Jimmy Carter Globalization And Culture

Source one displays a quote told by Jimmy carter who was the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. He also received a nobel peace prize for his work with the Carter Center which is a non- governmental, non profit organization which deals with fighting disease and for human rights in developing countries in 2002. Jimmy Carter believed that globalization was a movement that has affected our world in more ways than one. It has grown to become a system that allows the richer to get richer and the poor to somehow never find their way out of debt. Globalization has allowed the entire world to be in the palm our hands with innovative technologies such as the cell phone and the internet, but what Jimmy Carter has made clear in his
This quote is taken directly out of his book, in which he is demonstrating very strong feeling towards the very controversial notion that globalization is the cause of cultural homogenization, westernization, and the spread of consumer culture worldwide. Homogenization is the process of erasing differences, such as cultural differences so that all people are more similar. Some examples of homogenization include the diffusion on mainstream languages such as English in countries whose indigenous language is something very different. We often see how most websites on the World Wide Web are created and viewed in English, even in countries whose official language is spanish for example, which is the very issue the organization “La Francophonie” worked hard at fighting against. Homogenization is considered one of the main characteristics of globalization. This is evident when we look at the story of the Ladakhi people. These people lived in peace until the spread of western culture reached their home in the mountains and they began to become ashamed of their culture. Thinking they were poor and that their ways of life were at a lower standard than those of North American and European tourists. John Tomlinson states early on in his quote that “globalization in the cultural sphere has, most generally, been viewed in a pessimistic light” This similar idea is shown in his novel where he discusses in depth how globalization has ignited a flame of assimilation, and “destruction of cultural identities”. This perspective towards globalization has been spread very little by the media and government officials, since their main goal is to increase globalization in their favor as much as possible. The assimilation and homogenization of cultures benefits these companies and many