The globalisation of culture Ronnie Watt Can it be unequivocally accepted that globalisation as a process of internationality, driven by what is denounced as shallow consumerism, implies the standardisation and uniformisation of culture? And that a homogenised world will be suffused with McDonaldised ethics and aesthetics? Sweeping statements by alarmists abound about the power and reach of liberal capitalism embedded in democracy and controlled by an elite business hegemony. They warn that it is the vehicle for the imposition of a new form of Western imperialism which has only one goal in sight: profit. It is undeniable that the societies and social relations of the modern era have been reshuffled but to put all of the blame for that on globalisation, presupposes that societies and their cultures are static and fixed in a cultural mosaic. There is sufficient evidence to the contrary in the past and present history that cultures can respond in dramatic ways to hedge foreign influence or morph such influence for its own enrichment. The American sociologist Peter L. Berger and the Harvard University political scientist Samuel Huntington (2002:121) speak of responses by cultures that vary on a scale between acceptance and rejection with co-existence and synthesis as accommodating options. Within a culture we must also note individual and interest group responses to globalised culture which are practised for the sake of appearance and convenience but stop short of abandoning the cultural values which give their lives real meaning. We can also not ignore that cultures can exploit their access to a global community for their enrichment and even their survival. There is no single definition of what globalisation constitutes nor what defines culture. As for how globalisation impacts on culture, there are numerous opinions on what the agents of such impact are, how cultures accommodate or assimilate or reject foreign cultural influence, and the visibility and viability of a transnational culture and what sustains it. In the most simplistic of terms, globalisation is the interaction and consequential integration of peoples and nations into a single common system (Kwame 2006) or a world society (Hsin-Huang Michael Hsi ao in Berger & Huntington 2002:980).