The Destructive Nature Of Globalism
Entry posted by tflex
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Here's a different perspective on Globalism:
I'm personally against globalism and it's effects on our world today. I am not an isolationist, but I'm against the loss of culture and loss of one's identity to a standarized system of living.
I traveled all over the world back in the 80's and early 90's, and during this short period, the world simply doesn't look the same to me anymore; the only thing thats constant is change itself, but not at this speed. When I visit the same countries now, that I visited 15 or 20 years ago like Spain, Italy, France, Greece, the Middle East, Morocco, China, Thailand, I notice that their unique cultures are rapidly disappearing at an alarming rate, while being transformed into one standardized culture. This has been happening for a while since the invention of flight, television etc., but I think we are seeing the results now; the loss of historical languages unique to certain cultures being gobbled up by English, Spanish etc., the educational system is starting to look the same everywhere, most countries have scrapped their traditional form of government or political system, and have adopted a democratic system or are heading in that direction, capatilist economies and workers almost mimic eachother now, and even food is starting to taste the same, and so on...
My first hand experiences:
The food in my country doesn't have the same ethnic flavor that it use to. Most of the ingredients is now processed food, tomatoes taste of nothing, more like water, the spices are not as spicy, the traditional coffee has been replaced with Starbucks, and our local dessert has now been replaced with chocolate. We use to grow our own fruit, vegetables, and have our own beef & pork, but now we import most of our foods from Europe. It just doesn't taste the same.
In Spain, there was a time when relaxation, social life and generally taking things easy were embraced. I still remember when I was in southern Spain in the early 90's, all the restaurants, shops, offices use to close between 1:30pm - 5:00pm for a good old Siesta. Two years ago, I was their again and was surprised to see that all the same shops, restaurants, offices remained open the whole day. The people were not as warm and friendly as they use to be, I guess it must be from the stress of your typical workday and less social and free time.
I visited Dubai in 2003 and was amazed to find that going out to nightclubs on weekends was apparently the coolest and most exciting thing to do now. Hell, only a few years before nightclubs were non-existant in UAE. Now, dancing the whole night on techno and picking up chicks is the latest craze. The tradition use to be families and friends would gather, slaughter a lamb and just eat and socialize the whole night, talking politics, religion, history etc. Also, the men use to go out into the desert and hunt hares. This is very recent, only 15 years ago that was thing to do.
Egypt use to be the capital of music in the Middle East and known well for their use of diverse instruments, colorful sound, and unique structure. All those unique instruments have now disappeared and mostly replaced by a standard guitar, violin, drums etc.
When I was a kid I spent most of my time with friends in the outdoors playing soccer, climbing trees and just being mischievous. Now many of the kids in my country don't enjoy going out as much and being physically active, they would rather play a computer game or chat with their friends online.
There was a time when speed limits on highways were non-existant in most non-western countries and some western countries. It was always so liberating to travel outside of England or the U.S. (where I've lived my last 16 years), and feed my need for speed. I use to race with a good friend of mine in northern Italy sometime in the early 90's. I went back there in 2002 to see my friend, and to my disappointment, there were speed limits everywhere and speed cameras. People still drive crazy there though, but it's changing, I guess it's safer this way. The Autobahn in Germany was known as the best place in the world for fast drivers, unfortunately Germany has also added speed limits in a lot of places. NO speed limits are now only assigned to the German countryside, I'm sure that will change too.
There are so many other examples that I can give, but it would take me the whole night. The point I'm trying to make is that the world is losing it's diversity, everybody is copying everybody. The experience of the 'unknown' is disappearing, and I truly believe globalism will eventually affect and influence every single aspect of our lives. I guess after thousands of years of experimentation, mankind has finally decided this is the best way to live? I disagree...
tflex
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