Does globalization make people around the world more alike or more different? This is the question most frequently raised in discussions on the subject of cultural globalization. A group of commentators we might call ‘pessimistic hyperglobalizers’ argue in favour of the former. They suggest that we are not moving towards a cultural rainbow that reflects the diversity of the world's existing cultures. Rather, we are witnessing the rise of an increasingly homogenized popular culture underwritten by a Western ‘culture industry’ based in New York, Hollywood, London, and Milan. As evidence for their interpretation, these commentators point to Amazonian Indians wearing Nike training shoes, denizens of the Southern Sahara purchasing Texaco baseball caps, and Palestinian youths proudly displaying their Chicago Bulls sweatshirts in downtown Ramallah. Referring to the diffusion of Anglo-American values and consumer goods as the ‘Americanization of the world’, the proponents of this cultural homogenization thesis argue that Western norms and lifestyles are overwhelming more vulnerable cultures. Although there have been serious attempts by some countries to resist these forces of ‘cultural imperialism’ – for example, a ban on satellite dishes in Iran, and the French imposition of tariffs and quotas on imported film and television – the spread of American popular culture seems to be unstoppable.

But these manifestations of sameness are also evident inside the dominant countries of the global North. American sociologist George Ritzer coined the term ‘McDonaldization’ to describe the wide-ranging sociocultural processes by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world. On the surface, these principles appear to be rational in their attempts to offer efficient and predictable ways of serving people's needs. However, looking behind the façade of repetitive TV commercials that claim to ‘love to see you smile’, we can identify a number of serious problems. For one, the generally low nutritional value of fast-food meals – and particularly their high fat content – has been implicated in the rise of serious health problems such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and juvenile obesity. Moreover, the impersonal, routine operations of ‘rational’ fast-service establishments actually undermine expressions of forms of cultural diversity. In the long run, the McDonaldization of the world amounts to the imposition of uniform standards that eclipse human creativity and dehumanize social relations.

Perhaps the most thoughtful analyst in this group of pessimistic hyperglobalizers is American political theorist Benjamin Barber. In his popular book on the subject, he warns his readers against the cultural imperialism of what he calls ‘McWorld’ – a soulless consumer capitalism that is rapidly transforming the world's diverse populations into a blandly uniform market. For Barber, McWorld is a product of a superficial American popular culture assembled in the 1950s and 1960s, driven by expansionist commercial interests. Music, video, theatre, books, and theme parks are all constructed as American image exports that create common tastes around common logos, advertising slogans, stars, songs, brand names, jingles, and trademarks.

Barber's insightful account of cultural globalization also contains the important recognition that the colonizing tendencies of McWorld provoke cultural and political resistance in the form of ‘Jihad’ – the parochial impulse to reject and repel the homogenizing forces of the West wherever they can be found. As we noted in our deconstruction of Osama bin Laden in Chapter 1, Jihad draws on the furies of religious fundamentalism and ethnonationalism which constitute the dark side of cultural particularism. Fuelled by opposing universal aspirations, Jihad and McWorld are locked in a bitter cultural struggle for popular allegiance. Barber asserts that both forces ultimately work against a participatory form of democracy, for they are equally prone to undermine civil liberties and thus thwart the possibility of a global democratic future.

Optimistic hyperglobalizers agree with their pessimistic colleagues that cultural globalization generates more sameness, but they consider this outcome to be a good thing. For example, American social theorist Francis Fukuyama explicitly welcomes the global spread of Anglo-American values and lifestyles, equating the Americanization of the world with the expansion of democracy and free markets. But optimistic hyperglobalizers do not just come in the form of American chauvinists who apply the old theme of manifest destiny to the global arena. Some representatives of this camp consider themselves staunch cosmopolitans who celebrate the Internet as the harbinger of a homogenized ‘techno-culture’. Others are free-market enthusiasts who embrace the values of global consumer capitalism.

It is one thing to acknowledge the existence of powerful homogenizing tendencies in the world, but it is quite another to assert that the cultural diversity existing on our planet is destined to vanish. In fact, several influential commentators offer a contrary assessment that links globalization to new forms of cultural expression. Sociologist Roland Robertson, for example, contends that global cultural flows often reinvigorate local cultural niches. Hence, rather than being totally obliterated by the Western consumerist forces of sameness, local difference and particularity still play an important role in creating unique cultural constellations. Arguing that cultural globalization always takes place in local contexts, Robertson rejects the cultural homogenization thesis and speaks instead of ‘glocalization’ – a complex interaction of the global and local characterized by cultural borrowing. The resulting expressions of cultural ‘hybridity’ cannot be reduced to clear-cut manifestations of ‘sameness’ or ‘difference’. As we noted in our previous discussion of Osama bin Laden, such processes of hybridization have become most visible in fashion, music, dance, film, food, and language. . .