Globalization

Globalization of culture results in relativeness of standards and values, disturbance of social memory, uniformization, oversimplifying and commercialization of culture, its huge changeability, isolation from life and a human being. Global culture, which is called by many consumer culture, does not develop the personalities of individuals; usually they are internally hollow and lonely, focused on satisfying temporal needs, they succumb to the continuously happening changes of trends. This phenomenon illustrates the following description of a middle-aged woman, a worker of an international trade company, who speaks fluently 5 languages, and who owns 3 addresses in 3 distant metropolises.

"She's on the road all the time, going from one place to another, always *between*. She travels alone, not as a member of a community, though always similar people surround her. A culture, in which she participates, is not a culture of any of these places; it's a culture of time. It's a culture of the absolute present. Let's go with her on one of her recurrent trips - from Singapore to Hongkong, London, Stockholm, New Hampshire, Tokyo or Prague. In each of these cities she stays at the same "Hilton" hotel, every afternoon she eats the same tuna sandwich, and if she wants, she goes to a Chinese restaurant in Paris or French one in Hongkong. She will use a similar fax machine, telephone, computer, she will see the same movies, she will talk about similar issues with similar people. To the above description Agnes Heller adds: 'Even foreign universities aren't foreign anymore. After a lecture we can expect the same questions in Singapore, Tokyo, Paris or Manchester. These universities aren't foreign places, but they're not home either.'

This kind of personalities are needed for the modern world so that it develops quickly. But if everyone was like that, even those who don't modernize the world, those who don't know foreign languages, who live in small communities, it would be a tragedy. The world would become a gathering of individuals connected to nothing and to no-one.

~ Leon Dyczewski

(my translation)