Cultural identity Essay

According to Bloch, the ultrasocial and communicative nature of the human species makes the desire for a unique sense of belonging a deep-seated need. Identification with a particular community, whether it is a distinct cultural identity element or a subculture of socio-political beliefs helps fulfill this need. This is non to say the desire for cultural identity rests on the same psychological drive or libidinal charge that powers direction or gestation.It is important to distinguish that need from these desires, as cultures are not mere surface properties distinguished only by flavor and aesthetics, instead they arise naturally from the unique properties of the geography that spawn them. Archaeologist capital of Minnesota Bidwell notes that the success of many pudding stones such as those of the Roman empire kinda possibly has more to do with their ability to accommodate diverging cultures.Areas which were successfully Romanized such as southern Britannia were won over by i nviting the command classes to dinner, while Celtic chiefs disinterested in Roman culture were never successfully incorporated into the pre-modern proto-melting pot that was the Roman Empire. In essence, Bidwell asserts that the Roman Empires assimilation policy rested unaccompanied on a principle of minimizing the amount of intervention necessary 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 fabric of a culture, that trouble begins. This is not unlike the present state of the accidental empire of the United States, which as a melting pot (or salad bowl, depending on who you ask) is remarkably tolerant of other cultures to the extent that it does not threaten the status quo.globalization permits the fulfillment of the desire for individual cultural belong ing by qualification all sorts of cultural identities permissible by amplifying their importance in carnal knowledge to an Ameri lowlife past that had previously been subject to the hegemony of European culture. Because cultural multifariousness is now more relevant to the economic and political concerns of the United States, they are now considered more relevant to individuals by making the range of identity expression more permissible.If the United States is the Roman Empire, then it has now begun to take a crap that it is no longer practical to keep the cultures of Celts and Egyptians at arms length. For example, European cultures relationship with the United States resembles that of the relationship in the midst of Greek culture to the Roman Empire, while many other cultures contain 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 that whatever criticisms can be leveled against free trade agreements and other means by which body politic states and transnational corporations exert commercial and political hegemony, these acts are merely extraneous homogenization processes, and as such, a truly efficient and successful homogenization of culture relies on the ever expanding range of communication technologies such as TV and the net income.Global telecommunications are in essence, internal homogenization forces that speak directly into the minds of people everywhere, imprinting them with a unified pattern of thought, a unified set of imagery and ideas, a single framework of sense for how life should be lived, thus carrying the homogenization and commodification mandate directly inwardly the brain. For example, Todd Gitlin argues that the increasing influence of Hollywood on the international film securities industry have essentially rewritten the parameters by which filmmakers produce their films, effectively w ashing remote the paradigms of filmmaking that are unique to various cultures as well as reengineering topical anesthetic tastes. Gitlin does not suggest that differences in cultural content have been eradicated, besides rather, the models and designs of American entertainment have become the most far-flung, successful and consequential.However, Soraj Hongladarom does oblige the idea that digital telecommunications do not necessarily erode notions of topical anaesthetic culture, presenting an example in which one thrives in spite of globalizing effects of such. In an examination of Tai based newsgroup culture, he notes that the Internet replicates the heterogeneity of topical anesthetic cultures using it, rather than subsuming them into one homogenous whole.Hongladarom thus concludes that what the Internet does, is make an umbrella culture under which disparate cultures can communicate Thai attitudes toward the CMC technologies, especially the Internet, seem to show that the technologies only serve as a means that makes communication possible, communication which would take place anyway in some other form if not on the Internet internet mirrors real space, and vice versa. Works Cited Bidwell, Paul. Roman Forts in Britain. Wiltshire English Heritage, 2007. Gitlin, Todd. Media eternal How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives.New York Henry 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 Communication 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? pick=com_content&task=view&id=120&Itemid=2