Beige World?

Great Debates
1

The other day I was looking through a magazine at the dentists office (I wish I could remember which one). There was an article that talked about the dilution of cultures and races over the last 100 years because of the increase and ease of travel. It was also mentioned that this dilution has increased even more over the last 10 years due to people meeting over the internet, forming a relationship, marrying, having kids. According to the article, the world is quickly “turning generic beige” (the writer’s words, not mine).

While I think it is wonderful that we now have the capability to expand our circle of friends/relationships/partners across the world, I have a hard time believing that we are quickly losing individual cultures and becoming, as the writer claims, “beige”.

This guy claims that in a few hundred years, we will be one combined race with very little definition of separate cultures. If this does in fact happen (I’m not convinced), would losing our differences be a good or bad? Would the unity outweigh the loss of different cultures? Could these differences really be lost?

2

Here’s the problem:

Here in the US, where interracial dating is still somewhat looked down upon but gaining slightly increased acceptance, I could definitely see a “merging” of the different races/cultures. That doesn’t mean that this will spread worldwide, especially within the developing parts of the world such as Africa and the Middle East.

I feel that a melting pot of all cultures and races and :eek: religions would do a lot of good as far as the lofty goal of world peace, but this is nothing more than a pipe dream at this point.

3

The author makes the same mistake that most people do: equating color with culture. They are not interchangable. The world can be full of beige people and still be separate and unique, based on religion or music or whatever common goals they have…regardless of pigmentation.

4

WS - If it could and does happen, would it be worth the loss of cultures and individuality?

holmes - I didn’t come across as clear as the author. He used the word “beige” to describe color but also referred to cultures becoming so intertwined after a period of time they become diluted and “beige”.

5

There’s plenty of “melting” going on here, if that’s how you want to describe it… :wink:

Seriously I am always quite amazed at the lack of mixed race couples in American films, soaps and TV shows, compared to in the UK. Maybe it’s a matter of what is exported, rather than shown at home (in the US). I often see mixed race couples on reality shows like Jerry/Ricky/Oprah, but never in things like Friends, etc. Is this a general rule, or is my experienced skewed?

6

Cultures can merge more easily than races.

Memes are more transferable than genes.

Memes can reproduce thru TV, the internet, etc. Certainly cultural diversity is decreasing over time, but until we have universally available transporters like on Star Trek, there will still be cultural differences due to the fact that no everyone travels.

While I agree that one might find a slight “beiging” effect in a country like the US, but it would take more than a few hundred years. Think how many generations (about 4 or 5 per 100 yrs) it would take to get all the people in the US to be mixed race people. And even then, there would still be many shades of color-- all the genes (or more precisely skin color alleles) would still be there, they’d just be expressed differently or at a different frequency. Now think how long it would take for Africa to change. Or China. Both of which have very few immigrants.

The assertion is a gross exageration of what might be a minor effect in a country like the US.

7

It’s a 19 year old column, but Cecil’s “research” in Brazil showed only a limited amount of blending going on: Will all humans one day be the same color?

8

It’s roughly accurate. In fact, it’s a running joke that a black person appearing on Friends is a major event.

9

Not on the skin color topic, on the cultural topic.

Telecommunications, not travel, is the main culprit in the “dumbing down” of culture.
Every developing nation is now CNN ready.

After the information flood from the western world’s TV programing comes the corporate invasion. To keep from complicating a program producers must make their characters neutral. No New York accent, no southern accent, no minorities on Friends, no mention of local attractions. This dumbs down culture. Rather than exploring the differences and learning from them producers are afraid of making the viewer not like their character because its not like them. People see McDonalds on the commercials… Soon a McDonalds opens. People see Ed on NBC drink a coke… They want coke. Soon the traditional foods and drinks of a nation are pushed aside. After the traditional foods fall the way of life begins to become bland. The siesta is abandoned in Spain, but Burger King fills the void. The family dinner is abandoned for a quick stop at the local KFC. Busy busy busy…

All at the expense of local customs and tradition.

All for $.

You can say “They want it. We’re not pushing it on them, they decided they wanted it.”

Offer a 16 year old male and his friends a case of beer. See if they say no.

