As to whether the erosion of national identity is a good or a bad thing - it depends what it is replaced with. The chance are that it will be replaced with corporate identities and their dreadful authoritarian monocultures - and that would be a horrible thing. You can see that when you stay in 5-star hotels (which I am trying to avoid as a plague.) No matter in what country they are located, they cater to the same dreadful corporate life style (golf as the utmost form of pass time, the same business attire, the same routines and assortment of luxury products, and worst of all the cultivation of the same "everyone is to serve me" attitude. Each time I encounter these places I think to myself that when the revolution finally comes, these places - and the golf courses affiliated with them - will be turned into agricultural cooperatives in which their current occupants will learn the virtues of hard labor ;).
Wojtek
On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 9:53 AM, Marv Gandall <marvgand at gmail.com> wrote:
> Good analyses of the contradictory effect of national and family
> identification, but it doesn't necessarily follow that the global erosion of
> national economies and cultures will "reduce humanity to a 'brave new world'
> of atomistic automatons". The secular college-educated urban youth who have
> been at the forefront of the democratic uprisings in the Middle East, for
> example, have been the most exposed to global technological, economic, and
> cultural influences and these, as we are daily witnessing, have served to
> "lubricate" rather than to diminish social interaction.
>
> On 2011-02-03, at 9:20 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
>
> > [WS:] One can say that about any collective entity - a family, a circle
> of
> > friends, a tribe, an ethnic group, a nation - what unites it is a shared
> > common identity and a shared understanding what constitutes that identity
> > and what does not. It is based on objective, observable phenomena (such
> as
> > language, co-residence, ethnicity etc.) but only inasmuch as such
> phenomena
> > are treated selectively (e.g. for some the birthplace is a defining
> > characteristic but ancestry is not, for others it may be the other way
> > around.) But these objective, observable phenomena are intertwined with
> > mythical ones (e.g. mythical ancestry.) Sociologists call that 'social
> > constructs.'
> >
> > Whether one likes it or not, this is what defines any social group - from
> > the family to the nation. This collective identity is sometimes abused
> to
> > keep people in line - e.g. demanding that women "sacrifice" themselves to
> > their families and stay with their asshole husbands or demanding that
> > citizens "sacrifice" themselves to their nation and follow their asshole
> > leaders. But these tend to be exceptions that get the attention and
> > deserved criticism. Most of the time - and thus taken for granted -
> those
> > collective identities have beneficial effects on everyday life and human
> > relations by reducing conflict and competition, defining norms of
> acceptable
> > behavior, defining the framework of public discourse and "lubricating"
> > social interaction.
> >
> > Taking that collective identity away will reduce humanity to a "brave
> new
> > world" of atomistic automatons, so if that is the goal of the
> revolution,
> > you can keep your revolution.
> >
> > PS. I've traveled to some 30 or so countries and one of the most
> depressing
> > experiences is to see the homogeneous commercial culture erasing national
> > differences. One of the most horrendous examples of this trend is Makati
> > City in the Philippines - which basically is a nexus of gigantic
> > interconnected shopping malls filled with brand name schlock. So you
> spend
> > 23 hours on a plane, then wander through those cavernous malls and feel
> like
> > you never left the United States.
>
>
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