What is the relation between globalization and culture?/ Joon Hee Lee

Summary

Globalization is not defined on a simple dimension, but in a complex way with various fields (such as economics, politics, technology, media and telecommunications). And we can't give priority to this diversity. Based on this point, globalization is usually interpreted as trying to explain the development and change of the interconnection network of mljil, social and cultural life in modern society. In particular, communication technologies (such as mobile phones, computers, the Internet, etc.) have had the greatest impact on these interconnection networks. Thanks to this, we are much more interdependent than in the past.

Through cultural significance and interpretation, people are constantly motivated and made decisions in the process of making certain actions and choices. Action by practical or economic needs is also affected here. (Except for essential needs.) Based on this, one of the useful ways to think about the role of culture in globalization is to figure out how much culturally known "local" behavior can bring about globalization results. To borrow the term Anthony Giddens (1990), cultural globalization includes the increasing 'flexibility' of modern life. In other words, it is to systematically integrate innumerable small individual actions into the actions of social institutions that emerge to govern our lives autonomously.

What many people think about globalization is that it will lead to a culture. This makes some sense, especially since integration can have a great effect on the economic sector. However, increasing global connectivity does not mean that the world is "unifying" economically or politically. It is true that globalization affects many countries, but this cannot be seen as integration. So we must look carefully at the concept of globalization.

Among some Western critics, the tendency to imagine globalization as a 'world culture' encompassing us as a whole continues. A typical way to devise this is to assume that cultural globalization embodies a form of cultural imperialism. In other words, Western capitalism, especially American culture, could fall into 'cultural totalitarianism,' a threat to the spread of Western capitalism, and the consequent loss of non-western cultural traditions. In fact, people's ideas about this single culture have actually been going on quite a long time ago, but the results are somewhat different from each other. (ex. Christian culture, Marxist thought).

Unlike in the past, the development of communication technology has greatly contributed to integrating people around the world into one network. With no difficulty in getting to the stories of others far away, it could promote new sensibilities for modern people, such as global ethical responsibility. 

 In the upcoming trend of globalization, culture is described as fluid, not just fixed, but as diverse as there are differences. It can be reconciled and conflicting, and there is still a debate about what should be prioritized between universality and diversity. Therefore, we need to think about cultural concepts that are much more agile and flexible than we have so far.

Interesting point

Most people will think vaguely about globalization. I thought that the scope of the world in which individuals work has expanded to a global scale simply due to the development of technology, but considering the globalization related to culture, there were many very difficult problems. For example, no matter how important human universal values are, conflicts continue to arise because of cultural differences. Also, it seems very unique that the values of people in the past who consider the center of the world as themselves and expand the world can still be seen through certain groups.

Personally, it seems very difficult to balance universality and diversity. So far, of course, the direction of globalization seems to give more power to the universality of culture. Just as you can find a wide range of products from multinational companies everywhere. However, as mentioned in the article, the possibility of cultural totalitarianism is not high. I think it's because the underlying identity is hard to change, even though it has been affected by many things.

Discussion

As globalization progresses, exchanges between cultures have become very free. But along with him, I think conflicts between different cultures will increase. Watching the recent murder of a French teacher by IS, I wondered if this alone would make it possible for everyone to be connected to each other, although the development of technology would make it easier to know the news of other countries.