The Negative Effects Of Cultural Globalization

Globalization.

Today, a person in Nairobi can buy an Italian suit, the same person owns a German vehicle and can travel to another continent with ease. This is as a result of interaction and exchange of ideas, technology, information, services and goods with fewer barriers or in other words, people across large distances become more connected as the distance between them is shortened due to a phenomenon known as Globalization. Globalization has many effects and therefore it would take eons if not centuries to try and elaborate all of them, however it is imperative that we understand some of the effects of globalization and how it affects our society. Since the Second World War, numerous governments came up with

The interaction of different cultures creates subcultures and hence exchange of ideologies which in turn empowers us to appreciate cultural diversity that exists throughout the globe. Cuisines that were once associated with certain cultures are now readily available to cultures that may have not been exposed to them. Tourism has been increasingly been the source of income to many people around the world due to globalization since people can actually travel to any part of the globe now. The many positive effects show that cultural integration can have an outstanding impact on man, this is not usually the case as there are several negative impacts that cannot be ignored. Consumerism is one of the key negative impacts that cultural globalization has on man, multinational companies impose American or European consumer trends on other cultures for example, in the food and beverages industry, a popular beverage among the Europeans ‘Johnny walker’ is revered as classy therefore it will be purchased in high volumes while traditional beverages such as ‘muratina’ are neglected(Schein.H, Edgar. 1999). In cases such as these cultural cuisine is seen as backward or primitive as more and more people tend to lean towards the western cultures. The superimposition of western ideals has revealed that cultural imperialism exists as the westerners tend to promote their own culture, this eventually leads to degradation of cultural values among other cultures. Language is also one of the pillars of the society, the world has very many different languages ,however due to cultural globalization some languages have been completely lost or become extinct since globalization promotes the use of international languages. This has seen the decline of certain tribes and people in isolated parts of the world(U.N general assembly press release, freakonomics.com