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The Spread Of The Monoculture
Western civilization, in spite of claims to support diversity, is promoting a worldwide monoculture-the same basic values, institutions and points of view for everyone-which it calls ‘globalization’. Western commercial culture with its pursuit of markets and commodities eliminates all true culture, which is based on quality, not quantity. It creates a culture of money that submerges any true culture of refinement or spirituality, in which everything can be bought and sold, possessed or capitalized on.
If we visit shopping malls in America today, for example, it is hard to tell what state in the country we are located in. The shopping malls in Florida, California, New York or the Midwest have the same basic stores and sell the same basic products. The streets look the same, as do the houses, apartment buildings and office buildings. People eat the same basic types of food and have the same habits of work, sleep and relaxation. Almost everything is mass-produced and follows the same economy driven forces.
These same types of businesses pioneered in America are spreading worldwide, whether it is Coca Cola, McDonalds, blue jeans or Barbie dolls. One finds the same multinational corporations operating in nearly every major city of the world, whether Tokyo, Shanghai, Mumbai or London. While one finds foreign stores like Chinese restaurants in shopping malls even in America, which have their niche in the global scene, these operate according to the same commercial approach as standard western businesses. They do not represent real globalization but a co-opting of foreign businesses by the western commercial culture.
The world media is yet more of a monoculture. News services worldwide provide what are essentially the same stories from the same cultural slant. They are standardized in a western model and promote a western point of view with western ideals of free trade, social equality, democracy and affluence. People all over the world watch Hollywood movies, listen to the pop music of the US and Europe, and adulate American athletes.
Similarly, in the universities of the world, it is mainly western civilization that is taught, even if there is an old and profound civilization. In a country like India, Shakespeare is a much better known and quoted poet than Kalidas, the equivalent great Sanskrit poet. The West honors the Japanese for enthusiastically taking up western culture, music and entertainment. But it regards as close-minded or communal, cultures that try to hold their own ground and avoid the consumerist assimilation.
Author - David Frawley
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