Social media and globalization

Howdy, Luke here!

Social media comes in many different shapes and forms. The basic concept upon which all instances of social media rely is that users can create and share content with other users, easily and instantly. And generally speaking, social media allows content accessibility to all. Facebook's massive success may be attributed in part to its incorporation of "older," more personal forms of communication in its interface: email (Facebook Messages) and instant messaging (Facebook Chat).

There is no end in sight for the proliferation of social media in the twenty-first century:

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2011/01/23/don%E2%80%99t-steal-my-avatar-challenges-of-social-networking-patents/id=14531/

Needless to say, social media (and the "World Wide" Web in general) have enormous implications for globalization. It is impossible to overstate how it has never been easier to interact with unfamiliar cultures and ideas. However, has social media really made people more civil and respectful in dealing with different points of view? If a typical page of YouTube comments is representative, then the answer is no. Social media is often abused by users who simply want to boost their egos and vent their anger without regard to other users.

Furthermore, meaningful global interaction is stifled by the inadequacy of the Internet to replicate the real world. The Matrix (released coincidentally in 1999, just before the social media revolution) is terrifying partly because the premise that people have been enslaved by machines to live in an artificial world may be seen as an allegory for real life. Following 140-characters-or-less "tweets" cannot possibly take the place of genuine cultural encounters, nor can uploading one's vacation photos on Flickr even scratch the surface of what that vacation felt like.

What then is to be made of social media and its proper place in globalization? Like all forms of communication, social media is neutral and only becomes dangerous when abused by its users. One can at least begin to make social media a more useful tool for global interaction by following this basic rule: never write anything online that you wouldn't say to your grandma in a face-to-face conversation.

The Rise of Mixed Martial Arts

Hello all!

I'm Bryce, and I'm partnered with Xaralambos "Bobby" Papadatos and together we will be covering the spread of Asian culture.  I will be focusing on the spread of martial arts and the ultimate unification of them, and Bobby will focus on the spread of technology and material goods in the pursuit of financial gains.

In ancient times where unarmed combat was more practical, people trained extensively to protect themselves.  Fighters picked a style of martial arts and focus on mastering that single martial art, and there was limited overlap among the martial arts.  Whenever a variation within a style of martial art became too different, that style broke away from the parent martial art, and it was then its own style and people trained in it solely.  An example of this is the Judo/Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu split.

Judo was a very popular martial art in many Asian countries, and it spread to be an international martial art.  In Brazil, a judo student learned the art and focused on the ground-fighting portion of the martial art.  It became so focused that it soon became a new branch, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu which finds its origins with the Gracie family.

The most well known example of the unification of martial arts is the result of the Gracie family's first Ultimate Fighter Championship.  They hosted a tournament open only to black belts and the rules were absolutely minimal.  Fighters soon realized that the grappling art Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu forced fighters to fight on the ground--which many martial arts did not train.  Soon stand-up martial arts like Muay Thai started to incorporate Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu into their training, so that fighters could now fight both on the ground and standing up.  Those mixed martial arts was born.

Bobby's and my seminar is tentatively February 27.  Bobby and I hope to see you there!

Globalization of need

As I sit here typing a blog post on my laptop in Nashville, TN and upload it to a blog that has been read in English by at least a few Russians (I kid you not), I feel safe in asserting that the modernization of the world is nearing completion. Granted, not every citizen of every country enjoys all the benefits and curses of technology, but the digital age has touched every country in some way. 750,000,000 people are on Facebook, more than 10% of all the people on Earth. However, as the world progresses on, are we modernizing or are we Americanizing? Saudi Arabia was once considered primitive and remote. They are modern now. Why? American/Western businesses and products are now seen there and so we say that they have “caught up to the rest of us”. Japan modernized when Commodore Perry established trade relations between them and the U.S. There are still strong cultural traditions around the world, but it cannot be denied that America has had an extreme impact on societies all around the world. What is it about America that gives us this influence? How many British fast food chains have you seen here?

                In 1943, Abraham Maslow proposed his theory of the hierarchy of needs. If you aren’t familiar with it, that’s ok. No one believes it anymore anyway. It essentially states that there are certain needs which must be met before higher ones can be pursued. For example, a person’s food supply must be secured before they can go about seeking self-worth. The specifics of the pyramid have been disproven (or so I have gathered), but the idea remains. I want to propose that civilizations have a similar hierarchy of needs that must be fulfilled before it can start to export culture. Civilizations are made of people with needs, so this is the study of those needs on a large scale.

