Blog Assignment 2: Cultural Globalization/Moon Jungun

1. SUMMARY

CULTURE
Turner (2006:47) defines culture as "systems of SYMBOLS that humans create and use to guide BEHAVIOR, INTERACTION and patterns of SOCIAL ORGANIZATION."

Symbols
A symbol is something that represents an idea, a process, or a physical entity. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning.

All cultural systems make individuals believe that their values, beliefs and norms are better than those of others. Members of a culture or country believe they are better than others. Many believe they can interfere in the affairs of others. English is not the world's most widely spoken language by the number of native speakers. But it is the dominant language of global business, diplomacy and the Internet.

Religion
Societies near the traditional pole emphasize the importance of parent-child ties and deference to authority, along with absolute standards and traditional family values, and reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia, and suicide. These societies have high levels of national pride, and a nationalistic outlook.

The theory behind this process is CULTURAL ASSIMILIATION. The process by which a smaller group's native language and culture are lost under pressure to assimilate to those of a dominant cultural group. There are many regional, ethnic, race-based, age-based, education-based, and even gender-based SUBCULTURES. And there are even subcultures specific to universities. DEVIANT SUBCULTURES, SUBCULTURE, DEVIANCE, ETHNOCENTRISM

Beliefs
Beliefs are more specific then values. Is family important? The answer to this quesiton concerns the value of the family.

Norms
Norms tells us what is appopriate in a given situation. According to the functionalist school, the function of norms is to dictate the interactions of people in all social encounters. 

Language and technology
Language and technology are key systems of symbols. Whether a society has a written language affects how much information the members can store and how. Members of preliterate societies had much better memory than we do.
Mathematic and logic can also be seen as languages. Technology has affected all elements of our lives. For example, without technology, most people in the world would die: we would not have the technology to grow that much food, transport it and store it.
Without technology, our societies would be much smaller.

Commercalization

In modern society, many symbols can be lifted from their original context. One classic way in which this has been happening is commercalization. Analysis of this problem dates to Marx, who wrote about commodification of values: the transformation of goods, ideas, or other entities that may not normally be regarded as goods into a commodity. One example of values that have been commodified is education: when you have to pay for your education, you are no longer learning just for the sake of acquiring knowledge - you are buying a certin product.

Remixing

Today many people use the internet to remix culture, consider sites such as YouTube. Technology in the context of society and culture can be defined as "systems of symbols organized into knowlege about how to manipulate the environment."

Language

Language in the context of society and culture can be defuned as "systems of symbols used in communication." Would the world be a better or worse place if we all spoke a single language?

Globalization changes our lives

How has globalization changed our society? Computer language is an example briding language and technology. Computer programs have changed our culture in many ways, for example by bringing us video games, now a major industry and cultural force. Korean Wave, popularizing Korean culture worldwide, relies on TV but even more so on the Internet. Our cuisine has been changed due to modern technology. Thanks to modern agriculture and transportation, our diet has changed drastically over the last century - for example we eat much more meat than our ancestors.
Can we think of any examples how technology has changed our culture?

Difference of culture

Why do different cultures view women differently? Just what is deviant behavior depends on the setting. Same behavior can be normal in one place and deviant in another. Deviance is also culture-specific. What is deviant in one society or subculture is normative in another. Deviant behavior is most common when people do not have the means to achieve the goals they believe in. Labeling and Conflict theories suggest that societies create deviance.

2. INTERSTING POINT

It is clear that society changes with religion, norms, language, and technology and development. But it's interesting to see this changing and changing society converging around the world and creating new social factors. These days, there have been many discussions on how society views women's human rights and social minorities, and I wonder why this view varies from society to society, and why it accepts the same situation. 

3. DISCUSSION

I was most curious about the differences between the cultures of each country and what other cultures felt the most in Korea. So I want to discuss this topic!