1996/01/01 by Samuel P. Huntington · 5 citations
Social Sciences · #Globalization and Cultural Identity
paper · doi:10.2307/20047828
In recent years Westerners have reassured themselves and irritated others by expounding the notion that the culture of the West is and ought to be the culture of the world. This conceit takes two forms. One is the Coca-colonization thesis. Its proponents claim that Western, and more specifically American, popular culture is enveloping the world: American food, clothing, pop music, movies, and consumer goods are more and more enthusiastically embraced by people on every continent. The other has to do with modernization. It claims not only that the West has led the world to modern society, but that as people in other civilizations modernize they also westernize, aban doning their traditional values, institutions, and customs and adopt ing those that prevail in the West. Both theses project the image of an emerging homogeneous, universally Western world?and both are to varying degrees misguided, arrogant, false, and dangerous. Advocates of the Coca-colonization thesis identify culture with the consumption of material goods. The heart of a culture, however, involves language, religion, values, traditions, and customs. Drinking Coca-Cola does not make Russians think like Americans any more