The spread of Western commercial culture is reducing cultural diversity all over the world, starting in Europe and America. European intellectual and artistic culture basically died with World War II. Asian culture was marginalized first by colonial and then by communist forces and has now been reduced to little more than folk art. Or the Asians have taken to imitating Western culture in terms of art, literature and music and have become just a footnote to it, forgetting their own rich indigenous traditions.

Clearly the dominant cultural force in the world is the commercial anti-culture that has come out of the business-minded West. Yet the West also has its alternative cultures. There are ecological and anti-commercial sides to the West; groups who want to protect not only the Earth but also other cultures. There is a New Age Western spiritual culture, which though tainted with the same commercialism, has a progressive side that looks to the spiritual traditions of the East. And science itself can become a positive cultural force if it is applied in a humanistic and non-commercial manner, which many scientists have called for. This clash within Western culture (and those cultures which adopt it) may in the longer run prove greater than the clash between Western and non-Western cultures. Non-Western cultures may ally themselves with such alternative Western groups, compounding the clash of cultures with the struggle within Western culture. For example, Western environmental activists are now at work in the undeveloped world to protect native cultures against the economic exploitation wrought by commercial forces from the West.

 [ Back ] [ David Frawley ] [ Up ] [ Next ]