Cultural Imperialism: Valid Complaint?

Great Debates
1

On occasion I hear the words cultural imperialism used to describe the opening of a McDonalds in a foreign country, the showing of American movies abroad, or the import of other cultural artifacts though typically it seems that most of these cultural artifacts are from the United States. I don’t really care for the term cultural imperialism because it implies that the people consuming the imported culture have no choice in the matter. I don’t believe Kentucky Fried Chicken ever chased down a Chinese man in Bejing, tackled him, and then forced a piece of fried chicken down his throat.

One of the fears that critics of cultural imperialism has is that it will wipe out cultural diversity and make everyone alike. I don’t really think this argument has a lot of weight behind it. From what I’ve been able to gather in a lot of cases the native population takes the western product and use it in ways that are relevant to their culture. For example in Xi’an the Huizu (one of China’s Muslim groups) tend to reserve bottled soda for their guest but otherwise the adults don’t generally drink as much as we do. It has some other impact on Huizu life but I don’t suppose I need to go into a lot of detail at this point.

I think the only culture that doesn’t change is a dead culture. Some changes come from within but there is going to be some influence from outside as well. Are tacos a form of cultural imperialism? Sushi? Pokemon? I don’t want to live in an America without tacos.

So are complaints about cultural imperialism valid? I don’t think so.

Marc

2

Nope. The phrase is used by Westerners to condemn choices made by people in other cultures. “Cultural emperialism” essentially means that people in other cultures have access to a greater variety of goods and services. And, to the dismay of some Westerners (and, admittedly, some in those nations) these people choose these new goods and services over the goods and services they previously used. It’s a free choice being made by these folks and these goods and services often improve their lives. It should be encouraged, not condemned.

3

Cultural imperialism would be forcing people at gunpoint to eat Big Macs. If people in other countries freely choose to do so, then it’s not imperialistic. IMO, the cry of cultural imperialism is usually shorthand for, “Shit; you assholes are making us compete against you in the open marketplace!”

4

There might be instances where this is a valid complaint although I can’t think of any right now – if a country uses its influence or money to force an opening of foreign markets to its own companies (which isn’t necessarily classical imperialism if it’s done without guns.)

But if a company on its own does an ostensibly capitalistic expansion of their business shadily it still isn’t imperialism, just one corrupt company.

And if the company does it through purely legal and ethical channels and local moralists still have a problem with it, then sure, they have a right to think the imported culture is immoral, but don’t call it cultural imperialism, fight it on its own merits.

There isn’t some big conspiracy to have everyone like the same music and eat the same food. One could hardly even argue there’s a worldwide effort to promote capitalistic democracy and that’s one thing most people in America would agree we should morally work to export.

5

I’ll play devil’s advocate here, (personally, I think “cultural imperialism” is a load of crapola) and bring up one possible argument that many of the cultural imperialists use:

Western companies can come in and undercut the local artisans, etc… in terms of price. This means that in the interest of making one’s dollar/zloty/lek/lilageni go farther, people will often go with the western goods rather than the local ones, thereby destroying the whole “local way of life” that these people enjoy.

It’s the Wal-Mart/small-town argument, only on a larger scale.

The problem as I see it, is that the locals basically have a choice between a “traditional”, relatively low standard of living, or a non-traditional, style with the use of western products.

Ideally, the locals would identify and preserve the parts of their culture that makes them who they are, and discard the rest, and use western stuff for it. That way, they’d get the best of both worlds.

In other words, the cavemen would keep hunting and eating wooly mammoths, but they’d use bronze knives vs. flint, because bronze works better, even if it’s not "traditional.

6

[QUOTE=bump]
Ideally, the locals would identify and preserve the parts of their culture that makes them who they are, and discard the rest, and use western stuff for it. That way, they’d get the best of both worlds.

In other words, the cavemen would keep hunting and eating wooly mammoths, but they’d use bronze knives vs. flint, because bronze works better, even if it’s not "traditional.
[/QUOTE]

The cavemen’s own descendants might disagree with them about what parts of the culture were worth preserving and what constitutes “the best of both worlds”, though.

You see this kind of thing in Jewish families in the US- one generation gave up certain cultural practices that made them too different from other people, but now another generation is reclaiming some of those practices. An example is the wedding custom of Yichud, in which the bride and groom, immediately after the wedding ceremony, spend some time alone together in a room. You didn’t see this at non-Orthodox Jewish weddings in Mr. Neville’s parents’ generation (having a receiving line instead, as is done at non-Jewish weddings, was more common AIUI), but a number of non-Orthodox Jewish couples are reviving this custom, along with some other Jewish wedding customs that had fallen into disuse, now.

