The myth behind cultural imperialism

Welcome back dear comrades to the Poli-Sphere.Today l embark on a journey of  the mythical dimension of the thesis of cultural imperialism. According to this thesis,  developed countries, mainly the United States of America, define and standardise cultural values, civilisation and the cultural environment for the entire world to adhere to. It is however a debatable thesis which some people believe is truly happening in this era that we live in whilst other people think it is just but a myth misunderstood and causing confusion in line to the theme, first foretold by Jürgen Harbermass, globalisation.In reality l wonder,is it justifiable that one country can force the entire world to follow their cultures considering that some of the most influential people in continents such as Africa do not come from the American side and they have failed to be the gods of where they come from. The late  Nelson ‘Madiba’ Mandela  for instance was one person who was and is still believed to be very influential in Africa and had Africa around his fingers yet he alone could not change the world let alone this Africa that was in his palms.

Leila Green recites ‘‘as we consume the media we do not do it passively but in active manner that is selectively. ’ So can we say that, if this cultural imperialism thesis does  exist, the whole population of the underdeveloped countries are passive taking the western messages as the hypodermic needle theory suggest. I think not, we can reject the messages after all we are not as gullible as the cultural imperialism thesis perceives.

To add on this myth, the theory of cultural imperialism lacks precise definitions showing that it has not been thought about carefully. It has myriad definitions that have been put on the table by many different critical scholars such as Boyd-Barret and Schiller.Beltran1987:184 defines imperialism as “a verifiable process of social influence by which a nation imposes on the other countries its set of beliefs, values, knowledge and behavioural norms as well as its overall style of life.” On the other hand some separate the two as culture and imperialism and give imperialism the definition as “the practise, the theory and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory; colonialism, which is almost always a consequence of imperialism, is the implanting of settlements on a distant territory.” Sui-Nam Lee criticises the theory as says it is not specific and further proposes a new name for these thesis, Communication Imperialism, further complicating the complicated. 

Globalisation being simply defined as the process that promotes worldwide exchanges of national and cultural resources, perpetuates that no homogeneous culture exist but the world is practising the interexchanging communication of cultures where they combining their cultures to produce one dominant culture that will be democratically universal to the universe thereby compounding on Jürgen Harbermass theme of the world being a global village. If you ask me this is what is happening, globalisation not imperialism just that most underdeveloped countries like and adopt the western culture more than their on eastern numerous cultures.

To seal the deal, the theory of cultural imperialism is not well researched with concrete points of arguments to be argued as a fact.Bringing to light the issue of technological advancement, globalisation,structural functionalism thesis and human beings as active consumers leads to this thesis to be thought as a myth. Consider that time being the only coin of life we can not live in the same moment of time for eternity at some point we need and have to change to fit in.