I believe that cultural globalization means cultural impoverishment. It is like when a text is summarized: only the main ideas are retained.

In addition, throughout time each community has  developed the best adaptation to the environment. No common solution can be better for the community than its own cultural solutions.

I think the premise of the question is important but wrongly suggests that there is some kind of policy decision to be made.  If one understands "tradition" as does Prof. David Chidester, then tradition is a dynamic process by which people participate in "picking up" things that work for them, and leave behind things that don't. Wendell Berry described the unsettling of America as a process of an agricultural community relinquishing its way of life to pick up the technology that concentrated capital and agency in the hands of the few. Given the power of big ag, digital technology and communication, and western strongholds of capital, and the small but significant gains made by micro-finance and local sustainable energy projects, and given the singular authority climate change will exercise, hitting Indigenous communities hardest with the loss of biodiversity and volatility of weather, and migration of flora and fauna, I'd say the question is: How humane will we be in this jumble of forces that are possessing people as the spirit of climate change impacts everyone? What alliances with cross-cultural and technological intelligence will be forged, and who will be left twisting in the wind?

See some of my work on this topic.

Article Globalisation and Construction of Local Culture in Rural Sri Lanka

I believe that cultural globalization means cultural impoverishment. It is like when a text is summarized: only the main ideas are retained.

In addition, throughout time each community has  developed the best adaptation to the environment. No common solution can be better for the community than its own cultural solutions.

It is necessary to distinguish between the values of a global civilisation and cultural globalisation. Of course, global civilisation has facilitated the good existence of current generations, but ethnic cultures contribute to the knowledge of the diversity of the human world, which is very important, as no identities, histories, mythical stories etc. are lost.

The way in which the question is phrased presumes that giving up the old and keeping culture and tradition is equated with embracing modernization and Western ways.  This is erroneous.  Might we not equate cultural globalization with exchange but maintaining differences, and improving one's life without giving up traditions?

I'm in the planning stages to do my fieldwork for my depth psychological dissertation on the archetypal elements of self-initiated expatriation in Ecuador, South America (October or November 2017 through January 2018), which embodies these arguments of conflicts and paradigm shifts between globalization and traditional elements.  But the process is syncretic and not one or the other.  Perhaps the question is not -- whether either traditionalism or globalization should happen, but allow a more present-day orientation.  In the case of Ecuador, whether this is the highlands which has an influx of Westerners or Oriente/jungle with its deep exploitation by multinational oil companies, global and cultural globalization are and have been happening for a while.  The change is ongoing.  So, how to investigate, understand, discover, act, and form perspectives when we as researchers find that this process is occurring in a country, town, community, or region in front of us over time?  What are the best methodologies for discernment?  How do we do our fieldwork?  How do we form our analyses?  These are the questions that also consume me as the time of dissertation fieldwork draws closer.

Warmly,

Ava

Hello Mohammad,

No culture is better than another. By that I mean, no culture is universally appropriate or applicable. During the times of colonization, the Western world thought that it's culture was the most elite, the most civilized and that other cultures were barbaric. They, therefore tried to force other countries to be like them, think like them, and live like them. These adjustments were forced upon others and they caused others to abandon their natural way of seeing and perceiving the world. This either caused division among families, tribes, nations, and states or increased already existing division. The genocide in Rwanda, for example was partially caused due to Europeans who saw the Hutu people and gave them position, privilege, power, and authority because the Hutu people looked more European than the Tutsi's did,  They were taller with paler skin and the Europeans decided to give them additional privileges, training, and in so doing trained them in the Western culture. This training elevated the Hutus, filled them with pride, made them believe that they were better than other Africans, specifically the Tutsis. What resulted was a cultural upheaval in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were murdered, killed, slaughtered like animals.

There is beauty in cultural diversity. Who are we to claim that our culture is better than another? Yes cultures will match, mix, and mingle, but the beauty is in the diversity. Cultural diversity allows diversity in thought and perception. Scholars from the South and Eastern worlds have entirely different ways of perceiving the world than Westerners. The knowledge that they are able to bring to the table is something that a Westerner would hardly be able to conceive of. There is knowledge in diversity.

Culture is the medium through which we see, live, and understand the world around us. Even if others are trained in another culture, they cannot forget all that they have learned and know. They have been socialized into a certain social classes, a certain ethnic groups, and certain political and economic realities. These things cannot merely be forgotten through training. These things constitute the entire way through which the individual sees the world. 

A pertinent question, and a good lively discussion. Even the wording of the question presumes a structuralist duality: Retain traditional lifeways rather than adopt western development methods of "improving their lives." Who is to judge whether those development practices are of best benefit in the indigenous society in the first place? This has been the arrogance of western-paradigm neoliberal development for the last 30 years especially, if not a bit longer. Only now have some development scientists and specialists realized that some of the indigenous practices have been truly cultural-specific and scientific for the geography and living conditions of those people. All humans have been given the same capacity to observe, analyze, and deal with problems that beset them, regardless of worldview background. That Bretton Woods institutions (World Bank, IMF, etc.) and certain other development practitioners presume that 'modern' western neoliberal concepts and practices propel all people into a fairer opportunity in this globalizing world is culturally imperialist at best.

This question has promoted really interesting discussion. I deal with this issue on a day-to-day basis with the Aboriginal community with whom I work in the Northern Territory, Australia.  Every day people have to balance keeping to their traditions and changing enough to be able to succeed in a (culturally imperialistic) Western economic system.  If you don't get education you will never get a job and you will be poor for ever.  If you do get eduction and a job, you will be pressured to give up some traditional practices, like not going to school or work when there is a funeral in the community.

