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Mass Culture, now Globalization


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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sorry kerleone, I really missed that contribution. Of course, you are right that fears about homogenisation, destruction of the cherished old in the name of the new, commodification of everything have been there for quite a time. You could even go further than behind theorists of Mass culture (all the Frankfurt school theorists wrote in a mood similar to your Dwight McDonalds about mass culture. Adorno deeply despised and criticised it, he wrote also some very bad stuff about jazz, which epitomised for him the brutishness of modern popular culture). I would at least go back to the Communist Manifesto> ""All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.""
- - fears about all that, especially from those who are not ready to accept the new things, values, morals, etc, - and also at the side of those who represent the older order - have been there since capitalism has been there.
And I would say that all this means that commodification and mass culture are real, and indicates that they are destroying something.

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concerning historical dimension of ´mass culture` concepts and criticism on them (meaning both: mass culture concept by frankfurter schule as also the one F.R. Leavis stands for) see rise of `pop culture` concepts in great britain in the 1960s / British New Left context in contrast to horkheimer/adorno.

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