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[Off-Topic] Are you a Wapanese?

You didn't get my point. I meant that almost every country in the world has a deep contact with western American culture, but that you get a minimum contact back. Do you get what I mean? I'm sure you learn about other countries, as do I, but you don't get many songs from South America on the radio, or from the Middle East, or even from East Europe, but I'm sure those countries do get a lot of your music on the radio.

Music is just an example. Asian traditional housebuilding has been quickly replaced in its majority by western building, in most cities of the world you'll see American movies being showcased on a huge proportion compared to national cinema, 80% of the channels in cable TV here are American, McDonald's and Coca-Cola are brands that have reached almost all countries in the world... I can keep going on forever. I seriously doubt you have foreign influence to that extent.

Countries choose to use English because of economics, at the moment. With that said Chinese will be the dominating global language within a couple decades. Since China is becoming the economic giant and superpower.

Wandering Knight wrote:

You didn't get my point. I meant that almost every country in the world has a deep contact with western American culture, but that you get a minimum contact back. Do you get what I mean? I'm sure you learn about other countries, as do I, but you don't get many songs from South America on the radio, or from the Middle East, or even from East Europe, but I'm sure those countries do get a lot of your music on the radio. Music is just an example. Asian traditional housebuilding has been quickly replaced in its majority by western building, in most cities of the world you'll see American movies being showcased on a huge proportion compared to national cinema, 80% of the channels in cable TV here are American, McDonald's and Coca-Cola are brands that have reached almost all countries in the world... I can keep going on forever. I seriously doubt you have foreign influence to that extent.

What you're saying is true, but I really wouldn't call it "a form of conquering" like you said earlier. It's not like America forces people from other countries to listen to our music or eat McDonald's. All of these American things pop up everywhere around the world because they're successful there. If people from other countries stopped listening to the radio stations that played American music, would said stations continue to play the American music? Doubtful. If people in other countries stopped eating at McDonalds's, would said McDonald's stay open? Probably not. The same likely applies for everything else of that nature. I personally think it's kind of sad, and I'll be one of the first to say that we overstep our bounds way too often, but we're not forcing things like music, movies, and fast food onto other countries.

SuperOnizuka wrote:

Countries choose to use English because of economics, at the moment. With that said Chinese will be the dominating global language within a couple decades. Since China is becoming the economic giant and superpower.

I'm glad to see other people are catching savvy to this. I've been telling everyone for the last two years that we'll all be paying Chinese taxes soon enough, but everyone thinks it's a joke. The Chinese already comprise a little over one-sixth of the world's population, so there isn't much more of the world that they'll need to take over. I've actually seriously considered learning some basic Chinese to get a head start.

I'm glad to see other people are catching savvy to this. I've been telling everyone for the last two years that we'll all be paying Chinese taxes soon enough, but everyone thinks it's a joke. The Chinese already comprise a little over one-sixth of the world's population, so there isn't much more of the world that they'll need to take over. I've actually seriously considered learning some basic Chinese to get a head start.

What you're saying is true, but I really wouldn't call it "a form of conquering" like you said earlier. It's not like America forces people from other countries to listen to our music or eat McDonald's. All of these American things pop up everywhere around the world because they're successful there. If people from other countries stopped listening to the radio stations that played American music, would said stations continue to play the American music? Doubtful. If people in other countries stopped eating at McDonalds's, would said McDonald's stay open? Probably not. The same likely applies for everything else of that nature. I personally think it's kind of sad, and I'll be one of the first to say that we overstep our bounds way too often, but we're not forcing things like music, movies, and fast food onto other countries.

Just because Mcdonalds is in every country does not mean it serves just American food. It has to also offer food from the native culture as well in order to break even. In India, they use different kitchens to cook, since they do not like to cook meat with vegetarian food, and, they don't kill cows for the Indian McDonalds. You should watch Samurai Baseball, I believe that is the title. It may be a documentary from the early 90s, but it is still very relevant. It discusses how KFC and other "fast" food chains went into Japan, only to realize that they had to accommodate to the native culture to even break even. They had to change their managing style, items they were selling, and how they interacted with the customers. In France, they offer alcoholic beverages with their meals

. Let's see if I can explain what I mean by "forcing". Philosophers disagree in many things, but nowadays, they agree upon one thing: freedom of choice doesn't exist in the total meaning of the expression. People's conducts are conditioned by their environment, the culture where they grew up, the experiences they passed, and this is the external charge that conditions their "choice".

A common attitude in the world where outer image is the rule of thumb, is that to be like successful people, you have to act like successful people. But, in capitalism, "being like" is often changed by "appearing", and "to act", by "to consume". Once a person is in a dominated position, he or she starts gazing at their superiors, who become his or her "ideal of people". Putting it bluntly (which would sound quite ferocious and most certainly you'd be turned away by this idea), people crave to become better by consuming what 'better' people have or consume. This is an obvious illusion, but it's an illusion publicity has been using for decades. It's what "coolness" and superficiality are all about. Now PLEASE understand that I'm speaking in general terms here, I bet I could find hundreds of individual examples that contradict this rule, but the general attitude of dominated societies tends (as I see it) to what I just described. Now of course I cannot consider myself out of this, I'm a person like any other and I'm also inmersed into the game of consumption within the capitalist system.

I still believe it's a naive way of seeing things. If globalization is as reciprocal as you proclame, then please name four Argentinian music artists and a couple of their songs. I, on the other hand (and most of the Argentinian population) can name dozens of American artists, records and songs, painters, writers, even many passages of your history. You only receive a few influences from outside--mainly of powerful nations like England, France, or Japan. I'm making a guess here, I assume it, but I don't think I'm pretty far off the truth. It's really easy to imagine a run-of-the-mill country to be full of American merchandising, but very hard to think of it the other way around.

Though culture might be preserved in some way or the other (it always does and always did, even in nations conquered by Romans), it weakens at the influx of western ways. Most of kids my age I know don't give a damn about national Argentinian folklore music, myself included. Even the national music on the radio has a deep, deep influence of American and European music. And I bet you don't go to Japan to find most young people listening to Enka.

It is a form of domination. Why is it then that countries adapt to western ways? Economics? I'd rather think there's some sense of inferiority before the powerful nations, and so by adapting to their ways (which actually means buying their stuff, thus justifying their dominant position) there is actually some kind of hidden desire to become like them.

So you eat Snickers, watch Hollywood movies and wear Nike. Does that mean Argentina's culture is being conquered?

Okay, maybe I made a wrong choice of words. It's being dominated, because all that money I spend on eating Snickers, watching Hollywood movies and wearing Nike goes off to a country that's not mine. It IS domination. I'm not saying it's a good or a bad thing. But it is domination, because I depend on foreign elements to continue with my style of life.

It takes one sentence to describe the Japanese sub-culture as a whole:
It's full of porns!

There are only two countries that should run the world - America and Japan. Don't ask me why because I don't want to get banned.

His girlfriend (who is gorgeous) even broke up with him after catching him practicing Naruto hand signs last week.