Yichud is an example of a traditional custom that was fairly easy to revive. Not all customs are like that, though- sometimes they require specialized skills or knowledge, which would be hard or impossible to reconstruct if one wanted to revive the custom. Hunting woolly mammoths using knives is probably an example of this kind of custom- I would imagine there are a lot of specialized skills and knowledge involved in doing that, and they might be hard to reconstruct after a hiatus of several generations. Making flint knives might be an example of this kind of thing, too (I know nothing about making knives- I can barely get it right when it comes to which of our knives can go into the dishwasher and which can’t).

If a culture changes due to outside influence, some of the skills and knowledge from that culture are going to be lost in favor of new ones. Do the cavemen owe it to their descendants to preserve as much of their traditional culture as possible, so that traditional knowledge and skills are not lost?

But keep in mind, the same thing can happen without contact with a different culture- if one of the cavemen independently discovered, say, how to make bronze, and bronze knives caught on, the culture might lose the skill of making flint knives all on its own. The result is the same as if they had learned about bronze knives from another culture- why is one worse than the other?

7

[QUOTE=Anne Neville]
An example is the wedding custom of Yichud, in which the bride and groom, immediately after the wedding ceremony, spend some time alone together in a room.
[/QUOTE]
Anne, this isn’t meant to be snarky or “wink-wink, nudge-nudge,” but what was the purpose of this time spent alone? Quiet contemplation? Conversation? Prayer? Sexual consummation of the marriage?

8

[QUOTE=bump]

Western companies can come in and undercut the local artisans, etc… in terms of price. This means that in the interest of making one’s dollar/zloty/lek/lilageni go farther, people will often go with the western goods rather than the local ones, thereby destroying the whole “local way of life” that these people enjoy.

[/quote]

Where does this happen? Just about everything I have read seems to indicate the western goods end up costing more than the “local” goods. A McDonalds meal in Bejing cost more than a meal purchased from a Chinese fast food place for example. So I’m not quite sure undercutting local artisans is really all that widespread. At least so far as China is concerned, there were a whole slew of reasons people wanted to eat at McDonalds that had little to do with whether or not they actually enjoyed the food.
Marc

9

I could accept the idea of cultural imperialism if it weren’t for the vast variety of restaurants here that offer food in the styles of Morroco, Argentina, China, Italy, India, Spain, Thailand, Vietnam, Greece, France, Mexico, Mongolia, and Ireland. I’m not exaggerating. All those eateries are within 40 miles of my home in Central Indiana.

10

[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
Anne, this isn’t meant to be snarky or “wink-wink, nudge-nudge,” but what was the purpose of this time spent alone? Quiet contemplation? Conversation? Prayer? Sexual consummation of the marriage?
[/QUOTE]

The “official” explanation is in traditional Jewish law, an unrelated man and woman are not allowed to be alone in a room together, but of course that’s entirely permissible for a married couple. Spending time alone together after the ceremony makes the change in status more obvious.

There is a theory that, once upon a time, couples did consummate the marriage during yichud. That’s not common these days. In general, Judaism encourages you to take your time and enjoy having sex with your spouse, and your guests probably don’t want to wait that long for you to show up at the reception (yichud is generally 15 minutes or less). We generally wait until after the reception for that these days.

We followed a Jewish custom of fasting prior to the wedding- you don’t eat anything from sunrise until after the ceremony. (Of course, I have no idea how anyone finds time to eat anything before the wedding ceremony, or isn’t too nervous about one thing and the other to eat) Yichud gives the couple a chance to break that fast together.

In our case, it was a chance to catch our breath, have something to eat, and talk without all the guests watching everything we did. It was a nice break from the ceremony.

11

[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
Anne, this isn’t meant to be snarky or “wink-wink, nudge-nudge,” but what was the purpose of this time spent alone?QUOTE]

Originally, it was for “wink-wink, nudge-nudge”, even though that doesn’t happen anymore. Also, though, Orthodox Jews aren’t supposed to be in a room alone with a member of the opposite sex they aren’t related to. So, once they’re married, they do it just to show that they now can.

12

It doesn’t matter if the other countries WANT our culture.

The evil of cultural imperialism (imperialism is maybe wrong word, it implies being forced and economic profit, etc) is that it’ll kill diversity and make everyone the same. The reason why this is bad may not be obvious to a person with a typical western worldview.

Just consider that all the progress over the past millenia has been due to diversity. When Africans were killing elephants, Romans were building aquaducts. When ex-Romans were killing eachother, Arabs were preserving mathematics. When arabs are killing each other, Californians are trying to stop global warming. These are mere examples, but the fact is diversity is life. Diversity is evolution. Diversity is the stopgap against the encrouachment of chaos and the second law of thermodynamics.

