Blog 2: Culture and Globalization – Park Sihyeon

 1. Summary

The author sees globalization as the world becoming connected faster and more densely, and he sees culture as the thing that gives meaning to our lives. The meanings that culture creates give people motivation and direction, and this moves them to act. When the small choices of countless people add up, they affect the global market, workers in faraway countries, and even the environment of the planet. People often think of globalization mainly in economic terms, but the author argues that the relationship is not simply one where an active globalization changes a passive culture. Culture is shaped by globalization, but at the same time it is also where globalization is made. Some people in the West worry that if globalization continues, Western culture, especially American culture, will spread everywhere and other countries will lose their own cultures. However, the author argues that connection does not mean unification, and that we need to separate the spread of goods from the swallowing of a culture. Just because Western companies sell their products well does not mean that people have accepted Western values too. The author also points out that people, both in the past and today, often mistake their own culture for the standard of the whole world. He says the most urgent task of globalization is figuring out how to create world citizens without forcing any one culture on everyone. According to the author, the real change that globalization brings is deterritorialization, which means that culture is no longer tied to a particular place. This does not mean that local culture disappears. Local culture still keeps its own character, but because cultures from faraway places are added to our lives, local culture no longer has the monopoly over our lives that it used to have. The author also mentions a positive possibility: deterritorialization can open our minds to other cultures and help us feel responsible for the global community. Finally, many people worry that globalization destroys identity, but the author argues that globalization has actually created identities. He also suggests that since one person can hold several identities at the same time, the dilemma between universal human rights and cultural difference can be eased, at least a little. He ends by saying that we need more flexible ways of thinking.

2. What I Found New and Interesting

What was new to me was the author's claim that it is a misunderstanding to see culture as something that just sits still. Whenever I heard the phrase "the impact of globalization on culture," I simply accepted it. I had never thought that underneath it there was an assumption that culture just passively receives the effects of globalization. I was impressed by the author's insight in finding the hidden meaning in a phrase that is easy to pass over, and trying to correct it. The word "culture" already felt somewhat alive to me, but when the author explained how culture moves the world with the example of a teenager buying sneakers, the claim that culture makes globalization became much more intuitive. The claim that the spread of goods is different from the acceptance of a culture was also very interesting, and I could easily find examples of it in Korea. A good example is TikTok. Many Koreans spend hours on TikTok, an app made in China, but new trends that are uniquely Korean are created on it. Also, people use Chinese-made products because they are cheap, but they do not follow the Chinese custom of treating the number 8 as especially lucky. And people often wear Uniqlo clothes, but they do not follow the Japanese table manner of holding up the rice bowl and eating rice only with chopsticks. Using a country's products does not mean that the country's culture or values come along with them. These examples helped me easily understand the author's point that culture is not about the object itself, but about how we use it and what meaning we give it. Also, while the author mostly used American and Western products as examples, I found that the same principle works within East Asia as well.

3. A Question: So What Should We Actually Do?

The author brings up the dilemma between universal human rights and cultural difference, but his practical solution for situations where the two clash is unclear. The author does admit that there is no easy solution and that his idea only softens the conflict a little, but I think there are points that make the reader ask, "So what are we actually supposed to do?" For example, public schools in France ban religious symbols such as the hijab. It is unclear what choice the author's solution tells us to make in this situation. A student can be a Muslim and a public school student at the same time, but she still has to make a choice when she faces the rule. In other words, the idea of multiple identities explains this conflict, but it does not solve it. Can the idea that one person can hold several identities at the same time really give a practical answer when universal values and cultural difference collide head-on?

I wrote this post in Korean and used AI to translate it into English.