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whiskyinmind
whiskyinmind
30 November 2004 @ 08:34 am
We all dress the same, only our accents change....  
On the drive into work this morning I heard a Stereophonics song I hadn't listened to for a while. "Have A Nice Day" from the J.E.E.P. (Just Enough Education to Perform) album and I remembered how I loved it the first time I heard it.

This might get a little political so forgive me if I offend anyone, my opinions are my own and I don't expect anyone to agree with me for agreements sake, in fact. Please don't. Have an opinion, even if it's that I'm talking out of a hole in my head.

Kelly Jones wrote the entire album based on his experiences going around the USA, some of the album celebrates Americana and some doesn't. This song is one of the latter.

We're all going wrong,
We've all become the same,
We dress the same way,
Only our accents change

When I was a pre-teen my sister (who's six years older than me) had a sticker on the front of her school folder. It was a hand holding up the first two fingers in a V, the hand was decorated in an American flag and underneath it were the words "Up The 51st State". I grew up in the Reagan/Thatcher era and lived slap bang in the middle of a triangle formed by Faslane nuclear submarine base, Coulport nuclear submarine depot, and the US naval base at the Holy Loch. There was a constant awareness of US troops on the streets of the UK and there was worry that the UK would become little more than an off-shoot of the USA. The 51st state, Airstrip One, whatever you want to call it. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the aparant end of the Cold War, this threat/possibility lessened and the Holy Loch base was de-commissioned, US ICBMs were removed from launching sites in the UK and we supposedly became autonomous again.

What does it mean to be autonomous though? Not much it seems. In the post-Cold War days we have lost our unique identity, not just in the UK, not just each nation within the UK, but Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada. Every nation and country in the Western world is slowly losing it's identity and becoming a part of the global 51st State.

There is a TV show on the BBC right now (I don't know the times or dates I'm afraid) presented by Eammon Holmes called "The Big Spell" or something like that. It is a televised spelling bee, in which the focus is on how much stress the kids are under. That might sound familiar to a lot of you on my flist, after all there was a documentary film released earlier this year dealing with the same subject.

But.

The Spelling Bee is an American phenomenon. It is not something we ever had in schools or youth groups before and yet it's apparently becoming part of our culture as Americanised corporate consumerism bleeds through.

I am not anti-American, I'm not a radical nationalist, that said I love my nation, I'm proud to be Scottish. I don't want to live in a carbon copy of America.

Sorry for the rambling rant there, feel free to argue - in fact I'd encourage it.
 
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[identity profile] rileysaplank.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 10:18 am (UTC)
I agree with you (not for agreements sake though). I do agree that americanisation is sweeping the world, and I don't believe that's a good thing. That one culture or nation is held up as being the ideal, the one 'perfect' culture, that the rest of the world should strive for is just plain rubbish. And I'm not saying that Americans are pushing for this, well not the plain average Joe American anyway. I'm reserving judgement on what the American politicians are trying to do.

I don't like homogenisation in any form, whether it be in the food we eat or whether it be in the lifestyles we lead. Life wouldn't be life if everyone was the same.

I didn't mean to ramble on as much and I hope I've made sense.

Andy
[identity profile] whiskyinmind.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 10:36 am (UTC)
Homogenisation - that's the word I was struggling to find earlier.

Yes, that's my real concern, it's not so much the fact that the world is becoming Americanised, more that it's becomiong homogenised.
[identity profile] rileysaplank.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 10:50 am (UTC)
Glad I could be of service. :D

As you know I've spent time in Germany as well as the UK and I hope that different cultures remain different.

Cultures have always impcted on other cultures. If you just look at britain through history. The Celts, The Romans, the Angles, the Saxons, the Normans. And that's just off the top of my head.

Just because we do some things that started in America doesn't mean that we're becoming homogenised. But I think there is a danger tht we might.

Andy (Slightly playing Devils Advocate)
[identity profile] whiskyinmind.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 10:54 am (UTC)
And you play Devil's Advocate so well.

You probably know by now that I'm very much anti-mega corporations. Sony, Microsoft, Coca Cola and the like.

There is a phrase that's banded about in sociology and anthropology to describe the move in post-modernity towards a more integrated worldwide community. That phrase is "Global Village", you've probably heard it on the news or something since it seems to have become part of the vernacular.

It's a phrase which first appeared in a Sony internal marketing campaign.

A huge corporation, and let's face it - is there any corporation bigger than Sony?, is defining society.

That scares the crap out of me.
[identity profile] rileysaplank.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 11:05 am (UTC)
Well, technically, Disney is the biggest corporation in the world (Or they were about 8 years ago) because of the amount of shares they own in other companies. And are you trying to tell me that Disney doesn't at least try to define society.

Didn't realise 'Global Village' came from a marketing campaign, but it doesn't surprise me.

Andy
[identity profile] whiskyinmind.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 11:10 am (UTC)
Ah Disney, the evil mouse.

I think Sony own shares in Disney, or at least in Disney off-shoots companies.

That's where most of the mega-corps hide the extent of their insinutation into society - they own all the smaller companies so you find it really hard to actually get by in daily life without coming into contact with them.

And don't get me started on Evil!Nestle...
[identity profile] rileysaplank.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 11:13 am (UTC)
Go on, you know you want to. Vent about Evil!Nestle.

[identity profile] whiskyinmind.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 11:22 am (UTC)
Unrepentent Baby Killers.

