yeah, i guess my question was: who cares?
is it hurting something? are we damaged people because of it? if so, then presumably we'd want to fix the problem, so then we'd have to find out what causes it. as Alan and Robert both mentioned, the homogenizing factors behind this are the twin phenom of capitalism and nationalism. the rise of those two phenom several centuries ago has had a huge influence on the homogenization.
As Robert mentioned, there's Anderson's thesis in _Imagined Communities_: a nationalizing rhetoric that "imagined" the nation state as a community was the instrument-effect of capitlism, and it united a disparate feudal society around a homogenized/izing identity: _We_ are French. _We_ are German. _We_ are Australians. And of course the u.s. case was amplified by the genocide/assimilationist tactics waged against Native Americans, by slavery, and the nationalizing impulses deemed necessary to manage a huge population migration during the late 1800s into the early 1900s. All of that accompanied by the rise of mass communication technologies and advertising (itself the result of capitalist crises) that furthered along the homogenization attendant in capitalism and nation state building.
And then we had two world wars, where the nationalizing rhetoric had yet another platform upon which to play itself out.
It's not comparing apples and oranges; it's comparing apples and spark plugs. ($1 to Peter Schledorn).
I suppose I could trot out anecdotage, but that's just accepting Dossbomber's decision that comparing apples and spark plugs is actually a scintillating exercise.
shag