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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (90789)	4/7/2003 2:28:58 AM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Yes, I read your entire exchange with CB, and the only thing I can conclude is you have no coherent idea of what you're trying to argue at all. Save a mishmash of anti-corporate glop. Your argument is put to the lie everytime anyone walks into a grocery store in any major metro area here in the States, which CB and I have both mentioned, and you don't seem to understand. I can eat food from any country on the planet, by going to the grocery store, or one of many restaurants. My wife owns a sari. Indian dress and music has become very trendy in some parts of the US because of the success of Bollywood imports to US theater. You place Heaven and Earth in the hands of marketing, and well that's just crap. And if you think it isn't, you don't know anyone in marketing. Did America become less American for the widespread adoption of the car, replacing the horse? Of course not. That's because cultures ARE NOT STATIC. They borrow, they adopt, they make outside technology and processes and IDEAS fit into their own, unique blend. As I said, technology diffusion has been going on since 5 million BC. You are conflating CULTURE SHOCK at the PACE of change, with something else. In previous eras, change took generations. Today, it takes months. You can bang on the "Evil Corporation" drum all you want, but it takes two to tango, and no one is twisting anybody's arm, contrary to what you claim. Derek

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (90789)	4/7/2003 7:27:56 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Speaking of cultural diffusion, take coffee as an example. It was the drink of preference in the Middle East from time immemorial (that and mint tea), and has spread all over the world. I am miserable without it. Much more universal than Coca-Cola. Those entertainers playing guitars are playing a variation on stringed instruments which we also adopted after contact with the Middle East. And my family greatly prefers kufta to hamburger. I think it's you who doesn't understand cultural diffusion. It's not the things that change us, it's the memes. You see people adopting both memes and things, and confuse causality. In the West, we use coffee to help us work harder. In the Middle East, they use it to relax. I remember, during hippie days, people dressing up like they were from the Middle East, India, you name it, eating different foods, listening to the music, the whole bit, and now they're indistinguishable from the rest of us. Adopted the things, didn't adopt the memes.

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (90789)	4/7/2003 8:51:44 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 281500

I still see Jihad versus McWorld to be largely luddites versus progress. At a number of times during the course of history, there has been a nation that has defined progress, and that has left a lasting impression on the human race. Well known examples were ancient Greece, the Romans, etc. Like it or not, the USA is actually in that position today. One can mourn loss of cultural diversity, but in a real sense, it is a lot like Shumpeter's process of Creative Destruction. Some of the things cited, such as adolescents listening to Brittney Spears have to be put in perspective. In the not too distant past, children in most classes of the population could not begin to enjoy the leisure to do such things as imitate Brittney Spears, they were a resource on the farm where life was in reality very hard and free time was scant. Only those in families wealthy enough to afford servants or slaves could even get an education. Do we really regret the loss of that life style ? It has been enough generations now that people in the West, and certainly the US have forgotten how much time it took to just do day to day things, and how much of that drudge work was done by women. Is this shift something to mourn ? Paganism in Europe had no chance when Christianity spread the continent. In the same manner, Christianity had simply no chance against the rational certainties of science, as a prevailing explanation of the world we live in. And when I say "rational certainty" I mean just that. The scientific knowledge the modern world rests on is based on verifiable observations, not wishful thinking. Newtonian mechanics is not "false", it is a first approximation that breaks down when gravitational fields are intense, or speeds approach the speed of light, or when the quantum of action is significant in the very small. This is not like the dogma once held by the Church that the earth was the center of the universe, which is simply, patently, false. The Luddites were able to create a certain amount of disorder, but were unable stop the industrial revolution. The world's modern day Luddites will be no more successful, regardless of their ideology. It was not "just" that people lost means of living that had prevailed for generations, or that mass migrations of people took place, but it happened. I think going forward there will be less and less upheaval as things evolve. Already during the 20'th century there is more worldwide democracy than in the preceding century. We have a long way to go, but things really are progressing. Some problems, such as the situation in sub Saharan Africa with Aids are going to be very difficult, but none of this is going to be insurmountable. I don't deny the effect of mass marketing (US cigarette manufacturers were possibly the first to have truly innovated in the area of pure marketing, btw), but it's just a side effect of progress at the present time and not a main problem.