I have published a book with those interesting perspectives on this, some by Indigenous authors.  It is called Indigenous Cultures in an Interconnected World and is at Google books:

https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=MOvUow0qMAkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Indigenous+cultures+in+an+interconnected+world&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjY9rXn3bnJAhWl4aYKHaA_DKAQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=Indigenous%20cultures%20in%20an%20interconnected%20world&f=false

The book comes from a conference, and I will attach a review of the conference.

My own take on this topic is outlined in the two attached book chapters.

Good luck with the research.

Claire

In my view cultures, global or otherwise are always changing. Whether it's through  conquest, contact with others or pure necessity. As researchers we measure and study these changes, however changes occur good or bad they are part of the human evolution.

RE: Michael Heil

I don't know where you got your information about Rwanda, but you are severely wrong in every respect of what you wrote. 1) It was not the Hutu that were favored by the Germans and then the Belgians, but the Tutsi; the racial theories of John Hanning Speke had some influence on the two colonial powers' first attitudes toward the Rwandan population, but the predominant socio-political philosophy ruling Belgian administration of the Ruanda-Urundi trust was to govern indirectly as much as possible with an extremely small number of Belgian administrators--less than 100--and utilize the existing mwamiship (kingship) which was almost completely made up of a Tutsi elite: it was the gov't in place when the Belgians arrived that was shored up until the 1940s. 2) The Catholic missions, managed through the White Fathers, introduced literacy (reading, writing and numeracy) and created the first dictionary in the indigenous language, Kinyarwanda. Tutsi were again favored in this educational endeavor, at first, in order to create a literate and Christian leadership (the mwamiship) and through it the ability to persuade the masses to follow their leaders and become Christians.

So, neither the Belgian support of the Tutsi for administrative reasons, nor the Catholic Church's targeting the native elite leadership, followed a racist agenda, but a practical approach utilizing the existing indigenous socio-political system /dynamic /beliefs.  Both foreign entities were extremely sensitive to the danger of upsetting or overturning the that native system (at least in the short run), fearing that it could result in chaos and conflict.

3) Neither the Belgian administration nor the Church were primarily interested in "Westernizing" Rwandans. The Church's White Fathers missionaries, especially, were directed to learn Kinyarwanda as soon as they arrived, and to only use it in their missionary capacities. They were sensitive to the local religious beliefs and accommodated them as well as they could into the catechumenate. The missionaries were keen observers of local mores/culture and wrote about them, while putting together a French/Kinyarwanda dictionary and grammar. In the Catholic secondary schools and seminaries, Western writers, religious thinkers, and philosophers were introduced to students in the spirit and hope that they would embrace the principles found in the humanities. And the Belgian clerics gave way rather quickly to Rwandan priests and bishops, allowing them to construct their own paths of enlightening their followers toward some kind of spiritual understanding.

4) The majority (85%) Hutu were, by the time of the 1994 genocide, about 50% literate. There was no concept of overweening "pride" as you state. In fact, the vast majority of citizens were extremely poor Hutu and Tutsi, trying to eke out a living on shrinking plots of land as the population soared, there being literally no difference in the socio-economic status or set of relationships from hill to hill across the country between being Hutu or Tutsi. And their knowledge of "other Africans" was negligible, save for the small amounts of trade that occurred within the informal sector economy across the border with Uganda, Zaire, and Burundi, and intermittent contact with Rwandans who were refugees in those countries.

And it was not the people who rose up against the Tutsi, but a small leadership of Hutu Power individuals, who were against power sharing (for many reasons) with the invading Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), who were almost entirely Tutsi, and in a real wartime situation were able to mobilize the military (for several reasons) and party militias in an effort to destroy the Tutsi population and therefore defeat the RPF's attempt to take over the country and the government in place. The genocidal event is a very complex subject and does not reveal itself in the simplistic statement you made.

Please, do some reading before making such ridiculous, erroneous and unfounded claims. I would suggest Prunier's book, "The Rwanda Crisis" as the best introduction to the subject.

I am currently writing a book about the first two presidents of Rwanda, and my Ph.D. dissertation looked at the development of those two leaders in the context of their contemporary matrix from the 1920s until the 1994 genocide.

I ask this question of my students, all of whom think rap is the ultimate music of the moment. Invariably, however, they speak against everyone wanting to "be like us". They see value in retaining and continuing to develop local tradition. The class is a survey of non-Western music for undergraduates who probably have never given this a moment's thought until asked.

Thanks everyone for valuable comments and suggestions. I personally benefited a lot from your great contributions.

I think I have not been clear enough in presenting my question in some respects and it diverted our discussions a bit.

Tradition is a huge concept and I think the problem starts here. I present an example:

When we say tradition it also includes water supplying for villages in remote area of developing countries. A number of traditional water supplying particularly from rivers and well involve spreading disease when we compare it with developed water refinery systems. Do we prefer that those villagers keep their traditional water supplying? This is only one instance I provided here to clarify a bit my point.

It is my belief that when tradition is meaningful, music and other arts, for instance, perhaps we in the West ought to have a hands-off attitude. If we are talking about health, such as traditional water supplies that spread disease, then we may be in a position to help. If we have modern methods of providing clean water, we should share them. From my vantage point, which is the performing arts, we can learn a great deal from other cultures. We should not pollute them with our own.

Civilization brings well-being, comfort and more free time. Traditions can be preserved because they are a cultural component of communities and are part of a unique identity heritage. There is no contradiction here. How communities can bring civilization without wiping traces of traditions can be a problem unless they are financial resources.