Cultural identity Essay

agree to Bloch, the ultrasocial and communicative nature of the human species makes the longing for a unique sense of be a deep-seated need. Identification with a particular community, whether it is a distinct ethnical identity or a sub coating of socio-political beliefs helps touch this need. This is non to say the proclivity for heathen identity rests on the same mental drive or libidinal force out that powers fashion or gestation.It is important to have intercourse that need from these desires, as coatings are not mere surface properties distinguished nevertheless by flavor and aesthetics, instead they spread out naturally from the unique properties of the geography that make them. Archaeologist Paul Bidwell notes that the success of many an(prenominal) conglomerates such as those of the roman type empire quite possibly has more(prenominal) to do with their ability to accommodate diverging cultures.Areas which were successfully Romanized such as southern Britanni a were won over by inviting the ruling classes to dinner, age Celtic chiefs disinterested in Roman culture were never successfully incarnate into the pre-modern proto- liquescent pot that was the Roman Empire. In essence, Bidwell asserts that the Roman Empires assimilation insurance rested entirely on a principle of minimizing the amount of intervention infallible to secure imperial interests such as the food supply provided by Egyptian agriculture, limiting their actions entirely to structured forms of co-optation legislation, taxes and the requisitioning of goods.Bloch concurs, noting that when an empire begins to disrupt the social model of a culture, that trouble begins. This is not unalike the present state of the accidental empire of the unify States, which as a melting pot (or salad bowl, depending on who you ask) is remarkably panoptic of other(a) cultures to the extent that it does not imperil the status quo.Globalization permits the fulfillment of the desire for ind ividual cultural belonging by making all sorts of cultural identities allowable by amplifying their importance in relative to an American past that had previously been playing area to the hegemony of European culture. Because cultural diversity is this instant more relevant to the economic and political concerns of the get together States, they are now considered more relevant to individuals by making the invest of identity expression more permissible.If the United States is the Roman Empire, then it has now begun to reach that it is no longer practical to observe the cultures of Celts and Egyptians at arms length. For example, European cultures relationship with the United States resembles that of the relationship between Greek culture to the Roman Empire, while many other cultures stand in for the Celts which are largely held up as valuable assets to be accommodated into a global economy that has been enabled by digital telecommunications technologies.Jerry Mander argues t hat whatever criticisms can be leveled against free trade agreements and other factor by which nation states and transnational corporations assert commercial and political hegemony, these acts are only external homogenisation processes, and as such, a truly efficient and successful homogenization of culture relies on the ever expanding thread of communication technologies such as TV and the lucre.Global telecommunications are in essence, internal homogenization forces that speak directly into the minds of tidy sum everywhere, imprinting them with a unified class of thought, a unified set of vision and ideas, a single framework of taste for how life should be lived, and so carrying the homogenization and commodification mandate directly inside the brain. For example, Todd Gitlin argues that the change magnitude influence of Hollywood on the foreign film market have fundamentally rewritten the parameters by which filmmakers produce their films, effectively washables awa y the paradigms of filmmaking that are unique to sundry(a) cultures as well as reengineering local anesthetic tastes. Gitlin does not suggest that differences in cultural content have been eradicated, but rather, the models and designs of American entertainment have become the most(prenominal) far-flung, successful and consequential.However, Soraj Hongladarom does defend the idea that digital telecommunications do not necessarily fray notions of local culture, presenting an example in which peerless thrives in spite of globalizing effects of such. In an examination of Thai based newsgroup culture, he notes that the Internet replicates the heterogeneity of local cultures utilise it, rather than subsuming them into one homogenous whole.Hongladarom thus concludes that what the Internet does, is create an umbrella culture under which disparate cultures can travel by Thai attitudes toward the CMC technologies, especially the Internet, seem to render that the technologies only serv e as a means that makes communication possible, communication which would push back place anyway in whatsoever other form if not on the Internet Cyberspace mirrors real space, and ungodliness versa. Works Cited Bidwell, Paul. Roman Forts in Britain. Wiltshire slope Heritage, 2007. Gitlin, Todd. Media Unlimited How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives.New York enthalpy Holy and Company, 2002. Hongladarom, Soraj. Global Culture, Local Cultures and the Internet The Thai Example. C. Ess and F. Sudweeks (eds). Proceedings Cultural Attitudes Towards confabulation and Technology 98, University of Sydney, Australia, 231-245. Retrieved May 6, 2008 at http//www. it. murdoch. edu. au/sudweeks/catac98/pdf/19_hongladarom. pdf Mander, Jerry. The Homogenization of Global Consciousness Media, Telecommunications and Culture. Lapis Magazine. Retrieved on May 6, 2006 from http//www. lapismagazine. org/index. php? option=com_content&task= sentiment&id=120&Itemid=2