Global Culture and Cultural Imperialism

One of the main implications of globalization is that in the world today, a more uniform world society is taking shape. Global culture can include everybody speaking a similar language, sharing the same values and norms, and maintaining shared knowledge and understanding as residents of the same group. Cultural hegemony, the uneven cultural trade in the global economy whereby Western material and non-material societies have come to play a dominant and imposing position on the traditional cultures of peoples of the Third World, may also be identified with global society.

Global culture is encouraged by:

• Capitalism’s worldwide spread
• Consumerism and the culture of consumption
• The creation of transnational media, especially electronic mass media.

Hence it is concluded that the word “culture” refers to the representatives of a community’s whole way of life. It concerns what they dress; their traditions of marriage and family life; art and work patterns; religious ceremonies; pursuits of leisure, and so on. There are different facets of society, such as material and non-material, implied and concrete, organic and supra-organic, ideal and natural, complex and stagnant, transparent and covert. Symbols, vocabulary, beliefs and standards form the basic elements of culture. Cultural heterogeneity, ethnocentrism, cultural relativism and culture shock, cultural universals, alternatives and specialties, and culture lag and lead are other important facets of culture.

Cultural Universals

CulturalUniversalsWhile there are as many distinct and diverse cultures as there are nations, there are certain common cultural traditions. There are several universal characteristics that are present in nearly all cultures despite the complexity of human cultural behavior. Cultural universality refers to all behaviors, attitudes, principles, norms, material artifacts, etc. that are observed within a society in all cultures around the world, or across multiple social classes. Every culture has a grammatically complicated language, for instance. All communities have an accepted type of family structure in which the treatment of children is related to values and norms. The institution of marriage, religious traditions, and property rights are cultural universals. All cultures have a sort of prohibition against incest. Various other cultural universals have been established by sociologists, including the nature of painting, dancing, body adornments, games, gift giving, laughing, and hygiene laws. In a given society or through cultures, cultural universals mean behavioral similarities among individuals. They do not account for variations in personality, lifestyle, attitude, behavior, behavior, etc.

These are some of cultural universals:

Joking, Pregnancy usages, Athletics, Family, Age grading, Faith healing, Kin terminology, Puberty customs, Community organization, Folklore Language, Religious rituals, Kin groups, Property rights, Bodily adornments, Feasting, Calendar, Fire making, Cooperative labor, Funeral rites, Status differentiation, Courtship, Games, Magic, Residence rules, Cooking food, Taboos Gestures, Modesty, Trade, Dancing, Marriage, Sexual restrictions, Gift giving etc.