What is the relation between culture and globalization? - Ju Sukyung

 1. Summary

John Tomlinson's essay defines globalization as not just a single force, but a complex, complex process in which the connectivity of the entire world deepens beyond economy and politics. He warns against economic reductionism, a tendency to assume that economic factors are the main factors driving all changes. If we look at Tomlinson's argument, we shouldn't see ourselves as passive objects influenced by economic power because economic practice itself contains deep and many cultural elements. Rather, he said, culture and globalization are the forces to jointly create each other. He criticizes the commonly used expression, "the impact of globalization on culture." This is because he sees the expression as just a passive place to represent culture. He argues that the choices of all humans, consuming global brands or participating in social interactions, can be seen as cultural decisions and that these actions come together to actively form a network of globalization. Regarding the threat of cultural imperialism, he says, concerns about cultural homogenization are exaggerated. He revealed that it is not correct to think that consuming Western goods or goods is the same as adopting Western values, and that there are examples of cultural resistance, such as Muslim resistance after the 9/11 attacks. He also said that de-territorialization, a phenomenon in which cultures lose traditional links to fixed geographic places, ironically does not lead to cultural loss, but rather results in the recreation of local culture and reinforcement of multiple identities. In conclusion, in this essay, Tomlinson says that globalization creates and multiplies identities rather than destroys them. He sympathizes with universal values and pluralistic cosmopolitan sensibilities, which include respect for cultural differences.

 2. New, Interesting, or Unusual Insights

One of the most interesting insights I found in this essay was that globalization can contribute to the globalization of anger, not to intercultural peace. I specifically noted the outburst of cultural anger, unlike Tomlinson's reference to resistance. Globalization exposes conflicts between values in real time in a virtual space. And it makes certain cultural actions or symbols feel like direct threats to things like 'our' values or identities. Rather than slow spread like in the past, this combines with extreme identities through multiple social media, such as SNS, to form global angry solidarity and solidify cultural boundaries rather strongly. What was also interesting was the poverty of global culture. In his essay, Tomlinson expressed a positive view of the easing of cultural imperialism, which I noted the lack of creativity most of the global content was caused by aiming for the least common denominator. When you look at hits around the world, there are a lot of them that usually deal with superficial emotions that mainstream viewers would prefer, such as love and fighting, except in the context of deep thoughts and considerations, such as historical or philosophical. This reminded me that as cultural content spread around the world, the physical amount it shared itself increased, but its depth and quality became rather shallow.

 3. Questions and Concerns 

In this essay, Tomlinson discusses the fundamental ethical dilemma. For example, on the issue of protecting endangered species, Tomlinson talked about strengthening identity, but in the face of the globalization market, cultural assets such as a small number of economically compatible languages, unique rituals, and traditional technologies are rapidly disappearing. I felt that as universal human rights deal with the dignity of the weak, we should think about "how do we guarantee the right of these minority cultural elements to exist in the era of cultural globalization and what do we actually need?" We also need to think about cyber culture and digital borders. Now that physical borders have been broken down a lot through globalization, new digital barriers are being created in the online space due to big tech companies and the control of the state. I think that certain content is blocked, restrictions on cross-border data movement, and information filtered by algorithms are blocking the free flow of information we thought was equated to globalization. I think we should discuss what new norms we should create in the future about the negative impact of these digital barriers on cultural trends and human rights, and even democracy.

 I used Papago for translation.

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