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Cultural Globalization Is Not Americanization

By PHILIPPE LEGRAIN (2002)

"Listen man, I smoke, I snort ... I've been begging on the street since I was just a baby.

I've cleaned windshields at stoplights. I've polished shoes, I've robbed, I've killed. ... Iain't no kid, no way. I'm a real man."

Such searing dialogue has helped make City of Goda global hit. A chronicle of threedecades of gang wars, it has proved compelling viewing for audiences worldwide. Criticscompare it to Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas.

If you believe the cultural pessimists, Hollywood pap has driven out films like Cidade deDeus, as it is known in its home country. It is a Brazilian film, in Portuguese, by a little-known director, with a cast that includes no professional actors, let alone Hollywoodstars. Its focus is not a person at all, but a drug-ridden, dirt-poorfavela (slum) on the

outskirts of Rio de Janeiro that feels as remote from the playground of the rich andfamous as it does from God.

Yet City of Godhas not only made millions at the box office, it has also sparked anational debate in Brazil. It has raised awareness in the United States, Britain, andelsewhere of the terrible poverty and violence of the developing world. All that, and itmakes you wince, weep, and, yes, laugh. Not bad for a film distributed by Miramax,which is owned by Disney, one of those big global companies that globaphobes compareto cultural vandals.

A lot of nonsense about the impact of globalization on culture passes for conventionalwisdom these days. Among the pro-globalizers, Thomas Friedman, columnist forTheNew York Times and author ofThe Lexus and the Olive Tree (Farrar, Straus & Giroux,1999), believes that globalization is "globalizing American culture and American culturalicons." Among the antis, Naomi Klein, a Canadian journalist and author ofNo Logo(Picador, 2000), argues that "the buzzword in global marketing isn't selling America tothe world, but bringing a kind of market masala to everyone in the world. ... Despite theembrace of polyethnic imagery, market-driven globalization doesn't want diversity; quitethe opposite. Its enemies are national habits, local brands and distinctive regional tastes."

Fears that globalization is imposing a deadening cultural uniformity are as ubiquitous asCoca-Cola, McDonald's, and Mickey Mouse. Europeans and Latin Americans, left-wingers and right, rich and poor -- all of them dread that local cultures and nationalidentities are dissolving into a crass all-American consumerism. That culturalimperialism is said to impose American values as well as products, promote thecommercial at the expense of the authentic, and substitute shallow gratification for deepersatisfaction.

City of God's success suggests otherwise. If critics of globalization were less obsessedwith "Coca-colonization," they might notice a rich feast of cultural mixing that belies


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fears about Americanized uniformity. Algerians in Paris practice Thai boxing; Asianrappers in London snack on Turkish pizza; Salman Rushdie delights readers everywherewith his Anglo-Indian tales. Although -- as with any change -- there can be downsides tocultural globalization, this cross-fertilization is overwhelmingly a force for good.

The beauty of globalization is that it can free people from the tyranny of geography. Justbecause someone was born in France does not mean they can only aspire to speak French,eat French food, read French books, visit museums in France, and so on. A Frenchman-- or an American, for that matter -- can take holidays in Spain or Florida, eat sushi orspaghetti for dinner, drink Coke or Chilean wine, watch a Hollywood blockbuster or anAlmodvar, listen to bhangra or rap, practice yoga or kickboxing, readElle orTheEconomist, and have friends from around the world. That we are increasingly free tochoose our cultural experiences enriches our lives immeasurably. We could not alwaysenjoy the best the world has to offer.

Globalization not only increases individual freedom, but also revitalizes cultures and

cultural artifacts through foreign influences, technologies, and markets. Thriving culturesare not set in stone. They are forever changing from within and without. Each generationchallenges the previous one; science and technology alter the way we see ourselves andthe world; fashions come and go; experience and events influence our beliefs; outsidersaffect us for good and ill.

Many of the best things come from cultures mixing: V.S. Naipaul's Anglo-Indo-Caribbean writing, Paul Gauguin painting in Polynesia, or the African rhythms in rock 'n'roll. Behold the great British curry. Admire the many-colored faces of France's WorldCup-winning soccer team, the ferment of ideas that came from Eastern Europe's Jewishdiaspora, and the cosmopolitan cities of London and New York. Western numbers areactually Arabic; zero comes most recently from India; Icelandic, French, and Sanskritstem from a common root.