                One need for a society is resources. If citizens cannot feed themselves, they are not likely to produce a product for other nations to consume. If all of their leisure time is spent foraging, they will have no time for creative output and their culture will not be very rich. Zambia does not have much food or water compared to China. Thus, although you check all your clothing tags and electronics, you will never find a “Made in Zambia”. Their citizens must be able to eat before they can produce. A second need is peace. Another problem plaguing African nations, such as Zambia, is warfare. Sudan in particular has been victim to a long history of genocide. Most national resources will go toward defense and the finer things in life will be neglected. So far, these correspond to the bottom two levels of the pyramid. The next level is love/belonging. This is analogous to the idea of community among citizens. Culture is a certain way of life for members of a defined people group. Traditions are what they do. If people have no sense of belonging to any group, there will be no culture and no traditions.

                The next level is esteem. I cannot find an analogy for this so I will substitute my own idea of worldview. The worldview of a society is vitally important to its productivity. This may be doubted by many, but the evidence is out there. The Chinese government has recently shown an interest in importing Christianity because they have seen that Christian countries are typically the most prosperous. This is a tricky definition, so I won’t conclude anything from it. Maybe we will have some new secular countries (such as America) that will come out and have strong economies, but the process of secularization is too recent to have an effect. Anyway, the Chinese officials contrasted it with Buddhism which they cited as not healthy for a country’s economy. It teaches contentment and renunciation of all desire, two things that don’t really jive with the capitalist mentality that built America. I’m not saying that Buddhism is bad to believe, but don’t expect mass comfort if no one desires to make it happen. The combined GDP of the entire Muslim world is less than that of Finland. You can make up your own mind whether that means anything.

                Once a society has met all these needs it is ready to realize the top level of the pyramid, self-actualization. This translates into cultural output. It can then have international trade, influence of the culture of another country, and a place in global affairs. America is one of the primary nations to have achieved this. 96% of Americans have said that they never go hungry. We have the lowest level of the pyramid. We have one of the largest militaries in the world. If you didn’t feel violated after going through a TSA checkpoint, you probably felt safe. We have the next level. I feel that there is a good sense of community among most Americans. Most of us sense that there are other Americans that are affected by our lives and that we must learn to work together. We have the third level. Also, America’s foundation in hard work and capitalistic growth has pushed us into prosperity. Since we have all four levels of the pyramid, we are ready to export our culture to the world. For better or for worse, from a cultural standpoint, the world is becoming New America.

Beggining of Trade, and Globalization

Hello all! Xaralambos typing here. Sorry for the late post, but the past couple of days have been rather hectic. But anyway, onto what you all came here for. I'd like to start by looking at the history of trade, and examining how, as trade between different sources increased, and the interactions between formerly isolated areas increased, their relationship changed the way the people interacted between themselves.

