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The world isn't as fragmented as it used to be. While there is still a vast wealth of varied cultures

spread out all over the globe, there is a McDonalds in seemingly every country and at least a hint of good

old American Capitalism sneaking its way into every economy. We live in a more connected world than

we did even a century ago, and, whether it is good or bad, one may think he or she begins to see the

emergence of a single, global culture as the variety of human society slowly decays. However, the

process is not simply a case of American Capitalist culture consuming the world; it is a matter of cultural

norms, art, and globalism.

Globalism is the false sense of a global society built around cultural illusion and based on the

reality of our global economy. To understand globalism beyond a one sentence definition, however, one

must first look to cultural normatives and values. Different cultures don't necessarily consider the same

things to be socially acceptable or normal. What may be acceptable to do in British culture may not be

viewed the same way in Maori or Chinese culture. Furthermore, different cultures oftentimes have

different sets of values that influence their art and beliefs. This is what has given the world such a vast

richness of different viewpoints which are expressed through art and writing. However, there are certain

seemingly universal ideas and values that are presented as transcending all cultural boundaries, described

using the term hegemony. Hegemony ties into globalism in that the ideas and values of a small group of

people are presented as applying to a much larger group, so certain cultures may give the illusion that

their values and beliefs apply to other cultures as well, whether or not it is actually the case.

This illusion of a more united, global culture is supported by the global nature of the economy.

Countries import and export goods all over the world, and companies, especially in America, are

exporting jobs to other countries. This has created a world-wide force of manual labor composed of

disempowered workers that work for big companies instead of their local communities. The fact that

their labor is global is often misinterpreted as meaning that they are taking part in the larger, capitalist

global culture as well, when in reality it simply means that they are partaking in a global economy. This,

not necessarily unified culture, is exactly what globalism is about a huge, global workforce of manual

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labor.

The idea of globalism affects how we read and think. It tries to make us understand the different

viewpoints of other cultures and to look into what they see as art by dumbing it down into an easy,

consumable format. However, instead of furthering our understanding of these cultures, it kills those

other cultures and replaces them with a more consumable one. This means that, when we explore

writings and art from other cultures, the works are viewed in an incorrect context. Instead of seeing the

individual ideology of another group of people, we inject some of our own values and beliefs into the

cultural works in order to easier understand them. In terms of literature, globalism means that we lose a

lot of the meaning behind cultural works of art and writing and lose touch with the sublime.

The dumbing down of foreign cultures affects the way that we view and think about non-western

societies. The consumable cultures created by Globalism mean that we are able to group the world's vast

variety of cultures into two basic groups; western and non-western. Western cultures we tend to associate

with logic, science, intelligence, and industry. Western culture is seen as the drive forward into a future

of technology and full of innovation and education. Non-western cultures, however, are viewed in a

more primitive context. They are viewed as more spiritual and associated with magic instead of science

and religious belief instead of logic. While neither type of culture is necessarily good or bad, such

generalization results in the loss of a lot of individual cultural ideologies and values that could help to

expand our view of the world, our views of art, and our understanding of the sublime.