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The regulary reader of the ethno::log sure can remember, that we had several discussions about a "McDonaldization". This term means the spreading of one culture over the world, especially us-american, and the fear that this development is a threat to local cultures. Today, this phenomenon is usually discussed in regards to globalization theories.

Now I recently discovered an interesting fact: similar ideas have been discussed already in 1953 in sociology, under the term of "mass culture":

"mass culture is a dynamic, revolutionary force, breaking down the old barriers of class, tradition, taste, and dissolving all cultural distinctions. It mixes and scrambles everything together, producing what might be called homogenized culture, .... It thus destroys all values, since value judgements imply discrimination."

Now (don't laugh, its true) this text was written by a man with the name Dwight McDonalds, A theory of Mass Culture, 1953, S. 62, cited from the article "Culture", In: Borgatta: Encyclopedia of Sociology, 1992.

The only difference between both ideas is, that McDonalds feared an impact to the so called "high culture", a term describing the culture of the bourgeoisie, as marxist theorists would say, the humanistic culture, as some others say. Think of classical music, Goethe, greek drama and opera. This idea of culture, or this hierarchical differenciation between culture in a society is not longer of importance in anthropology, or never was of importance. But now the fear of cultural supremacy comes back in the clothes of globalization, instead of mass culture crushing high culture its now about global culture crushing local culture.

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