OK, go back to my original point: "I might take this further and argue that cultural diversity is valuable and we should value it just as we do endangered species. Globalization and empire are forces that favor monoculture, the loss of alternatives in the grand human experiment with civilization". I wish I had used a different word than culture because I was hoping to make a stronger point. True, there is homogenization in terms of cultural exports like American music, shopping malls and blue jeans. That is relatively benign and it is easy to argue that something better might arise when people are exposed to alternatives (although empirically things like the spread of fast food hardly seem a benefit).
By "monoculture," I intended to also include things like finance capitalism, labor arbitrage, militarism, de facto dictatorships co-opted by the US government, suppression of popular movements by the state apparatus, etc., all done in service to global corporations rather than human needs expressed through genuine democracy. In the context of crises such as global warming, peak oil, overpopulation, food and water shortages, growing disparities in wealth, resource wars, etc., do we really trust a single system based on corporate power in global control? Take all the odious things of the Bush administration, mass surveillance, torture, etc., and consider them potential global exports, not all present initially, but certainly potential in its evolution. Consider the techniques exported by the School of the Americas, for example. Our American ancestors had a choice to come here to be free, it seems to me that a global empire could deny people that opportunity at some point in the future. If such a system of social control became globally entrenched via an empire could it be easily improved? Or, would it tend to be self-perpetuating? Is our system so perfect that it should be the final solution? Is Fukuyama right about the end of history? On all of these points I have my doubts so long as the controlling interests determining the imperial system's goals remain unchanged. Peter Hollings PS: Here's a pleasing, if archaic, example of human diversity: ** Chris Maser "Re-learning" what we've forgotten ---The !Kung Bushmen of southern Africa, for example, spent only twelve to nineteen hours a week getting food because their work was social and cooperative, which means they obtained their particular food items with the least possible expenditure of energy. Thus, they had abundant time for eating, drinking, playing, and general socializing. In - Wed, Jan 9 2008 12:16 pm http://groups.google.com/group/newslog/t/bc2aedf177d8914b?hl=en -----Original Message----- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of raghu Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 8:47 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEN-L] US EMpire Better than Alternative - Huh? On Jan 11, 2008 5:03 PM, David B. Shemano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Regarding cultural homogenization, assuming for purposes of discussion that it is occurring, is it a result of capitalism or modern communications? In other words, assuming the existence of modern communications, why would there be less cultural homogenization if there was global socialism? > > David Shemano > Excellent question. Today's global capitalism is very closely related to the Internet and telecomm technologies to enable labor arbitrage and financial innovation, so it is not clear that you can separate their effects. That said, I am sure that a "global socialism" would also have the possibilities for increased cultural homogeneity. Did anything like this happen in the smaller republics of the USSR and in Soviet era Eastern Europe? -raghu.
