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Chapter 1 | Fernand Harvey (continued) Two views are clashing as to the meaning of this globalization of culture, which seems to gain speed because of the new technologies of information and communication. The first, as well critical as pessimistic, sees in the merchandization which is invading different dimensions of culture an irreductible evolution towards a standardized and impoverished culture, dominated by the American cultural industries. What is not in this dominating stream is relegated to marginality. Opposite to it, optimists are considering that the idea of a unique and globalizing culture is utopia and derives from a wrong reading of the situation. For the latter, the oligopolies of the world of cultural industries are not all American; one can find the same phenomenon now in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Multiplying supply would contribute to favour cultural diversity and to render universal cultural expressions from motly origins. “The horizon, for generations to come, wrote Jean-Marie Messier (2001), chief executive of the European group Vivendi Universal, will not be the one of hyperdomination of the USA, nor the one of the French cultural exception, but that of accepted and respected difference of cultures.” If that optimistic way of seeing cultural diversity may triumph, one can suspect it will not be because of the profit earning logic, but because of the implementation of world wide cultural policies, that are for now in their very infancy. So we are here at the core of a fundamental stake, as far as the future of cultures of smaller societies in a context of globalization is concerned. Facing the uncertainties of the future and the lack of perspective as for those competing ideologies regarding the globalization of culture, one must be careful. Instead of trying to guess what the future will be, which is a way that has always given hazardous results, why not trying to invest the great cultural stakes smaller societies are facing; this would help orientating research and reflection in universities, in government agencies and in the civil society (Harvey, 2002). 3. some stakes for the future Among the stakes which are emerging for the future, three are, in my opinion, much worth to pay attention to: how to situate handing down of culture vis-à-vis cultural innovation; the dialectics of local and global; and the role of cultural policies. 3.1 handing down of culture and cultural innovation In societies preceeding modernity, tradition had a central role in the process of handing down of culture between generations. From the time when the relatively coherent visions of the world which were animating those cultures of tradition were shaken down by the philosophical current of modernity and the succeeding revolutions born of technology, industrialization and urbanization, innovation, associated with the ideology of progress, has become a substitute to tradition. But this did not mean a complete breaking off with the past. It is very difficult to conceive a national or a community culture without some anchoring in history and a given original location. Even in modern societies where the idea of rupture with the past has been an incentive for creation, as it has been the case with the avant garde in arts, concern for handing down of culture has always been present in institutions. The main mediating channels for handing down have been up to now family, school, associations and a mottle of cultural institutions like museums and public libraries. The faster and faster movement of change initiated by the new technologies of information and communication, and the requirements of the new economy have summoned those actors of handing down of culture. It is then paradoxical to see in our advanced industrial societies the place left to memory and history. On the one hand, historical information is more prolific than ever for the public at large, thanks to a multitude of popular publications, specialized television channels and information available on Internet or CDroms; without mentioning the existence of numerous interpretation centres meant for schoolchildren or tourists, or else popular festivals with commemoration purposes. On the other hand, new ideologies valorizing innovation as the driving force of culture have a propensity to consider irrelevant the recourse to the past. Henceforth, there is the danger that history becomes a mere cultural commodity, that the individuals build up an “à la carte” memory, following the surrounding fashions. Will the handing down of humanist, community or national culture generate the same interest in the new generations, those who have access to all the cultures of the world in the same time as well as to a global mass culture? In sum, how selection will be carried out? Using what guideline? |
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