culture shall never die

Culture defines a nation. Culture defines one’s self, but if you ask Maude Barlow, who is the head of the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization, and founder of the Blue Planet Project, she would express her feelings of culture becoming a business and that cultural diversity is fading. She explains in her article The Global Monoculture, which was published in the Earth Island Journal, that keeping culture alive has become a job, and that culture is fading due to North Americas influence through the media. She states, “North America corporate culture is destroying local tradition, knowledge, skills, artisans and values.” In her article Barlow brings up many interesting and intriguing points, but her lack of counter arguments and constant rage at the media does not make her argument effective.
Barlow quotes Indian physicist and activist Vandana Shiva who calls it, “monoculture of the mind.” Barlow talks of how this monoculture is dominated by US and Western values and lifestyles, which is driven by a consumer-based, free market ideology and carried through the massive US entertainment-industrial complex, the global monoculture has infiltrated every corner of the earth. She blames this “monoculture” on the US because as she proves in her article the US has more computers then the world combined which makes approximately 80 percent of websites in english. She talks about all the negative effects that the internet has on culture but forgets to mention the positive effects that the internet gives such as spreading the ideas and beauty of cultures.
The United States is the most diverse country in the world followed by Canada and Brazil. Even with all the diversity that is around us Barlow still believes that, “protecting cultural diversity has become as important a fight as preserving biodiversity.” She also mentions that indigenous peoples view culture as their richest heritage. She speaks of this battle that is occurring to keep culture alive but I see culture everywhere I go. People are not forgetting there “roots” as Barlow calls it.
Barlow describes culture as a business. She explains how in today’s world keeping culture alive is a struggle. She states, “The entertainment industrial complex, on the other hand, sees culture as a business-a very big business that should be fiercely advanced through international trade agreements like the World Trade Organization (WTO).” She goes on to explain how US films are dominating China’s motion picture industry. But again she forgets to mention anything good that comes out of it or about the Chinese motion pictures that still progress and become very successful. Her constant anger towards the US media is making her statement less and less credible.