Cultural Imperialism and Colonialism - Essay Example

Question Cultural imperialism historically came about through the influence and diffusion of literary, artistic, philosophical, and architectural methods and works. A culture subsumed another with its literature and cultural tendencies, typically when the culture being influenced and “conquered” was a weaker and/or technologically less advanced one. In the context of the modern mass media, Western cultural imperialism concerns the diffusion, dissemination, and propagation of culture-specific beliefs, behaviors, viewpoints, and habits by means of television, movies, music, clothing, “shopping” culture, and even radio. The idea is that through the mass media and their presence in nearly every non-Western country in the world (particularly thanks to the ubiquity of televisions), non-Western people internalize and are influenced by Western cultural trends and tendencies which ultimately have an enslaving and destructive effect on the native culture of the people watching. Thus in addition to economic imperialism, the mass media can further the cause of dissociating people from their cultural milieu by presenting and universalizing Western culture as being just that: universal. Many argue that Western television, with its atomizing effect upon the individual, can disconnect, for example, an African from his/her native Africa and make him/her begin to see the world not as an African but rather as a sort of pseudo-Westerner. As a pseudo-Westerner he/she is influenced by Western commercial culture and its emphasis on material possessions. As well many contend that the influence of Western mass media on poorer countries is such that Western capitalism and its social-stratifying effects condition people to think of themselves as slaves in the world economy where their role is to work, buy (Western) products, and accept their class position within the overall global socio-economic hierarchy. The main objects of this mass media-cultural imperialism are of course the young of the world, for they are the future buyers. This influence on youths is one of the more pernicious characteristics of the modern mass media and their effect on culture. As a consequence of the dissemination of a ‘global’ culture, the Western obsession with beauty and physical appearance has been spread across the world. Modern commercial television, be it in America, Africa, or Australia, is replete with images and portrayals of people as being beautiful and successful and usually only that if they are also overtly sexual and “easy.” The Sexual Revolution was a Western phenomenon, but thanks to the mass media, it has been everywhere propagated, though rarely at the behest of parents. Instead of learning to accept themselves as they are, many youths today, molded as they have been by global television culture, suffer from an acute obsession with their own physical appearance and an almost megalomaniacal desire to be famous and beautiful. This is all a surely a result of the brainwashing which occurs as the young of the world watch television and believe it to be an accurate and proper portrayal of reality. The arguments against the claim that the media are spreading certain cultural norms generally relate to the fact the individual who has chosen, for example, to watch television has done just that: he/she has chosen to participate in that media form. He/she, if desired, can simply turn off the television and proceed to do his/her own desired cultural activities. Seeing the world only in terms of rich/poor, Western/non-Western distorts things. There is more diversity to the individual and thus the alleged effects of mass media are exaggerated because people can resist far more effectively than scholars often assume. As well many false images of the world presented in the mass media are easily shown to be false when one turns off the television and looks around. Question 2 The legacy of European colonialism in the Third World is another hotly debated and extremely polemic question in much of contemporary academic discourse. The extent to which it is responsible for the many social and political upheavals and problems which occurred in former colonies after the end of formal European suzerainty can be debated. The general effect and role itself, however, cannot be denied: Europe’s conquest of the Third World, interestingly, created the Third World. By that I mean that many of the countries which today exist in Africa, South America, and even Southeast Asia do so in their capacity as former European colonies. Their present-day borders largely correspond to their former borders as provinces of the empires of Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Italy, and Russia. One great effect of European colonialism was actually to “create” most of the world’s countries. This is not to say those peoples did not have prior cultures and traditions which were both ancient in provenance and worthy of respect. Instead it means that the political regimes which came to represent them, be they specific to each culture or a conglomeration of several cultures in one state, were for the most part the product of the European powers. Sometimes these usually hastily drawn-up borders corresponded to accurate cultural and/or ethnic boundaries on the ground, but often they were completely arbitrary. When independence came about after the Second World War, many of these countries had political regimes which only existed by virtue of their previous colonial status. Hundreds of ethnic groups and tribes are a colonial construction, like the Sukuma of Tanzania. In many cases two or more historically unfriendly or rival peoples were forced to live together and share political, and thus social, power. The immediate consequence of this was to foster many wars and civil conflicts. States which did not reflect social and cultural realities usually would descend into civil war. They lacked the requisite historical experience necessary to have and maintain a stable political regime/entity. In several cases, their country existed only because some European diplomat had drawn it on a map. One such country was the Congo. This geographically massive country, a former colony of Belgium, contains within it literally hundreds and hundreds of different ethnic, religious, and cultural groups and minorities all vying for power, voice, and autonomy. The result of this has been that the history of the Congo since independence has been one of either civil war or abject tyranny and repression, the latter category being the only means of creating peace, though certainly not for sustaining it. In another former Belgian colony, Rwanda, ethnic categories were created arbitrarily. When distributing identity cards in Rwanda, the Belgian colonizers simply identified all people with more than 10 head of cattle as ‘Tutsi’ and those with less as ‘Hutus’, years later, colonial registers were used for ethnic identification for the mass killings that took place in 1994. Thus a direct link can made between colonial policy and mass murder. Another lasting effect of colonialism has been the influence and role of European languages. Related to the way in which many African countries’ borders were the result of arbitrary decision, stands the European tongue spoken by many people in the given former colony. The one thing which has been able to bring people together of different ethnicities who by historical circumstance shared the same state, has been the language which they all speak (which came from the country that once colonized them). In the case of the Congo this was French. Ironically, the one thing which has been able to bind people together has been the tongue of their former colonizers. As a result of the assimilation by African countries of a European culture during the colonial period, they often have as one of their national languages that of the former power. Long after formal political and economic dominance has disappeared, there remains in many African countries an enduring cultural domination by virtue of the language spoken by the people who now live in a country that was largely created ex nihilo by a European. This has a converse as well, for in Africa several countries could be one, but separated by linguistic, political, and economic contrasts promoted under colonialism, they live as different countries. The colonial powers deliberately sought to divide and conquer in order to rule and as such created many conflicts where formerly there were not any. Many modern conflicts in Africa are directly linked to European colonial practices of promoting dissension in order to acquire and maintain political domination. Read More