Cultural Destruction

Destructive Impact on Local Cultures

There is no consensus on the breadth or severity of globalization's destructive impact on particular cultures; however, some mechanisms of this destruction have been identified. One way that globalization is viewed to pose a threat to cultures is through what is perceived as its homogenizing effect such that around the world, the same films, television programs, music, gastronomy, fashion, and even art exhibitions are being consumed. Tyler Cowen counters this perception by proposing that globalization has been instrumental in the development of measures for sharing information about cultural practices, and indeed engendering new ones.

The two sides of the debate came to the fore during the Uruguay rounds (1986–1993) of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) during which France claimed that in questions of free market liberalization, there should be an exception made for cultural goods and services. The argument was that cultural products, the entertainment industry, and films in particular being a central element in the debate, should come under particular regulations that allowed for greater national protection and subventions. It was felt that nationally based entertainment industries were in danger of succumbing to what was perceived as an overwhelming onslaught of products from the United States, and with them not only would national creative industries suffer but the diversity of worldviews and imaginations would also decrease. The counterargument, put forth especially strongly by the United States, was that the increased movement of people and cultural products exposes individuals today to more cultures, ways of life, philosophies, and experiences than ever before, thus multiplying rather than reducing our appreciation of cultural diversity and sources of creativity. By the end of deliberations, a list of possible exceptions was added that included culture, thus giving rise to the term l'exception culturelle.

This debate was taken up again in 1999 by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and in the process, the idea of safeguarding cultural diversity, as opposed to arguing for cultural goods to be treated differently, took hold. The organization's work on the topic [Page 323]led to the adoption of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions in 2005. The creation of a normative instrument to safeguard cultural diversity was a response to the perceived threat that globalization would lead to cultural homogeneity at a world scale, a dynamic Benjamin Barber termed McWorld after the fast-food chain McDonald's. There are numerous counterarguments to this view of globalization that claim that societies do not passively consume imported products but interpret them according to ever-changing cultural frameworks and symbolic systems, ascribing to them different meanings and utility.

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