10

How? If anything, the fact that all the protagonists on Friends are white should reduce its appeal in Latin and South America, Asia, Africa, and anywhere not predominantly white.
And anyway, the show is plainly set in New York. So was Seinfeld, and so is Will and Grace. Frasier is definitely in Seattle. The West Wing can’t be anywhere except DC, 24 is set in LA, C.S.I. is in Vegas… I forget where C.S.I.: Miami is set. The Bernie Mac Show cast is not only entirely minorities, they don’t try to hide a thing, and the show does very well. Minorities ARE underrepresented on TV, but this is improving, however slowly.
Entertainment culture gets homogenous, yeah, and it’s not a particularly good thing. But none of that is unique to our era.

So people are that dumb, eh? Monkey see, monkey do?

Yeah, food sure is dying. I can’t remember the last time I ate Thai food, Japanese food, Chinese food, Indian food, Italian food, Spanish food, Brazilian food…
I guess you haven’t heard about the “slow-food” movement in Italy, either.

What does one have to do with the other? The siesta is a traditional break, not a meal. I haven’t heard anything about its demise, either.

This has been going on for ages. Cooking is a pain in the ass, that’s why people go for fast food. That was always the appeal: it’s quick and cheap. People like to save money and time. Isn’t it still a family meal if it’s eaten together?

Listen, I LOATHE McDonald’s, Disney, and these other corporate monoliths. But nobody’s tied down and forced to go, okay? They do plenty of harm, but I think you’re blaming them for the wrong things.

11

The problem with the article is that while cultures are becoming increasingly globalised, they are also similtaneously fragmenting. You may be able to go anywhere in the world and choose between a Big Mac or a plate of spaghetti, but that doesn’t mean that they’re all being homogenised. Take a look at Israel and Palestine and try and argue that those two are going to lose their cultural identities any time soon.

Cultures aren’t disappearing, they’re changing. That’s what cultures do. You notice how the English like curry, the Indians play cricket and for a while the whole world liked Bob Marley? You get Australian artists making their own hip-hop music and American acts still influenced by the Beatles. It’s how it works: cultures come into contact and accept or reject certain aspects of the culture they meet.

Similtaneously, subcultures are forming around the world that aren’t geographically or racially based. A liberal arts student in America might meet up with a liberal arts student in England and find that they share common understandings and viewpoints. Someone from Australia might discuss cultural theory with someone from America in a society formed around the writings of a particular author/guru/demigod.

I actually thinks its pretty fascinating how cultures adapt foreign elements and incorporate them into their own societies. Current British youth culture seems to be a good example of this. They might listen to rap and dance music, but they’ve begun to put their own British spin on it. They’ve revived a seemingly archaic term (geezer) to refer to people, they eat curries, but still love soccer. And while they aren’t taking walks through the grounds of their country manor sipping tea and saying “jolly good” and “tally ho” an awful lot, what they are doing is still undeniably British.

This doesn’t mean that I do not have a certain amount of concern about the impact economically influential corporations have on some societies. But to say that it will result in the forming of a single “beige” culture suggests that the author of that article doesn’t really know what they’re talking about.

12

The use of the word “beige” was unfortunate. IMHO it didn’t have anything to do with race, but the idea that everything would become the same and therefore rather boring.

It also lead to the false idea that all races would melt into an undistinguishable color. If the color of a person’s skin does not matter then it won’t matter that we are’t all the same color. :eek: [sup]DUH![/sup]

I believe the most of what gex gex said is true. However, in the U.S. we have so many cultures mixing together that our old culture is falling apart. This is not necessarily bad, but just part of the process. As the changes that are causing this slow down a new culture will emerge (hopefully a better one), but it won’t be a world-wide “beige” culture.

13

This is interesting. How is it falling apart? I mean, sure, America of the 1850s isn’t the America of today, but isn’t that just a process of natural evolution, rather than any falling apart of a culture? What, specifically, are the aspects of this “old culture” that is “falling apart”?

14

Well according to Jacques Barzun in From Dawn to Decadence Western Culture is falling apart. He would agree with your statement about it being “just a process of natural evolution”, but none-the-less say it is in its late stages. Joseph Campbell said that we have lost our ethos and are in need of a new religion that has a world view that is contempory, not 2000 years old. One thing he blamed was the U.S. being a melting pot of many cultures with different values. Things are changing so fast that we cannot develop new ones. Therefore we are winging it or doing away with values. To give you a cliche example: the decline of the family.

[ul]:wink: [sup]Sorry, I let this one get away from me.[/sup][/ul]