There is only one thing that frightens me with globalisation. I do not fear capitalist oppression of poor people or sweat shops or foreigners taking each other's jobs. That will sort itself out. People are aware of the problems and try to fix them. And the alternative to globalisation - economic isolation, is even worse. Kim Jong-il (김정일) might not agree with me on that one, but you cannot have everyone to agree all the time.
No, the thing that frightens me is the loss of cultures. Just a few hundred years ago, there were great civilisations that could live undisturbed by their neighbours and the rest of the world. They could evolve as they wanted, experiment with their societies and sometimes succeed and sometimes fail. The art of Mali and Turkey was completely different, as few Mali people had ever been to Turkey, and the Turks saw little reason to travel to Mali. During this time we had an explosion of differences across the globe. You could develop your art for centuries unharmed by foreign influence.
With globalisation and the internet all that goes away. There are probably no more than at most a few hundred persons who have never heard music with electric guitar and drums. So new music that can only be written by an ear that is unpolluted by electric guitars, like Mozart's and Bach's, will never be written again.
When we all have heard what everyone has heard, where will the diversity go?
No comments:
Post a Comment