Global Culture on Fast Track - Essay Example

Global Culture on Fast Track Culture is the basket of believes, personal and social values and attitude of people who reside in certain geography and share those with others in close interactions. These elements define and set social and personal behaviour in the locality. In the old days the village was the centre for cultural leadership. People living there strictly followed the set custom, social system and the social ethos. With the rapid industrialization everywhere in the world that led to massive export and import of goods and flow of manpower, technology and knowledge to other countries on large scale the village culture broke to give way to cross cultural society and global village. Lifestyles are changing fast to invite international practices. Youths in large number are instrumental to change to live in a free environment. They are resisting 'no change' attitude and fighting for the new environment where they can express freely what think right to make a modern culture. The change is undergoing automatically and being accepted by most of the resistant quarters. Globalisation does not create a common culture, values, attitude or beliefs as mentioned above. It gives way to a single arena in which people of different cultures interact and present their values for comparisons, analysis, acceptance or rejection on certain standard yardsticks. This is the internationalist version of globalisation. Free will, free movement, free expression promote free environment that can encourage innovative thinking, creativity, and inventions, which are the pillar for a new and modern global culture. Cosmopolitanism is the basic to the acceptance of outsiders and their culture. In this environment people shed away the shyness, limitations and crippling culture that impede entrepreneurship to work for growth and new vistas. Those countries, which welcomed such people from outside world and provided full opportunity to love and work freely, have turned the most important hub for creativity, entrepreneurship and the leader of global culture. USA is on the forefront on this change spectrum that made this country great. Today most of the world countries that aspire for growth and development crave to follow this great country and the people who are the symbol of freedom, democracy and modernity. Youths worldwide blindly follow the Americans in every field that might be fashion, lifestyle, cinema, or what not. Every Indian youth dreams to settle in that country and steal away their sheen whatever they can grab. In 'Rise of Web culture and its enemies' Stowe Boyd refers to the growing global culture emerging on the web. This culture is based on openness, inclusion, acceptance of diversity and the desire to make the world on the web' This movement is driven both by the failure of traditional organizations -media, government and religions to cope with the modern world and the stress we, as individuals, are confronted with. He is of the opinion that the massive immigrants to Canada are not at the mercy of traditional organizations in organizing their lives They are assumed with power of 'self-service attitude' to organize themselves without support from these traditional institutions. . Mr. Boyd stresses Governments all over the world have become conscious about the growing globalisation. They move toward globalisation but slowly out of fear. They are concerned about it as the prospective opportunities or menace for the government. Various polls conducted to find attitudes of governments and the people indicate that many of them particularly in Asia and Africa welcome globalisation but in America and Europe people don't. Many of them are of the opinion that globalisation does favour wealth. According to poll conducted by Gallup International 2006, 57% of African people believe that they are treated unfavourably in iternational level trade negotiations but they still favour increased trade and economic integration with others. People of Latin America also favoured globalisation in the nineties but today they are sceptical about it after facing certain setbacks in their economy. They are of the opinion that global capitalism caused the setback. Global culture develops over a long period caused by movement of people from one place to another in large number who creates impact on the culture of other places where they have settled and earned livelihood. For example the large number of exodus of Chinese workers and peasants since 1970's reform process in search of jobs to all over the world (about 18 million people) have left China to other parts of the world. The Chinese people migrated to about 150 countries in the world and carried with them enterprise, skill, knowledge and determination to survive in any circumstances that benefited the economies they lived in. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, USA, are the principal cities their presence was felt that proved beneficial for them They spread the message of new global culture global culture is benefitting the developed countries as well to great extent. Language and skill helped people to integrate with other countries. USA in order to benefit from the lower cost of labour have transferred the majority of Information technology job works to India because Indians have good knowedge of english and they are skilled in the job. Other countries are also given jobs on the basis of skill. This global culture and the benefits are on the trail of web culture of the modern times. Global free market is the key to solving problems of poverty in under developed or developing countries. This is done through providing job works to these countries by developed economies to avail of the benefit of saving in the cost of labour. The new global culture standing on the platform of global free market can promote all- round development of the global economy by self-balancing the work distribution and cost benefits. This will further promote global culture of integration and universal gains. This is the most accepted and sustainable development strategy with the integrated global culture with a new image of global well-being. Today's global culture is based on fast international communication through which mutual cooperation is possible on any issue on the spur of moment and decisions can be taken to solve a problem. Faster transportation makes possible to meet each other to resolve any differences in person if required. Source of faster means of communication and transportation have given birth to global village and global market. The dress the American wear or electronic gadgets they use or the toys their children play with are from the other end of the world, which is possible through this globalisation only. Today's basic issue is how to make it sustainable, not detrimental to the world's environment and be beneficial to the world population The world leaders have hectic meetings frequently on this issue to promote environment, terrorism, misuse of nuclear power, and so forth. The problems today are not concentrated to the villages or towns of a country but to the whole globe. This newer world culture has challenges of wider repercussions of being positive and negative both .It must be used with healthy policies and planning for the betterment of all. Globalisation is free flow and cross-national flows of Capital, goods, and technology. According to globalist, globalisation leads to imperialism that creates inequality in between conflicting states, classes and markets. The capitalist countries use the cheap resources of the poor countries for their gains and create social polarization and serve political purpose. Therefore, globalisation is harmful for nations and must not be justified. This is a theory supporting Karl Marks on Communism. Countries like Russia and China kept themselves aloof from globalisation for long, influenced by globlist theory. Globalisation however, is a strong cultural movement which forces organised labours all over the world to protect their rights in the face of their leaders' traditional attitude of protecting their home workers within the traditional industry of the country. In the wake of global culture these worker will find their interests fulfilled in adjusting with the global economy of today that require large number of independent, informal and service sector workers all over the world. 'A globalized world is integrated but not harmonious, a single place but also diverse, a construct of shared consciousness but prone to fragmentation' 'Global consciousness does not imply global consensus' Globalisation brings societies, individuals, international system and humankind on the single platform. It enables to make adjustment with homogenisation and hetrogenisation and keep them intertwined. The Transformationalist theory of globalisation claims it as an ongoing process of transformation of the world. War, political upheavals and economic growth change societies and culture of a country. Industrialisation, modernisation, and decolonisation have changed western countries and Asia Pacific nations. Democracy has changed the face and economic development of many countries in Asia including India and brought durable peace and prosperity in the region. Global strategic decisions and economic consideration did created conditions in which underdeveloped countries underwent economic transformation but it is the will of the individual country with political system social culture that can make it or mar it. India's political system and culture made it to be one of the fastest growing countries in the world after independence from the British rule but Pakistan couldn't make it because of their political system headed by military rule that supported wars and culture that supported terrorism. References Boyd, Stove 'Rise of Web culture and its enemies' Global envision website. www.globalenvision.org/Blog/ - 39k Featherstone, M Lash, S and Robertson, R Glocalization: Time Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity." Pp. 25-44 in Mozaffari,, Mehdi Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. Irap.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/1/2/247.pdf Petras, James, Globalization: A Critical analysis Journal article Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 29, 1999 Robertson, Roland. 1991. "The Globalization Paradigm: Thinking Globally." Pp. 207-24 in Religion and Social Order. Greenwich: JAI Press " Globalization, 1992: 8). www.sociology.emory.edu/globalization/theories03.html - 16k imposium, Emory University Read More