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Волк Апокалипси
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Cultural Suicide
October 20, 2006 - 02:03 PM
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In world slowly being bought up by massive coporations and conglomerates, we are having our very cultural identities bought out from under our feet. From advertising in churches to "branded" towns in which the very streets are advertisments. There is no country which is not affected, and no country is safe from economic tyranny. Whole country's natural ressources are being bought up by companies like Bechtel or ngo's like the World Bank. I would like to know anyone's opinion of these travesties against basic human rights.
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That guy
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Re: Cultural Suicide
October 21, 2006 - 02:56 PM
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SovietDragon wrote:
In world slowly being bought up by massive coporations and conglomerates, we are having our very cultural identities bought out from under our feet. From advertising in churches to "branded" towns in which the very streets are advertisments. There is no country which is not affected, and no country is safe from economic tyranny. Whole country's natural ressources are being bought up by companies like Bechtel or ngo's like the World Bank. I would like to know anyone's opinion of these travesties against basic human rights.
Unfortunately, Dragon is right, and not just about creeping corporate hegemony.
In America, most of our culture is not created; all our music, all fashion, and definitions of what is cool usually start in advertising firms instead of on the streets. And when something does start on the streets, corporations take it and sell it back at a markup! (You know there is something wrong when you pay more than $100 for a pair of jeans that has been deliberately made to look old and worn...) This applies to music as well.
If you agree with me, you may find this interesting.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/
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e.sum
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Re: Cultural Suicide
October 21, 2006 - 05:02 PM
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wvanbokk wrote:
If you agree with me, you may find this interesting.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/
Perhaps of interest to other readers, Douglas Rushkoff who made the "cool" documentary also made another called The Persuaders. Both links lead to to the docs in streaming video 
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mnopq
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Re: Cultural Suicide
October 26, 2006 - 11:06 AM
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SovietDragon wrote:
In world slowly being bought up by massive coporations and conglomerates, we are having our very cultural identities bought out from under our feet. From advertising in churches to "branded" towns in which the very streets are advertisments. There is no country
which is not affected, and no country is safe from economic tyranny. Whole country's natural ressources are being bought up by companies like Bechtel or ngo's like the World Bank. I would like to know anyone's opinion of these travesties against basic human rights.
I am going to disagree.
Firstly, what is it that you call your "cultural identity"? Isnt it the integral of what was transfered from your ancestors to you? We should not forget that these "cultural identities" of ours were not born out of thin air but were results of similar tendencies of their times, including revolutions, and as much as it might be unfortunate, but in some cases such negativitites as destroying (nature, humans) and discrimination.
To vilinify globalization or to put it in two words such as "buying out our identities" is a rather, I would say, not all-acknowledging approach. Moreover, it means that we complain about something happening today, which seems to us to destroy our cultural identities, because it has simply this "flavour" of money, apparent signs of killing our natural habitat, and flattening of our traditional beliefs.
Renaissance, Science Revolution, The Great Emancipation, and other such milestone events and ages contributed much in most of current "cultural identity" for almost any country in the world. However, these and many such developments were not welcomed then, and in some cases, vilinified just as much as the globaliation is in our age.
Change is never welcome by us. Instead of thinking negatively of it, we can and must profit to enrich whatever that is we call cultural identity.
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Cherrie
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Re: Cultural Suicide
October 29, 2006 - 03:16 AM
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I might also add that big companies don't usually become big unless people buy their products/services/messages.
Just because a culture is not as elegant as another culture doesn't mean it's no longer a culture. It's sometimes easy to say that "fast food culture" is the fault of companies like Coca cola and McDonald's and to deny its cultural/subcultural context, especially when thinking about cultures that involve art, music and telling stories around a fireplace... =P
I think the biggest culture... probably even an 'epidemic' of sorts is the culture of apathy and materialism. Together they are dangerous things.
Dunno - just my 2 cents.
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