If diversty on this planet ends, as it is happening right now, so will mankind. I can say such a bold statement because, as history has shown, nearly every single civilization has ended. If we become a single civilization, we will end. Just like if the earth was populated by a single species, life would no longer exist.

13

But in your example, the Roman civilization ended, at least in the West, and in simplified terms was replaced by other civilizations. So if a global civilization dies, others by default will replace it, societies sometimes disband by internal struggles that get out of hand, it’s not always due to an outside force.

14

It took close to a thousand years for the pieces of Rome to be picked up, and it was only through the aid of other civilizations which didn’t meet such an end. However, for various reasons, the sorts of crises that may befall a civilization of the future won’t be simple economic or political ones from which you can recover with time. They might be sorts that you get locked in to… nearly forever. Like, say, a civilization decides to build itself a Matrix and enter it. That process involves an evolution of worldviews and mass thinking (a civilization ain’t just its food and clothes). Without a second civilization, there’ll hardly even be an opinion left against it, much less a strong society that would grow and expand into the space of the one destroyed by hedonism. The example may be extreme, but the point regarding diversity, evolution, the principle of life, and eggs and baskets, is universal.

15

Well, there’s no moral imperative to continue the human race. If one society decides to take a suicidal stance then sure, that’s pretty bad in my opinion especially if it coerces subsocieties within it to participate, but it wouldn’t be classified in my mind as a different character from the entire human race collapsing, merely a different magnitude. I.e. A society of two billion dead collapsing is twice as bad as one billion, to the extent that it could be termed “bad”.

But I just don’t see how the moral imperative to preserve the continuation of human society and life takes precedence over individuals’ choices as to what cultural influences they participate in, even on a moral level.

16

[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]
It took close to a thousand years for the pieces of Rome to be picked up, and it was only through the aid of other civilizations which didn’t meet such an end.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t even know what “it took close to a thousand years for the pieces of Rome to be picked up” means. It’s not like with the fall of the Western Empire civilization just stopped. There were a lot of political and economic dislocations, if that’s what you mean, but most of those came to an end by the Carolingian Renaissance of the 7th and 8th centuries. So, please, explain what you meant here?

17

[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]
It doesn’t matter if the other countries WANT our culture.

The evil of cultural imperialism (imperialism is maybe wrong word, it implies being forced and economic profit, etc) is that it’ll kill diversity and make everyone the same. The reason why this is bad may not be obvious to a person with a typical western worldview.
[/quote]

It will make everyone the same, huh? Look around at the real world and see how it really works. Culture evolves and when native cultures experience foreign cultures, both change in different ways due to this contact. It’s been happening ever since the dawn of time. There has been cultural change and adaptation throughout the years, generally in a positive direction.

Just because McDonald’s opens up in China and people there can dress in blue jeans does not mean that everyone will be the same."

Actually, I think most progress has been due to the interaction of cultures and the free exchange of ideas. You sound like you want to end that.

How is diversity ending? I see more diversity, not less, as people encounter one another. This exchange of cultures allows individuals to have more choices and be more diverse.

And how would we become a single civilization? Also, when these civilizations end, did history show that all the people in them died?

18

I believe Caesar once remarked that the conquest of Gaul could be completed only by bread and Roman luxury, rather than by the sword. Some might go so far as to conclude that the term “cultural imperialism” is entirely redunant, and that there simply is no other kind.

The most advanced form of an expansionist state would arguably be one that did not require initial coercion in the spreading of its own cultural imperatives. More flies with honey than vinegar, so to speak.

19

The phrase “cultural imperialism” implies that there’s some kind of cultural agenda behind it. I really don’t think the State Department or whatever takes much interest in Americanizing foreigners. American businesses expand into foreign markets for profit, pure and simple; any effect on the local culture is incidental and probably unintended (except insofar as it, again, serves the profit motive).

20

If you disregard the missionary impulses that went along with British Imperialism in Africa and South Asia, the Spanish in South and Central America, the attempt to convert the buffalo hunting tribes of the American West to agriculturalists and the imposition of sexual mores and the Muumuu on the natives of the Sandwich Islands, then no. All that stuff accompanied a transparent national and colonial agenda in the region. It is hard to see the popularity of blue jeans and Western music in non-Western cultures as an adjunct to, or even as a facilitator of, military or economic colonialism. If so, then Western medicine and the scientific method are subject to the same sort of disparagement as being imperialist intrusions.