John Stuart Mill was right: "The economical benefits of commerce are surpassed inimportance by those of its effects which are intellectual and moral. It is hardly possible tooverrate the value, for the improvement of human beings, of things which bring them intocontact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and actionunlike those with which they are familiar. ... It is indispensable to be perpetuallycomparing [one"s] own notions and customs with the experience and example of personsin different circumstances. ... There is no nation which does not need to borrow fromothers."

It is a myth that globalization involves the imposition of Americanized uniformity, ratherthan an explosion of cultural exchange. For a start, many archetypal "American" productsare not as all-American as they seem. Levi Strauss, a German immigrant, invented jeansby combining denim cloth (or "serge de Nmes," because it was traditionally woven inthe French town) with Genes, a style of trousers worn by Genoese sailors. So Levi's jeansare in fact an American twist on a European hybrid. Even quintessentially Americanexports are often tailored to local tastes. MTV in Asia promotes Thai pop stars and plays


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rock music sung in Mandarin. CNN en Espaol offers a Latin American take on worldnews. McDonald's sells beer in France, lamb in India, and chili in Mexico.

In some ways, America is an outlier, not a global leader. Most of the world has adoptedthe metric system born from the French Revolution; America persists with antiquated

measurements inherited from its British-colonial past. Most developed countries havebecome intensely secular, but many Americans burn with fundamentalist fervor -- likeMuslims in the Middle East. Where else in the developed world could there be a seriousdebate about teaching kids Bible-inspired "creationism" instead of Darwinist evolution?

America's tastes in sports are often idiosyncratic, too. Baseball and American footballhave not traveled well, although basketball has fared rather better. Many of the world'smost popular sports, notably soccer, came by way of Britain. Asian martial arts -- judo,karate, kickboxing -- and pastimes like yoga have also swept the world.

People are not only guzzling hamburgers and Coke. Despite Coke's ambition of

displacing water as the world's drink of choice, it accounts for less than 2 of the 64 fluidounces that the typical person drinks a day. Britain's favorite takeaway is a curry, not aburger: Indian restaurants there outnumber McDonald's six to one. For all the concernsabout American fast food trashing France's culinary traditions, France imported a mere$620-million in food from the United States in 2000, while exporting to America threetimes that. Nor is plonk from America's Gallo displacing Europe's finest: Italy and Francetogether account for three-fifths of global wine exports, the United States for only a 20th.Worldwide, pizzas are more popular than burgers, Chinese restaurants seem to sprout upeverywhere, and sushi is spreading fast. By far the biggest purveyor of alcoholic drinks isBritain's Diageo, which sells the world's best-selling whiskey (Johnnie Walker), gin(Gordon's), vodka (Smirnoff) and liqueur (Baileys).

In fashion, the ne plus ultra is Italian or French. Trendy Americans wear Gucci, Armani,Versace, Chanel, and Herms. On the high street and in the mall, Sweden's Hennes &Mauritz (H&M) and Spain's Zara vie with America's Gap to dress the global masses.Nike shoes are given a run for their money by Germany's Adidas, Britain's Reebok, andItaly's Fila.

In pop music, American crooners do not have the stage to themselves. The three artistswho featured most widely in national Top Ten album charts in 2000 were America'sBritney Spears, closely followed by Mexico's Carlos Santana and the British Beatles.Even tiny Iceland has produced a global star: Bjrk. Popular opera's biggest singers areItaly's Luciano Pavarotti, Spain's Jos Carreras, and the Spanish-Mexican PlacidoDomingo. Latin American salsa, Brazilian lambada, and African music have all carvedout global niches for themselves. In most countries, local artists still top the charts.According to the IFPI, the record-industry bible, local acts accounted for 68 percent ofmusic sales in 2000, up from 58 percent in 1991.

One of the most famous living writers is a Colombian, Gabriel Garca Mrquez, author ofOne Hundred Years of Solitude. Paulo Coelho, another writer who has notched up tens of


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millions of global sales with The Alchemistand other books, is Brazilian. More than 200million Harlequin romance novels, a Canadian export, were sold in 1990; they accountfor two-fifths of mass-market paperback sales in the United States. The biggest publisherin the English-speaking world is Germany's Bertelsmann, which gobbled up America'slargest, Random House, in 1998.

Local fare glues more eyeballs to TV screens than American programs. Although nearlythree-quarters of television drama exported worldwide comes from the United States,most countries' favorite shows are homegrown.

