Globalization and The Rush to 'Preserve' Culture?

What people don't realize is that culture is constantly changing. There is this stigma that culture is this long carried out set of rules, and ideologies, set up by societies to be forever left untouched. Well, think again.

Culture is simply how we make sense of the world. Culture is carried out through art, language, religion, music, and food;  and through these manifestations of life, a meaning is created. Ideologies and morals are created alongside the way of life that is produced by a society, and hence a culture is made.

But what people don't readily recognize is that time, technology, invention, discovery, and creativity all shift the way we think, and therefore shift the ways of our cultures. Some shifts are slow, and some are fast; but, in the end they are inevitable. Because, without creativity and new ways of thinking, culture in itself would not exist. Culture is how we make sense of the world; and without a constant re-evaluation of how we perceive our ever changing world, especially in this day-in-age, society, creativity, and innovation would come to a stand-still.

So amidst the mad rush of globalization there is this global panic within nearly every culture to 'preserve' their ways. Granted, there are parts of culture that are passed down from centuries and centuries of living within a specific geographical area, and with a specific group of people. As I wrote about in my previous post, there are aspects of culture which have seemed to stick, like gossiping in coffee shops! But there are also things many cultures have moved on from, like: multiple wives, torturing prisoners in public, or slavery. They were things that at the time worked, but were eventually moved away from.


And so today, in the hay-day of globalization we see many people and cultures crying out in fear of loosing their culture. A somewhat extreme, but fitting example of what a global citizen might say in relation to their culture might be:


'Woah, All my clothes are made in China, my food is shipped from all corners of the globe, multinational companies are shipping out and setting up, globalization is among us and taking over! Soon we will all watch the same movies and eat the same food and like the same things! Oh no....'

I'll tell you what I think, complete global homogenization will never happen! Why, or how, could it ever, if we see such a strong recognition of self within culture? A global culture at this point in time is not feasible, and I can't see it being something that would be readily, or ever accepted. Culture is not something to preserve, its something to build off of. Yeah, globalization is happening fast and it sure is kind of scary at some points, but its inevitable. Globalization is bringing parts of so many different cultures together; and they are mixing, and mingling, and creating and innovating like never before!

Globalization has opened so many new doors because it has allowed so many people to see the world through a different lens, a different culture ( or aspects of one at least ). Cultures around the world will be changing in ways never seen before as we go through this process of globalization, but culture itself has never stayed the same. Maybe we just need to think of it as culture happening faster than ever before. And I don't think that is a bad thing, do you?


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STARBUCKSIZATION: THE NEW MCDONALDIZATION?

Coffee shops have come a long way since the early days of coffee drinking. Always a social setting, the coffee shop is a place to sit and chat with friends. The first coffee shop in Italy,  and one of the few contenders in the world for oldest coffee house in continuous operation, the Florian, was opened in 1720 in St. Marks Plaza, Venice. And coffee shops like the Florian served as local social hubs since their existence.  


The coffee shop has always served as a localized global commodity, although the coffee bean was normally imported from South and Central America, Asia, and Africa, coffee was specialized and ground to local perfection for communities all around the world. So how has something so localized, like coffee, become a world wide standardized phenomenon and product? Starbucks. 


Starbucks has made a single cup of coffee come from nearly all corners of the earth. The coffee itself comes from South and Central America, South East Asia and Africa. The paper for the cups comes from Canada, Finland, Sweeden, and Norway, and the sugar comes from Brazil and Australia. It is a global commodity! The local coffee shop would most definitely have gotten its coffee source from the same regions of the world, and sugar from Central America/ Caribbean, but its milk and cups would be locally produced. We can see here that coffee has always been a global commodity because it will only grow in warmer climates (closer to the equator), yet it was always localized into its community and culture. Espresso in Italy, Irish Coffee, French Blend, Turkish Grind, the list goes on. And now we can walk into one single store, in 55 countries (as shown above) around the world and get nearly any regionally specialized coffee we desire. 

