The term "globalization" refers to the ever-growing dominance of Western culture and society. It claws its way into our social, economic, and political lives as well as our culture. Many deem this "Americanization" to be suffocating our world, I completely agree with this and see our constant sucking-up to Western culture to be problematic for our traditional values, individuality as nations, and self-respect. I can sympathise partially with the Islamic State's hatred for the West, as with the spread of American popular culture, mindless consumerism, and tacky television shows littered with sex, violence and bad language, there is no wonder why the West is deemed as uncultured and a threat to our heritages.
Less on my rant-filled opinions however, globalization as a definition can be broken down into two main segments: Capitalist and Socialist. Taking plenty of notes from our lecture, here are quotes from the presentation:
"Socialist
The process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones. It can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together. This process is a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces."
"Capitalist
The elimination of state-enforced restrictions on exchanges across borders and the increasingly integrated and complex global system of production and exchange that has emerged as a result."
My hatred for so many of the points raised in the lecture are due to my thoughts of society becoming less and less authentic and true to its heritage and history, and more and more like duplicates of every average American celebrity. Thanks to the brainwashing we get from the media, which is heavily run by giant U.S corporations, we are made to think and act a certain way. We are becoming more superficial by the year and with globalization creating clones of everything Western (The McDonalds down the road will be every bit as similar as the one across the globe), our originality and traditional values as individual cultures and nationalities seems to be washed away by the flood of booming business.
Globalization however can and will receive my praise. Technology as an example is ever-growing and has dominated the globe phenomenally. It has allowed to banish space and time as we know it, allowing us to communicate with someone thousands of miles away at the touch of a button. What may have taken weeks to send a letter now only takes a second. Globalization has done good by our planet from that aspect.
Globalization can be looked at in two ways; as a centripetal force (bringing the world together) or as a centrifugal force (tearing the world apart). I believe that there is no black and white when looking into this, and there will always be problems with some parts of the world no matter how well the global spread means by it. The problems with globalization are as follows: sovereignty (challenges ti the idea of the nation-state), identity (challenges who we are and our heritage), and accountability (challenges who runs what, our forces and organisations).
I found it amusing how globalization was mentioned throughout the presentation using the American "z" in place of an "s", which would be deemed incorrect by my standards as we're British. I think it was a very clever play on how Americanization has wormed its way even into our language, despite British English existing way before American English (which in my opinion shouldn't even exist - it's just the U.S' poor attempt to be separate from us while at the same time trying to conquer us with media, business and rubbish.
On the note of becoming superficial, sadly it doesn't stop at clothing. There are even products sold in countries where the nationalities have darker skin that allow them to "whiten" and bleach their skin to look more like TV stars. That is terrifying and makes me feel that the U.S is pressuring people to look a certain way. After all we have been through throughout the ages, there is still this notion that white people are superior. That is wrong.
Globalisation (yes, with an "s"!) doesn't just stop at Americanism and isn't all that bad. It is actually means of distributing ideas of sustainability and how to look after our planet, rather than destroy it. So, although I may be putting down one aspect of it, I praise it for at least being able to bring to the world's attention that we do not own this planet, we are merely inhabitants of it. We need to keep it going for future generations and be fair to everything that lives on it with us. This also ties into "Ecologism" - a term coined by our lecturer himself - a lovely little ideology that everything that exists on this planet is of equal importance to humans. Everything is about money, appearance and materialistic values instead of actually caring for each other and what is around us. Ecologism is nice. It is effectively a means of abolishing hierarchy and bringing the world together. A centripetal force. This lecture was fantastic and taught me a lot about how (sadly) the world works. It was nice to think that maybe it shone a light over people's ignorance that we really are being controlled and brainwashed, and to essentially be free, we need to wake up, and take control.
On the note of becoming superficial, sadly it doesn't stop at clothing. There are even products sold in countries where the nationalities have darker skin that allow them to "whiten" and bleach their skin to look more like TV stars. That is terrifying and makes me feel that the U.S is pressuring people to look a certain way. After all we have been through throughout the ages, there is still this notion that white people are superior. That is wrong.
Globalisation (yes, with an "s"!) doesn't just stop at Americanism and isn't all that bad. It is actually means of distributing ideas of sustainability and how to look after our planet, rather than destroy it. So, although I may be putting down one aspect of it, I praise it for at least being able to bring to the world's attention that we do not own this planet, we are merely inhabitants of it. We need to keep it going for future generations and be fair to everything that lives on it with us. This also ties into "Ecologism" - a term coined by our lecturer himself - a lovely little ideology that everything that exists on this planet is of equal importance to humans. Everything is about money, appearance and materialistic values instead of actually caring for each other and what is around us. Ecologism is nice. It is effectively a means of abolishing hierarchy and bringing the world together. A centripetal force. This lecture was fantastic and taught me a lot about how (sadly) the world works. It was nice to think that maybe it shone a light over people's ignorance that we really are being controlled and brainwashed, and to essentially be free, we need to wake up, and take control.
