The difference between countries is becoming less and less evident as people all over the world wear the same fashion, watch the same TV channels and have similar eating habits. Do the advantages of this trend outweigh the disadvantages?
With the advent of globalization, there have been remarkable changes witnessed of late, in the likes, dislikes and preferences of people, the world over, especially in their lifestyle. Noticeably, different cultural elements of communities get integrated into indigenous cultural practices, thus leading to a uniformity in practice among peoples of different backgrounds. This essay is an attempt to compare and contrast both the brighter aspects as well as the negative sides of this trend.
On the brighter side, this prevalent trend of following similar patterns of lifestyle, relating to cosines, costumer and habits unifies individuals regardless of their racial and ethnic differences, in results, leading to an amalgamation of global culture. This would, in turn, result in easing the conflicting between countries and communities having differences in their beliefs and interests, which, as it turns out, would strengthen the relationship between nations and would facilitate global trade and commerce.
Likewise, the cultural integration of foreign elements into certain indigenous communities is most likely to introduce positive changes, as it instills rationality among individuals by equipping them to reflect on the existing primitive and regressive elements in practice, with the wisdom acquired through global exposure. For instance, T.V channels of global media have been greatly influential in spreading progressive thoughts and eliminating social stigmas prevailing in many parts of the world.
On top of it, international travelers, students and businessman are greatly benefited due to he standardization of work culture and lifestyle, especially with the exposure they have to global norms, food culture and etiquettes, that would reduce the culture shock when abroad.
In contrast, it could also be noticed that due to this narrowing of differences, certain cultural practices that form the core elements of a community’s identity get diluted and are eventually replaced by a more standardized and globally accepted norm , it is worth mentioning even while admitting all these ideal effects that this trend is also causing to diminish the importance of those native food preparation methods, traditional pastime activities and traditional costumes, which, in comparison with the promising effects, is negligible.
In brief, it becomes evident that the current trend of standardized lifestyle in terms of food, dress and preferences of individuals has brought about a number of desirable effects globally, while it is true that there are some unpleasant outcomes as well. Overall, it is fair to say that the merits of this significantly outweigh the demerits.