural imperialism, the developing countries did not know the aspect of racism and dominance. They believed in the richness of their own cultures and products but the emergence of imperialism made their culture look inferior and out-dated. Cultural imperialism is a form of cultural homogenization rather than cultural hybridization18. It results to dismissal of the culture of less developed countries and westernizing the local countries. Many globalization theorists who believe that the western cultures are dominant due to their political and economic power oppose this scenario. The homogenization of western culture leads to elimination of the rich local culture and values. Due to economic and political might of the developed countries, cultural diffusion with the developing counties does not usually occur however, local culture absorption is normally the order. Cultural imperialism gives rise to cultural convergence whereby the western culture assimilates the cultures of the developing countries and the former loses its cultural identity. Cultural imperialism has enabled the western people to be in more contact with developing countries leading to mixed feelings. This has led to emergence of emergence of nationalistic sentiments creating leading to hatred of western citizens. The developing countries may develop fear towards the foreigners and negative sentiments may arise. The cultural globalization has resulted to rise of racism and superiority complex of the western culture. Some developing countries have a lot of hatred to the western countries because they feel they have been neo-colonized and their culture eroded by the western culture. The feeling of being dominated and controlled by the western country has resulted to increase in racism and hatred towards the western countries. Cultural imperialism is promoted by the fact that the western countries produce most of the media products like news, film, comics, and the television program. This is because they have the resources to produce such media. Other countries in the world receive the productions of the western country because they are cheaper and affordable than their locally produced products. These third world countries consumers these media products and adopts what they have watched as they want to live, think, and believe in the western civilization. This has resulted to destruction of the culture and values. Conclusion Cultural imperialism has led to hatred from some developing countries towards United States19. The developing countries feel that their culture is being threatened by the encroachment of the America culture, which is considered superior. For instance, the terrorist networks have claimed that their terrorist attack on the United States is sometimes motivated by the cultural imperialism by United States. Cultural imperialism is believed to result to dominance of the United States and alienation of other cultures. It creates superficial needs and consciousness of the products produced by the western country. There is still a debate on whether cultural imperialism is relevant or it should be replaced by other terms like modernization or globalization. The proponents of existence of cultural imperialism give various reasons to justify the existence of imperialism. Conversely, the critics of cultural imperialism have also given many justifications against cultural imperialism and have opted for a replacement of concept with other terms20. Both sides have not provided enough empirical evidence to back up their assertion whether cultural imperialism exists or it is irrelevant. It is important to note that exchange of different cultures and intercultural interaction does not give rise to cultural imperialism. References Afzal-Khan, F. Cultural Imperialism and the Indo-English Novel: Genre and Ideology in RK Narayan, Anita Desai, Kamala Markandaya, and Salman Rushdie. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press, 2010. Beserra, B. Brazilian immigrants in the United States: cultural imperialism and social class. l Paso, TX: Lfb Scholarly Pub Llc, 2003. Broers, M. The Napoleonic Empire in Italy, 1796-1814: Cultural Imperialism in a European Context?. 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