Starbucks started up in Seattle Washington in 1972, by the 1990's was expanding across the US and Canada, and by the early 2000's was a global enterprise. And although many locals will not deny their local coffee shops of their patriotism and allegiance, it is also to say that they have not completely rejected the American Born and bred Coffee brand of Starbucks from integrating itself into the coffee-culture on 6 of the 7 continents in the world (obviously excluding Antarctica).

Now, we all know the story about McDonalds and how it has also become a leading global enterprise. And we can easily compare Sociologists George Ritzers McDonaldization theory to the more recent global phenomenon of Starbucks. Within Ritzer's theory there are four sections he uses to explain the global phenominon he's dubbed as McDonaldization. First, theres the Efficiency, being able to get the product from all corners of the globe into that one shop to be quickly produced for the customer. Then there is Calculability, where as McDonalds tries to make you think you are getting a lot of product for your money (although the quality is not good) Starbucks instead convinces its consumer that it is paying extra for their Vente French Grind coffee because it is specialized, unique, fair trade, and brought to you from all corners of the earth for your convenience. There is then the Predictability that you can go into any Starbucks or McDonalds around the world and there will be the same products and service from country to country, and the building will be familiar and easy to spot. Lastly there is the Control that employees will perform the same types of tasks in the same way, wear the same uniforms and run the same business anywhere in the world.

But the key difference between McDonaldization and Starbucksization is that, with McDonaldization the food is much more specialized to each individual country to fit their diets and customs, excluding the classics which seam to appear everywhere---like the Big Mac. Starbucksization has instead globalized the different types of coffee in a standardized way. You can walk into a Starbucks in LA and get a caramel macchiato that tastes just the same as a Starbucks caramel macchiato in Japan, and from east to west you can guarantee that there will be the same coffee selections at any given Starbucks.

So is what we are seeing here with Starbucksization, the loss of localization with something so personal as coffee? Where communities would once meet in the local coffee shop to gossip and share news, we find many people crowded into tiny Starbucks, fighting for outlets to plug in their laptops, and sometimes having conversations. I can tell you that usually when I go into a Starbucks its to work on some sort of school project with someone I would not feel comfortable bringing to my house, and around me there are middle aged men working on business deals, and soccer moms feeding their kids low fat chocolate milk while sipping a double shot espresso. The Starbucks I know seems to want to create an image of a global community, somewhere where you can go and chat with friends and relax. But I have found it to be simply a coffee shop that enables and serves as a hub to the hustle and bustle of work and the internet that we know as the 21st century.

Coffee shops are suppose to be, and for centuries have served as a place to socialize and relax; to sit back and watch the world go by through the big glass windows, or amongst the community members and tourists in the piazza. So why are we so eager to embrace Starbucks, and its lack of ties to our communities and culture? Sure, maybe its convenient, but should we loose touch with something so rooted in our cultures and social ways because of convenience? You tell me.

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THE COSTLY EFFECTS OF GLOBALIZATION IN AMERICA TODAY. BUT WILL THEY LAST FOREVER?

There's no doubt that America has lost many jobs over the years due to globalization. Whether it's offshoring, or outsourcing the American people have been watching jobs that built their middle class in the 20th century disperse across the world. Factory work, and hard labor have been shipped across seas to be done in lower wages then shipped back to make a profit.

The list could go on forever on the jobs that have been 'lost' in America. Textiles, car manufacturing, and manufacturing in general are no longer the middle class American jobs. Instead we have seen a shift into information technology, services, and entrepreneurship.

Now more than ever people are getting college educations for service sector jobs: lawyers, doctors, psychologists, teachers, the list goes on and on (check out the link). This is the change we are seeing in America today, and it is for sure frightening. We are embarking on something new, for nearly a century and a half the American middle class has been built around industrialization, and as we are now in the 21st century we can really see how times have changed.

