If we ask an ordinary person on the busy streets about the essence of globalization, the answer would probably involve some reference to profound economic transformations fueled by exploding information and cutting-edge communication technologies. Global financial markets, worldwide labour flows, transnational corporations, offshore financial centers, foreign direct investment, such intricacies often leave general observers with a one-dimensional understanding of globalization as primarily an economic phenomenon.
Yet the buzzword globalization is more than mere goods transfer. It exploded into public because it captured the increasingly interdependent nature of social life on our planet. At its core, it is about shifting forms of human contact. The world is becoming a place that enhances peopleโs chances to acknowledge their cultural interconnections across arbitrarily drawn political borders.
If we are talking about the โculturalโ, we are concerned with the symbolic construction, articulation, and dissemination of meaning. Given that language, music, and images constitute the major forms of symbolic expression, they assume special significance and offer people a more or less coherent picture of the world not only as it is, but also as it ought to be.
Facilitated by the Internet and our proliferating mobile digital devices, the dominant symbolic systems of meaning of our age โ such as individualism, consumerism, and various religious discourses โ circulate more freely and widely than ever before. As images and ideas can be more easily and rapidly transmitted from one place to another, they profoundly impact the way people experience their everyday lives. Today, cultural practices have escaped fixed localities such as town and nation, eventually acquiring new meanings in interaction with dominant global themes.
A group of commentators argue that we are not moving towards a cultural rainbow that reflects the diversity of the worldโs existing cultures. Rather, we are witnessing the rise of an increasingly homogenized popular culture as well as the dramatic decline of traditional communal sentiments. Some even suggest that American popular culture seems unstoppable. But it is not a simple question of whether globalization ought to be considered good or bad.
It is one thing to acknowledge the existence of powerful homogenizing tendencies in the world, but it is quite another to assert that the cultural diversity existing on our planet is destined to vanish. Global cultural flows often reinvigorate local cultural niches. Hence, rather than being totally obliterated by the sameness, local difference and particularity still play an important role in creating unique cultural constellations. The seemingly opposing processes of globalization and localization actually imply each other.
Without question, the decades ahead will bring new crises and further challenges in light of cultural elements syncretization and religious beliefs reconciliation. There is nothing wrong with greater manifestations of social interdependence that emerge as a result of globalization. I hope these transformative social processes will build a truly democratic and egalitarian global culture without destroying diversity.