Nor are Americans the only players in the global media industry. Of the seven marketleaders that have their fingers in nearly every pie, four are American (AOL Time Warner,Disney, Viacom, and News Corporation), one is German (Bertelsmann), one is French(Vivendi), and one Japanese (Sony). What they distribute comes from all quarters:Bertelsmann publishes books by American writers; News Corporation broadcasts Asiannews; Sony sells Brazilian music.

The evidence is overwhelming. Fears about an Americanized uniformity are over-blown:American cultural products are not uniquely dominant; local ones are alive and well.

With one big exception: cinema. True, India produces more films (855 in 2000) thanHollywood does (762), but they are largely for a domestic audience. Japan and HongKong also make lots of movies, but few are seen outside Asia. France and Britain havethe occasional global hit, but are still basically local players. Not only does Hollywooddominate the global movie market, but it also swamps local products in most countries.American fare accounts for more than half the market in Japan and nearly two-thirds inEurope.

Yet Hollywood's hegemony is not as worrisome as people think. Note first thatHollywood is less American than it seems. Ever since Charlie Chaplin crossed over fromBritain, foreigners have flocked to California to try to become global stars: Just look atPenelope Cruz, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Ewan McGregor. Top directors are also oftenfrom outside America: Think of Ridley Scott or the late Stanley Kubrick. Some studiosare foreign-owned: Japan's Sony owns Columbia Pictures, Vivendi Universal is French.Two of AOL Time Warner's biggest recent hit franchises,Harry Potterand The Lord ofthe Rings, are both based on British books, have largely British casts, and, in the case ofThe Lord of the Rings, a Kiwi director. To some extent, then, Hollywood is a globalindustry that just happens to be in America. Rather than exporting Americana, it servesup pap to appeal to a global audience.

Hollywood's dominance is in part due to economics: Movies cost a lot to make and soneed a big audience to be profitable; Hollywood has used America's huge and relativelyuniform domestic market as a platform to expand overseas. So there could be a case forstuffing subsidies into a rival European film industry, just as Airbus was created tochallenge Boeing's near-monopoly. But France has long pumped money into its domesticindustry without persuading foreigners to flock to its films. As Tyler Cowen perceptively


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points out in his bookCreative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World'sCultures (Princeton University Press, 2002), "A vicious circle has been created: Themore European producers fail in global markets, the more they rely on television revenueand subsidies. The more they rely on television and subsidies, the more they fail in globalmarkets," because they serve domestic demand and the wishes of politicians and

cinematic bureaucrats.

Another American export is also conquering the globe: English. Around 380 millionpeople speak it as their first language and another 250 million or so as their second. Abillion are learning it, about a third of the world's population are exposed to it, and by2050, it is reckoned, half the world will be more or less proficient in it. A common globallanguage would certainly be a big plus -- for businessmen, scientists, and tourists -- but asingle one seems far less desirable. Language is often at the heart of national culture: TheFrench would scarcely be French if they spoke English (although Belgian Walloons arenot French even though they speak it). English may usurp other languages not because itis what people prefer to speak, but because, like Microsoft software, there are compelling

advantages to using it if everyone else does.

But although many languages are becoming extinct, English is rarely to blame. Peopleare learning English as well as -- not instead of -- their native tongue, and often manymore languages besides. Some languages with few speakers, such as Icelandic, arethriving, despite Bjrk's choosing to sing in English. Where local languages are dying, itis typically national rivals that are stamping them out. French has all but eliminatedProvenal, and German Swabian. So although, within the United States, English isdisplacing American Indian tongues, it is not doing away with Swahili or Norwegian.

Even though American consumer culture is widespread, its significance is oftenexaggerated. You can choose to drink Coke and eat at McDonald's without becomingAmerican in any meaningful sense. One newspaper photo of Taliban fighters inAfghanistan showed them toting Kalashnikovs -- as well as a sports bag with Nike'strademark swoosh. People's culture -- in the sense of their shared ideas, beliefs,knowledge, inherited traditions, and art -- may scarcely be eroded by mere commercialartifacts that, despite all the furious branding, embody at best flimsy values.

The really profound cultural changes have little to do with Coca-Cola. Western ideasabout liberalism and science are taking root almost everywhere, while Europe and NorthAmerica are becoming multicultural societies through immigration, mainly fromdeveloping countries. Technology is reshaping culture: Just think of the Internet.Individual choice is fragmenting the imposed uniformity of national cultures. New hybridcultures are emerging, and regional ones re-emerging. National identity is notdisappearing, but the bonds of nationality are loosening.