Being a first world country, America, and other countries alike, have now all embarked on the same life cycle. First being a society build around agriculture, then dominated by an industrial revolution, which mechanized agriculture allowing people to leave the farm and work/move into cities. After that, more and more people moved to cities, and suburbs began to appear, and we see the growth in the Service sector and manufacturing jobs begin disappearing across seas, America and other first world countries alike soon become the headquarters for multinational business rather than the epicenter. We then find ourselves overcome by the technological/information revolution which has gotten us to our current state based around the service and information sector. 

In this process, it is debated that we have lost a huge portion of the economy that makes our middle class. Now that we, along with the other first world countries in the world are the first to go through this change, only time will tell how our middle class and economies take shape. 

Which brings me to the point that, will these effects which we are complaining about (outsourcing, offshoring, and widespread multinational companies) come to an end? Maybe, maybe not. But, it is arguable that the same economic cycle we as a first world country have gone through, will just as seamlessly and eventually happen to nearly all second and eventually third world countries. 

So in 100 years will a third world country simply be the standards of Americas first world standard of living today? And what does that mean for first world standards of living?  It is completely true that eventually it will become just as expensive to make iPad's in China as it might be in the United States. And we are already seeing this begin to take form as second world countries economies begin to strengthen. 

Eventually will first world countries simply produce all of their own manufactured goods, and provide all their services? It seems like taking a step backwards into the mid 20th century when nearly anything you could need was produced here in your home country, but instead the services would be much more extensive and technological. There is obviously no way to know what exactly will happen. But it is for sure to say that the suffering we as Americans are feeling now, this pull on the middle class job sector, simply needs time to develop. 

As we begin to get more and more into information technology, and as we begin to educate the population for these new jobs that are emerging I believe that we will see an improvement in spirits and economy. It could be 10, 20, 30, well now I don't want to be pessimistic, but it could be many years before anything. Who knows. I sure don't. But, I do think that we need to give ourselves time as a country to ease into the position we are in, and build ourselves up! I think thats fair enough. Do you?

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IS GLOBALIZATION SIMPLY WESTERNIZATION?

There is no doubt that globalization is changing and influencing other cultures and societies. But to say that globalization is simply a synonym to westernization and therefore homogenizing culture is not to asses the entire situation critically. Lets look at this from a western media perspective.

Ok, so first, what is westernization exactly? Well its the assimilation of Western culture (Europe and the USA). Its the social process of becoming familiar with, or converting to the customs and practices of Western civilization. And many believe that globalization is simply westernization. That through media, politics, transportation, logistics, and the economy, the western world is converting the rest of the world to its cultural values.

Tomlinson, who writes on globalization extensively in his book: Globalization and Culture, makes a significant point on the globalization of media and technology which relates to the question at hand. One, he says that we can't just assume that because we have the technology to connect ourselves with the world that we do, and we can't assume that the way we ( the western world ) connects with the rest of the world is in an equally give and take, symbiotic way.

By this he means that, the way we broadcast our culture to other cultures and societies is not the same in the way that their cultures are broadcast to us. In conjunction with this, Tomlinson says that the western media--Hollywood for example, produces and the rest of the world watches. And often what is shown in western media is not only the way we view ourselves, but the other cultures and people who we broadcast to in unflattering and stereotypical ways. Western media makes fun of other cultures, religions, and ethnicities, and exploits its own fears for the world to see.

So to claim that globalization is homogenizing culture through media is to claim that those people being foreign-ly exposed to western media, who see themselves being portrayed in unflattering light, are passive and un-critical! This is simply  not the case, as Tomlinson and other scholars have explored and determined people at home an abroad interpret, react, and use mass cultural products in unexpected ways.

Now, with this background information in the near future I will be expanding,questioning, and continuing the conversation on globalization in the light of westernization. I will be looking to other authors and scholars for jumping off points and probably continue to reference Tomlinson.

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