Culture, Consumerism, and American Interests Abroad
Never before in history has global communication in so many media been so accessible. Cultural elements now spread across the world, taking us ever closer to what increasingly appears to be a homogenous global base culture marked by subcultures rather than regional variation. In looking at this trend, one must ask, will this resulting culture become a conglomerate synthesis of the cultures of the world, or will one in particular come out on top?
Looking around the world, one can undeniably see the pervasive influence of American consumer culture, and by all accounts this is the culture coming out on top. Consumer culture appeals to the innate desire of the individual to pursue his own interests at the expense of a greater good, whatever that may be, like cocaine appeals to the innate personal desire for raw pleasure. And in the long run for a society it is no less addictive or destructive. The appeal of Western luxury to the developing world in Asia and Africa is almost irresistible despite the outspoken antipathy of many of their governments to the West.
Or does the antipathy to the West regard its policies rather than its culture? Why is it that Middle-Easterners can cry “Death to America” while drinking a Pepsi?
During the Cold War, the United States used culture very deliberately as a form of soft power. Listening to the Beatles broadcasting through the Iron Curtain sowed seeds of discontent among Soviet youth with the Union’s isolationism, and was eventually an important factor in bringing about the downfall of Marxism in the Soviet bloc. In recent years however, without a Soviet union to keep us on our toes, our deliberate use of soft power in this fashion has dropped off to near nonexistence. This does not mean that our culture is not spreading - on the contrary, it is spreading faster and more pervasively than ever - but now it is like the spreading of a virus rather than the injection of a serum: passive rather than active. Donald Rumsfeld even stated at one point that he did not even understand the concept of soft power.
The problem is that modern third-worlders in anti-American governments, rather than adopt pro-American sentiments as they adopt American consumer culture, dissociate the culture from the nation and shamelessly take on the most shameful of American ideals while positioning themselves ideologically opposite from, for example, the US’s favor towards Israel and Democracy in general. I do not of course refer to the higher anti-American ideologues - many of whom renounce consumerism just as strongly as American policy - but rather the lower classes in their sphere of influence, who see dissociation as a way to align themselves with their own ideologues without giving up the goods they have become accustomed to, however meager they may be (especially compared to the goods we receive in America).
We are then in the precarious position of having self-preservation from inner corruption at odds against self-preservation from outside forces. The most obvious way to protect ourselves from continuing terrorist threats is to dull their ideology with deliberate injections of consumer culture. As their youth grow into complacency as ours have, then the threat of attack diminishes. But with this diminished threat of attack comes an increased threat of collapse under the unsustainable load of deficit spending and indebtedness, both on the personal and federal level, and not just in the West, but worldwide should we consumerize the third world.
The answer we find on this the sixth anniversary of the most vivid demonstration of Western antipathy in American history, lies in the tedium of a continued war on terror coupled with a concerted internal propaganda effort aimed at breaking consumer culture. It is as Machiavelli says unfathomably difficult to reform a deeply corrupted nation, but what choice do we have? Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but one could imagine the number of anti-American ideologues greatly diminishing if we do break through consumer culture.
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