As Tyler Cowen points out in his excellent book, cross-border cultural exchangeincreases diversity within societies -- but at the expense of making them more alike.People everywhere have more choice, but they often choose similar things. That worriescultural pessimists, even though the right to choose to be the same is an essential part of


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freedom.

Cross-cultural exchange can spread greater diversity as well as greater similarity: moregourmet restaurants as well as more McDonald's. And just as a big city can support awider spread of restaurants than a small town, so a global market for cultural products

allows a wider range of artists to thrive. For sure, if all the new customers are ignorant, awider market may drive down the quality of cultural products: Think of tourist souvenirs.But as long as some customers are well informed (or have "good taste"), a general"dumbing down" is unlikely. Hobbyists, fans, artistic pride, and professional critics alsohelp maintain (and raise) standards. Cowen concludes that the "basic trend is ofincreasing variety and diversity, at all levels of quality, high and low."

A bigger worry is that greater individual freedom may come at the expense of nationalidentity. The French fret that if they all individually choose to watch Hollywood filmsthey might unwittingly lose their collective Frenchness. Yet such fears are overdone.Natural cultures are much stronger than people seem to think. They can embrace some

foreign influences and resist others. Foreign influences can rapidly become domesticated,changing national culture, but not destroying it. Germans once objected to soccer becauseit was deemed English; now their soccer team is emblematic of national pride. AmartyaSen, the Nobel prize-winning economist, is quite right when he says that "the culturallyfearful often take a very fragile view of each culture and tend to underestimate our abilityto learn from elsewhere without being overwhelmed by that experience."

Clearly, though, there is a limit to how many foreign influences a culture can absorbbefore being swamped. Even when a foreign influence is largely welcomed, it can beoverwhelming. Traditional cultures in the developing world that have until now evolved(or failed to evolve) in isolation may be particularly vulnerable.

In The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy (Free Press,2001), Noreena Hertz describes the supposed spiritual Eden that was the isolatedkingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas as being defiled by such awful imports as basketballand Spice Girls T-shirts. Anthony Giddens, the director of the London School ofEconomics and Political Science, has told how an anthropologist who visited a remotepart of Cambodia was shocked and disappointed to find that her first night'sentertainment was not traditional local pastimes but watchingBasic Instincton video.

Is that such a bad thing? It is odd, to put it mildly, that many on the left supportmulticulturalism in the

West but advocate cultural purity in the developing world -- an attitude they would bequick to tar as fascist if proposed for the United States or Britain. Hertz and theanthropologist in Cambodia appear to want people outside the industrialized Westpreserved in unchanging but supposedly pure poverty. Yet the Westerners who want thissupposed paradise preserved in aspic rarely feel like settling there. Nor do most people indeveloping countries want to lead an "authentic" unspoiled life of isolated poverty.


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In truth, cultural pessimists are typically not attached to diversity per se but to designatedmanifestations of diversity, determined by their preferences. "They often use diversity asa code word for a more particularist agenda, often of an anti-commercial or anti-American nature," Cowen argues. "They care more about the particular form thatdiversity takes in their favored culture, rather than about diversity more generally,

freedom of choice, or a broad menu of quality options."

Cultural pessimists want to freeze things as they were. But if diversity at any point intime is desirable, why isn't diversity across time? Certainly, it is often a shame if ancientcultural traditions are lost. We should do our best to preserve them and keep them alivewhere possible. As Cowen points out, foreigners can often help, by providing the newcustomers and technologies that have enabled reggae music, Haitian art, and Persiancarpet making, for instance, to thrive and reach new markets. But people cannot be madeto live in a museum. We in the West are forever casting off old customs when we feelthey are no longer relevant. Nobody argues that Americans should ban nightclubs to forcepeople back to line dancing. People in poor countries have a right to change, too.

Moreover, some losses of diversity are a good thing. In 1850, some countries bannedslavery, while others maintained it in various forms. Who laments that the world is nowalmost universally rid of it? More generally, Western ideas are reshaping the way peopleeverywhere view themselves and the world. Like nationalism and socialism before it,liberalism -- political ideas about individual liberty, the rule of law, democracy, anduniversal human rights, as well as economic ones about the importance of privateproperty rights, markets, and consumer choice -- is a European philosophy that has sweptthe world. Even people who resist liberal ideas, in the name of religion (Islamic andChristian fundamentalists), group identity (communitarians), authoritarianism (advocatesof "Asian values") or tradition (cultural conservatives), now define themselves partly bytheir opposition to them.

