Reading 2. What is the relation between culture and globalization? / Kim Yoon(김윤)

Summary

John Tomlinson wrote a paper on the correlation between globalization and culture. Today, globalization is well known as a multidimensional process in which areas of economy, politics, technology, media, environment and culture taking place simultaneously. In addition, the boundaries between them are vague and often appear to be joined together. This connectivity increases and affects human life. Therefore, understanding these trends makes us keep in mind the complex and multidimensional processes between them. John saw this understanding as inseparable from the capitalist system, citing two reasons. The first is because we are not making simple imperialist judgments with this. Second, because this distorts understanding at the cultural level.

 

One of the common speculations about globalization is that it will lead to a single world culture. There is a reason why this seems possible. Because we can see a unified effect, especially in connecting other spiritual memories, such as the economy. However, John said increasing globalization does not necessarily mean economic and political unification. John said what we find is a pre-modern imagination of the theoretically revealed cosmopolitanism. But looking from a more sophisticated perspective in a historical and cultural context that we can understand is not so easily distinguished.

 

Meanwhile, Marx's portrayal of the future communist society provides the most visible imagination among the world cultures found in social thought in the 19th or 20th century. In the Communist Manifesto, he presents a bold vision for the future world where national division has disappeared, along with all other "regional" attachments, including the world of religious belief. According to him, "Communist society is a world with universal language, world literature and integrated international cultural tastes." Marx was an internationalist, and regarded national sentiment as a reactionary force. This Marx's idea may have created a Eurocentric cast.

 

John sees the idea of deterritorialization as a fairly radical theoretical argument in understanding culture. Culture has been intertwined with the concept of locality since the long past, and the concept of "culture" in practice implicitly links territory. But globalization, which consists of complex connections, is likely to undermine this concept. This is because culture and fixation as a position challenge somewhat isolated thinking. If globalization means the spread of complex socioeconomic links, deterritorialization will mean the scope of connectivity to areas where daily life occurs.

 

Progressive opinions toward world culture deserve to be taken seriously, and this does not necessarily mean a huge project for 'global domination'. Rather, it tries to reconcile cultural differences and added values with society. The mistake made by those who regard globalization as a threat to their cultural identity is to confuse the Western imagination of globalization with the universality of human experience. Every culture in this world makes its meaning through a collective symbolic process. This culture has not only built its identity in the West. Despite the historical and biased tendency among nations to claim culture as their possession, the argument for universality can continue to emerge. John says, the obvious thing we have to do is we have to think of a much more flexible cultural concept.

Q. What is the relation between culture and globalization?

 I think culture and globalization have a very close relationship. Culture is their behavior patterns, lifestyles, which have been formed entirely in each country and community. Culture comes from the way they only have it, and it is also a new phenomenon gained through exchanges with neighboring regions and countries. As mentioned in the paper, this culture has not only been formed in the West, but has established their traditional culture in all countries. Culture and globalization are more closely correlated in modern times. People are interested in various entertainment and food in other countries and sometimes go crazy. Today, when many visible boundaries have disappeared, many countries, under the name of culture, are bound together and enjoy the same thing.