'nuff said
[identity profile] mirabehn.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 12:37 pm (UTC)
*nods vigorously*

That's exactly what I was going to say. :)
[identity profile] whiskyinmind.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 03:17 pm (UTC)
:D He said it much more eloquently than I ever could!

How're you feeling today Elly?
[identity profile] smhwpf.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 11:36 am (UTC)
Have you read Naomi Klein's No Logo? Very good, and certainly goes big on the phenomenon of US global brands taking over the world, and particularly the minds of children. McDonalds, Disney, MTV, Nike, etc.

I have some hopes for the survival of other cultures, though. I think in a lot of places (especially perhaps in the developing world, but also in Europe, e.g. the 'Slow Food' movement) there are signs of reaction to US corporate culture domination. I also think the Internet, paradoxically, could help sustain cultural diversity; while it obviously increases communication across continents, it also enables independent and minority publishing and organisation, makes it easier for like-minded individuals to pursue an interest. (For good or ill). Then there are aspects of European culture, for example, that seem totally untouched by the US. Sport for example. I see no sign of us abandoning the national game in favour of American Football.

I wonder also if there might be something more of a backlash against Americanisation now, what with Iraq and the re-election of George Bush. Even in the west, popular perceptions of the US have dimmed.

That's not to say the domination of the world by multinationals, led in particular by US multinationals, is not a real problem, economically, politically, and culturally, indeed I believe it's something that causes massive global poverty and wreaks untold damage to the planet as well as tending to homogeonise cultures. But at the cultural level... somehow it seems so shallow, such a veneer, that I sort of doubt that it will take really deep roots around the world. I hope. I think people and soceity are too rich and complex to be totally defined by McDonalds, MTV and Disney for long.

This too shall pass.
[identity profile] whiskyinmind.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 11:58 am (UTC)
I actually haven't read No Logo although I have heard of it. I just ran a quick catalogue search for it thinking I could take a look at it but all eight copies the library holds are currently checked out. :(

Obviously you're the expert on this, Mr Economics and all :), but I agree that the developing countries are demonstrating a reaction to it. The industrialised nations do seem to be politically falling into line with the US on the other hand. It will be interesting to see what the reaction is to the re-election of Bush - it may show a worldwide backlash, it may not. Time will tell I guess.

You mentioned that on a cultural level the homogeonisation of cultures seems shallow, but isn't that what the world of today is? Shallow? I very deliberately did not use the word 'modern' because a lot of the theory behind what I said comes from postmodernism. Isn't the world all about style over content? Is there any content?

There's an argument, I think put forward by Frederick Jameson but I may be wrong, that there is no meaning to anything. There has been a glissement (slipping away) of meaning because our attention is so caught up in the surface symbols. The Nike brand sweatshirt, the Levis jeans, the Diadora trainers, the Coca Cola bottle - it doesn't mean anything anymore.
[identity profile] bluegreensmoke.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 03:55 pm (UTC)
Hee. This has been sitting on the top of my friends page all morning, so I might as well reply.

I guess I've always been of the mindset that if you don't like it, don't buy it. A service/product/culture is being offered by the US, but the catch is if enough people like it, buy it, and accept it it will continue to stick around. If it was being rejected by the masses, it wouldn't. This goes for any kind of product or trend, regardless of the country it's from.

The issue seems to be more the willingness of other nations to follow trends set by the US rather than set or re-establish their own.

*shrugs*

PS - Politics is a whole other can of worms, so I'm just trying to keep it as on topic as possible.

PPS - If you've seen teen sp33k on the net, you know how badly American kids need those spelling bees. *g*
[identity profile] whiskyinmind.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 04:29 pm (UTC)
I agree with the supply and demand part of what you say but on the other hand the right to choose is being taken away. One of the biggest supermarkets in the UK was bought over not long ago by WalMart and has been increasingly stocking more and more goods which have been a success in the US. It's nearly impossible in city centres to find a cafe that isn's either a Starbucks or a Starbucks-Wannabe.

Personally I don't buy big brands, I shop in my local grocers where I can, but small businesses, local goods, regional products, are being squeezed out of the market to the point where finding an alternative to the mega-corps is nigh on impossible.

And the spelling bees - yes, I absolutely agree, there is a place for them and if it encourages kids to stop using text-speak then I'm all for it. The reason I mentioned it is that they are as far as I'm aware, a uniquely American phenomena which is trying to bleed across into the UK culture.
[identity profile] bluegreensmoke.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 04:50 pm (UTC)
That's an interesting point. I suppose entrepreneurs overseas need to brainstorm and create an establishment that can accomplish what Starbucks (or US Company 'X') can accomplish and create a competitive market against it while still staying true to local roots(?). Since in addition to them being US companies, they are also successful "brands".

If people think there is such a dearth of a certain type of product, store, service, etc. maybe they should be entrepreneural and go about creating something that people will want with the products they'll want.

Fortunately in my neck of the woods we have a variety of local stores and establishments which balance out against the big names and their brands.
[identity profile] whiskyinmind.livejournal.com on November 30th, 2004 04:55 pm (UTC)
*grin*

you're a mind-reader aren't you? I'm in the middle of compiling a business plan to set up my own independant book shop. Not to compete with Borders and Waterstones and the like, but to be an alternative. To stock books by local authors who can't get shelf-space in the bigger shops.

There are a few of us out there, a small group of people who do want to show the mega-corps that there is cultural diversification left in the world. My worry is that it's a doomed effort in the long run.