A classic example would be the presence of McDonalds in Paris. Here the traditional, centuries-old food traditions are being squeezed out for shit on a shingle. It's terrible.
And yet, nobody made those Frenchmen eat those burgers. It's a matter of choice, and they're choosing something that's homogenized, marketed, inexpensive, quick, styled, branded, predictable, and made with a minimum of cheap labor. There are plusses and minuses to the deal, but it's not our choice; it's the people's choice. And they have their reasons, whatever they may be. It's not like they choose it because they admire American culture. (We are still talking about the French here.)
To deny the people their choice because you don't like their choice is... well, basically the road taken by all those nations that we consider "backwards". Their cultures stagnate without the massive benefit of trade and shared innovations.
To give the people their choice is to spread political power down, away from the top and down all the way to the individuals. That results in economic growth. The economic power of a free and productive society is a remarkable thing. In the west, it has permitted the real quality of life to roughly double every generation. To put it in personal terms, my father died of cancer in 1967. A generation later, we knew enough about how to prevent cancer that he never would have gotten it. A generation and a half later, we know enough to diagnose early... and enough to cure him if he does get it.
Ignore productive culture? Do so at your own peril.
|