Faith in science and technology is even more widespread. Even those who hate the Westmake use of its technologies. Osama bin Laden plots terrorism on a cellphone and crashesplanes into skyscrapers. Antiglobalization protesters organize by e-mail and over theInternet. Jos Bov manipulates 21st-century media in his bid to return French farming tothe Middle Ages. China no longer turns its nose up at Western technology: It tries to beatthe West at its own game.

True, many people reject Western culture. (Or, more accurately, "cultures": Europeansand Americans disagree bitterly over the death penalty, for instance; they hardly see eyeto eye over the role of the state, either.) Samuel Huntington, a professor of internationalpolitics at Harvard University, even predicts a "clash of civilizations" that will divide the21st-century world. Yet Francis Fukuyama, a professor of international political economyat the Johns Hopkins University, is nearer the mark when he talks about the "end ofhistory." Some cultures have local appeal, but only liberalism appeals everywhere (if notto all) -- although radical environmentalism may one day challenge its hegemony. Islamicfundamentalism poses a threat to our lives but not to our beliefs. Unlike communism, it isnot an alternative to liberal capitalism for Westerners or other non-Muslims.


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Yet for all the spread of Western ideas to the developing world, globalization is not aone-way street. Although Europe's former colonial powers have left their stamp on muchof the world, the recent flow of migration has been in the opposite direction. There areAlgerian suburbs in Paris, but not French ones in Algiers; Pakistani parts of London, but

not British ones of Lahore. Whereas Muslims are a growing minority in Europe,Christians are a disappearing one in the Middle East.

Foreigners are changing America even as they adopt its ways. A million or so immigrantsarrive each year (700,000 legally, 300,000 illegally), most of them Latino or Asian. Since1990, the number of foreign-born American residents has risen by 6 million to just over25 million, the biggest immigration wave since the turn of the 20th century. English maybe all-conquering outside America, but in some parts of the United States, it is nowsecond to Spanish. Half of the 50 million new inhabitants expected in America in the next25 years will be immigrants or the children of immigrants.

The upshot of all this change is that national cultures are fragmenting into a kaleidoscopeof different ones. New hybrid cultures are emerging. In "Amexica" people speakSpanglish. Regional cultures are reviving. Repressed under Franco, Catalans, Basques,Gallegos, and others assert their identity in Spain. The Scots and Welsh break withBritish monoculture. Estonia is reborn from the Soviet Union. Voices that were silentdare to speak again.

Individuals are forming new communities, linked by shared interests and passions, thatcut across national borders. Friendships with foreigners met on holiday. Scientists sharingideas over the Internet. Environmentalists campaigning together using e-mail. House-music lovers swapping tracks online. Greater individualism does not spell the end ofcommunity. The new communities are simply chosen rather than coerced, unlike theolder ones that communitarians hark back to.

Does that mean national identity is dead? Hardly. People who speak the same language,were born and live near each other, face similar problems, have a common experience,and vote in the same elections still have plenty of things in common. For all ourawareness of the world as a single place, we are not citizens of the world but citizens of astate. But if people now wear the bonds of nationality more loosely, is that such a badthing? People may lament the passing of old ways. Indeed, many of the worries aboutglobalization echo age-old fears about decline, a lost golden age, and so on. But by andlarge, people choose the new ways because they are more relevant to their current needsand offer new opportunities that the old ones did not.

The truth is that we increasingly define ourselves rather than let others define us. BeingBritish or American does not define who you are: It is part of who you are. You can likeforeign things and still have strong bonds to your fellow citizens. As Mario Vargas Llosa,the Peruvian author, has written: "Seeking to impose a cultural identity on a people isequivalent to locking them in a prison and denying them the most precious of liberties-- that of choosing what, how, and who they want to be."


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Philippe Legrain is chief economist of Britain in Europe, the campaign for Britain to

adopt the euro. He has been special adviser to the head of the World Trade

Organization, and trade and economics correspondent forThe Economist. He is theauthor ofOpen World: The Truth About Globalisation (Abacus, 2002, with an American

edition expected early next year from Ivan R. Dee).

http://chronicle.comSection: The Chronicle ReviewVolume 49, Issue 35, Page B7

culturalglobalizatio (1)

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