Blog 2: What is the relation between culture and globalization?

1. Summary

Globalization is generally considered a multidimensional process and is seen as a complex, accelerated, and integrative process of global connectivity. From this perspective, globalization means increasingly dense networks of interconnectivity and interdependence. This growing connectivity clearly exists, and today’s level of global interdependence is unprecedented. However, this perspective still has implicit assumptions about the relative importance of different dimensions.

One of the most important of these assumptions is that the capitalist system is a key and indispensable element of global connectivity. However, this is inappropriate for two reasons. First, it is about how economic practices are inherently cultural. Second, it distorts our understanding of the cultural sphere. The idea that culture is fundamentally an element that constitutes globalization needs to be clarified.

If we delve deeper into culture, culture is the original context in which human actions arise and are carried out. If we ask functional questions about the use of culture, we can say it is about creating meaning in life, and "meaning" lies at the core of humanity, with people willing to sacrifice material things for it.

Therefore, a useful way to understand the impact of culture on globalization is to understand how culturally informed regional actions can lead to global outcomes. Cultural globalization is a process in which numerous individual actions are integrated into the operations of social institutions, and those institutions appear to autonomously govern our lives. In Anthony Giddens' terms, cultural globalization implies increasing reflexivity, meaning that globalization influences culture while simultaneously being created and shaped by it.

One of the conjectures about the process of globalization is that it will result in a single global culture. Particularly in the economic sphere, the integration effect can be seen due to the global market system. Indeed, some aspects of globalization have this integrative nature, and there is a view that globalization turns the world into a single place. However, global connectivity does not mean the world is becoming economically or politically unified. Therefore, globalization must be understood as an uneven process, with areas where connectivity is concentrated and flows are dense, and regions that are neglected or even excluded.

What is important in cultural analysis is not the mere ability to distribute products globally, but the deeper cultural implications of that ability. One should not confuse cultural products with the practice of culture itself. Culture involves interpreting and embracing meanings related to these products.

What globalization does is bring very different cultures into closer contact. To approach this issue, let’s look at modern globalization in a historical context. Imagining the world as a single place can be seen in the 13th-century European map, "Ebstorf Mappa Mundi," where they placed their own culture at the center. This map is a typical medieval European map, mixing geography with theology. Christian theological elements dominate the entire map, showing an early form of theological globalism.

Given modern relativist sensibilities, one might feel that such universal claims are fictitious, but the discourse of universalism has not disappeared along with the sophistication of cultural modernity. The discourse of cultural universalism suggests that we should explore the deeper cultural implications related to the practice, interpretation, and acceptance of culture itself.

It is common to regard one’s culture as the only true, enlightened, rational, and good model. Even Karl Marx, considered progressive, had cosmopolitan ideas. To relativize this model requires the difficult act of hermeneutic distancing and intellectual and emotional imagination. Realizing global citizenship without imposing a model influenced by a particular culture would be the cultural challenge globalization presents us with.

A cultural globalization approach involves understanding the influence of globalization in a way that is felt within a specific region. Globalization changes the experience of locality, and the concept of "deterritorialization" is a way to grasp these changes. Deterritorialization means that culture loses its natural connection with geographical and social territory.

Culture has long been linked to the concept of fixed locality. However, the connectivity of globalization threatens this conceptualization. Distant forces infiltrate our local world, and everyday meanings are detached from the fixed points of local environments. Deterritorialization does not merely mean the loss of local cultural experiences; conversely, localities flourish within globalization. However, one difference is that the culture produced in the locality is no longer the most important element in our lives.

One of the key tasks of global cultural analysis is understanding how telemediation shapes our lives and, in fact, our values, which is also a form of deterritorialization. As the speed of electronic communication increases, modern society has an inevitably predetermined pace by technology. This needs to be considered along with the power of markets and political ideologies, and the agenda of global cultural analysis should extend to understanding the speed of this system and devising strategies to regulate it.

Progressive, cosmopolitan cultural politics are worth taking seriously. It is not about supporting large-scale projects for global governance but about clearly defining and harmonizing the attachment and value of cultural differences with those of the broader global human community.

Modern society coordinates the experience of existence along implicit, well-controlled boundaries. We live with identities within discursive systems of institutionally organized belonging. However, this identity is vague, contingent, specific, and structured, affecting our material and psychological well-being and giving each of us a unique "politics." Therefore, identity is not an inherently unique possession, but rather a construction of meaning through collective symbolism.

Rather than destroying culture, globalization becomes the most significant force in creating and spreading cultural identity. Cosmopolitan orientation can be said to belong to a specific identity position and can be compatible with various cultural variations. In conclusion, humanity has the usefulness of accepting diverse cultural differences while possessing universality within a modern institutional context. This can help alleviate the dilemma between cultural identity and universal human rights, and we urgently need to create a much more agile and flexible cultural concept than we have had so far.

2. New, interesting, or unusual items learned

Although the concept of globalization is often thought to conflict with culture, I realized through this text that if we view "culture" from a broader perspective, culture can actually be an element that constitutes globalization. It’s not just that certain cultural products are distributed globally that makes globalization, but the interpretation and acceptance of the meanings of these products that defines culture itself. I also learned that interpreting everything within the cultural context one belongs to is called "cosmopolitanism." Moreover, I found that deterritorialization does not mean the loss of local cultural experience, and the key point is that the culture produced in the locality is no longer the most important element in our lives. I think this connects to the idea that humans have the usefulness of accepting diverse cultural differences while possessing universality in a modern institutional context.

3. question, concern, or discussion angle

Through this text, I learned that deterritorialization changes local experiences and provides people with a broader cultural horizon. I also learned that human identity is not inherent but is created within the discursive systems of institutionally organized belonging, and it is a kind of politics that affects human material and psychological well-being.

However, if we assume that cosmopolitan orientation is placed within a specific identity position, what does it mean to be "global" or "worldwide"? What can we call "global"? If different cultural groups interpret globalization differently, can a unified concept emerge? Although people may empirically understand that they have a universal identity while accepting diverse cultural differences, how much can individuals transcend their own cultural backgrounds? These are questions I would like to discuss together.