My last trip to Asia was about 3 years ago. I took a few months off to travel the Pacific rim. As a rule I prefer more remote and rural areas. What was striking was that no matter how far you go, you almost never feel you are out of America. The clothing, the music, the movies, and most everything else is merging into the bland. And you can't say that we are not pushing for it to be so. Don't get me wrong. I love rock and roll. I wear suites at work and jeans on weekends. But what you are calling anti-modernism and anti-capitalism is more of backlash to this global phenomena.
There are a number of things wrong with these remarks. First, listening to American music, drinking coke, etc, doesn't make anyone culturally "American", if only very superficially. This is evident when you live abroad and really get to see things from a closer point if view, and realize that, culturally, "everything you know is wrong". For example, as close as France is to the US in terms of being a Western country, it isn't at all like the US up close, even if they've picked up things from the US in their films and so forth. Moreover, most of the shifts in France are due to a shift from a primarily agricultural economy during the latter half of the 20'th century to an industrial one, not some dreaded "American hegemony" imposed on them.
Still on this subject of McDonalds and Coke - there have never been more ethnic restaurants and food widely available in the US as today. And this is true throughout the world, travel and cultural mixing is so much more widespread than ever before, at least in regions that are at all "stable" enough to support a normal economy. Film making technology has become low enough in cost that technically well made films are possible almost anywhere in the world, and the focus can be on a the filmmakers ideas within his or her own culture, and need not be diluted because only Hollywood is capable of a film meeting "professional" standards.
I don't buy any talk of backlash against Western modernism either, at least as anything of much significance. Whatever backlash there is comes more from problems with authoritarian and corrupt regimes than anything, as you've pointed out. Those individuals who long for imposing some form of religious purity on other people in today's world are going to suffer disappointment in the long run, or at least wind up as some marginal sect. That's just the way it is.
In short, this Jihad versus MacWorld thinking doesn't stand up. |