Trade is a significant force in human culture. Particularly in the more primitive cultures, humans very rarely congregrated in great numbers, and it often was the case that said congregations were the result of religious events, or events between a culture. As such, any ideas or customs that were exchanged or improved were not horribly removed from each other, as in most cases, the participants were already linked in some fashion. Trade, particularly trade between cultures, on the other hand, involves a more random, more diverse and seperated assortment of people interacting. One of the easier methods for multiple cultures to interact through trade, particularly over extended distances, was through maritime trade. Some of the earliest extensive trade routes were established along various sources of water, such as the Nile River, The Tigris River, and The Euphraytes River. In addition to providing a vital resource to the various settlements, the rivers also provided an excellent and efficient form of transport for various goods some areas may have had in surplus. In fact, Evidence has been found that such methods were in use as far back as 3000 B.C. As trade continued to flourish, stronger, more durable ships were made available, resulting in trade between increasingly distant areas. Actually, There is much evidence that there was a strong connection, particularly through trade, between Egypt, and Minoan Crete. Various Minoan ceramics and handmade items have been found in Egypt, and the use of papyrus in Crete has been documented. The trade was not only limited to tangible goods, however. Many architectural and artistic ideas were borrowed by the Minoans from the Egyptians. Of greater significance, and a better illustration of the effects of globalization, was the realization that the Egyptian Heiroglyphs served as inspiration, and as a model for the Minoan's form of writing, the Minoan pictographic symbols. It's from this form of writing that two later writing styles, Linear A and Linear B, both of which were eventually lost in favor of the Ancient Greek Language, were derived. While the pictographic symbols have not had a tremendous effect on our current language and philosophies, they serve to illustrate that it was the interaction of the two different cultures, Minoan and Egyptian, and the exchange of ideas between said cultures that resulted in the Minoan culture using the already existing Egyptian Heiroglyphs as a template for their own symbols, which in turn illustrates that the two cultures, interacting through trade, were both changed merely by their interaction. To reiterate, it appears that trade acted as a catalyst of sorts, allowing cultures to come into contact with each other, and resulting in both cultures changing. Here, The change is noticable, but subtle. This is understandable, as Greece and Egypt are located close to each other, in the east Mediterranean area. Trade was made between even further areas. The Phoenicians, well known for their nautical expertise, managed to trade with places as far as Britain. quite a feat, given that they were based in the eastern Mediterranean, and in Canaan. Their main resource obtained via trade with Britian, was Tin. This, when smelted with Copper, easily obtained from Cyprus, created the efficient and durable alloy Bronze, which, while not as effective as iron, was better used than nothing.

Communism Past and Present

Dzień dobry! It's Nell, and I'm actually back in the United States now! First, apologies for the delayed blog post, but traveling back to the States made it difficult to put anything up. Now, I'd like to start off with the fact that I'll be pulling out some comparisons within this post. I'll be looking at how the USSR did many things to try and smother cultures in Eastern Europe (with a focus on Poland due to my knowledge of it) just as China today is attempting to destroy many of its own interior cultures as well as the Tibetan culture.

Let's start with Communism. In Communism, everyone is supposed to be the same. Everyone works. Everyone gets the same amount of rations and supplies. Only enough for what they need, not want. In Poland, this resulted with people receiving ration cards. Every individual had their own ration card with information of how much they could get of certain items. This uniformity does not only affect the materialistic side of life, but also the cultural side. If everyone is supposed to be the same, that means that religion should be the same. It's easier to get rid of religion altogether, as then people will not be able to develop their own beliefs. That means that everyone should speak the same language. That means traditions should be erased. All for the sake of being the same.

In many of the Eastern Bloc countries, this resulted with the enforcement of schools being taught in Russian, and Russian only. Immediately after World War II, in Poland, for example, it was punishable if a teacher used any Polish books or if the students spoke in Polish. Many of the men who fought through World War II were being persecuted as "helping the Germans," when in fact they were just fighting for a free Poland. Essentially, any one that might be a threat to the Communist regime was targeted and thrown into jail.

Those are just a few examples, and unfortunately, one of my better examples has slipped my mind. Therefore, I'll make this short and go to today. Today, Tibet is not on the globe as its independent country; instead, it is within China's borders. However, if you were to look at a map just a little earlier from the century, you would see that Tibet was indeed its own country. If you spend time in a Tibetan community, you can see the obvious differences between Tibetan and Chinese culture. While China claims Tibet is a part of China, many Tibetans disagree with this. Due to necessity in order to survive, Tibetans within Tibet may not learn Tibetan in schools, and sometimes only use it in home-life. Instead they focus on Chinese, due to the need to use it for jobs, for life. This is not necessarily forced by the government, but when it becomes difficult to survive without learning a language, it is indirectly enforced. This leads to the destruction of one branch of the culture. Instead, many Tibetan communities outside of Tibet have a stronger cultural sense of their heritage.

China wants Tibet to acknowledge it as a part of China, while the Dalai Lama, the political leader of Tibet, still desires Tibet to be free. The USSR also had many countries under its hold which were considered a part of the USSR as opposed to their independent nations, but aside from this, it had other countries under military control and at some points demanded that people could not leave those nations. Example, citizens in Poland had difficultly leaving the nation even to travel. Today, Tibetans attempting to escape are shot at the border to prevent their escape. Such occurrences have happened in history before, and therefore, as they happen today, they should make us think through the history's previous results.