Introduction
My opinion is that the world is contaminated. This is because globalization brings many changes, which make the world to be contaminated. The mixture between innovation values and the tradition destroy what our ancestors left us with. The ancestors left us with a beautiful world where everything was in position. The peace was in good order but now after the introduction of innovation and knowledge ideas peace was destructed. This was due to the introduction of innovated machines, which have increased criminal activities all over world. During our ancestors time people used to live happily but now people are living with a lot of suspicion. They do not believe in the current world where they live in, as there is a lot of mess around. Globalization and modernization has changed the cultural beliefs and values of different societies (Appiah, 2). With the current innovations and technology, people are free to do anything they wish to do. This has brought moral decay in the society. An example of the moral decay is especially concerning to the idea of sexual activities and the society. Through exposure of sexual acts in the internet and other sites, the society is contaminated.
During the ancestors time sexual activities and behaviors were considered secret and they were respected. With the innovation and technology, people are watching sexual acts and immoral activities (Egger, 56). This has corrupted their minds and now the society is rotten as people engage in this immoral activities anyhow. This is due to the effects of innovation and technology. Due to these effects of modernization and globalization on the culture and traditions, I, therefore support that the world is contaminated.
Although globalization and modernization brings good effects in the society, the negative effects brought by this modernization and globalization contaminate the world and the culture of the society. The good effects such, as easy transportation, easy communication, and global village makes life easy. Though these good effects are associated with modernization and globalization, they come with negative effects in the society. For example, Kwame Appiah argues that the power free will and the freedom of choice are the factors associated with the modernization and globalization (Appiah, 4).These factors affect the religion and the cultural beliefs. The freedom makes person to fall as the freedom means free will and the person is ready to do anything he or she wishes.
The freedom of free will brings evil into the society. This is supported by James C. Livingston his novel “The Sacred” who explains the origin of evil. He argues that the freedom given to Adam and Eve made them to sin in the garden and thus that led to the fall of human beings and the sin came into being. This means that when freedom is given to human beings they tend to do evil things in the society. The globalization is associated with freedom of human to move to any place they wish to go and do what they wish to do. The modern world has been made into a global village. The movement of people and goods from country to another is very convenient and easy as per the current modernization and globalization (Appiah, 5). The technology has made it easy to move gods and people from one country to another. This freedom and movement spreads the evil in the world. Kwame Aphiah believes that much of the suffering and evil in the are brought by human free actions. The evil is brought by the freedom bestowed to man by God especially in the garden.
Although the Unesco document explains that, there is importance of free and flow of ideas, human rights and freedom of thought values, these values will only become universal if we as human beings human beings try to make them to be universal. However if this values are allowed to take place in society without control, they will affect the societal culture and the religion. This is because freedom is always associated with evil activities in the society. When human beings are looking for the influence of modernization on culture, it is always good to take into consideration the individual human being. It is argued that the cosmopolitans take serious concern about culture as the individual could also take it. The cosmopolitans also suspect that the globalization is aiming their target wrongly. Kwame argues that although globalization is good to homogeneity, this globalization is also a threat to the same homogeneity as well (Appiah, 6).Examples the radios and televisions take about major events of the world such as football games.
As far as these announcements about major events by these radios and televisions, they also affect the culture of the people. As the announcement of such food, activities continue there may be advertisement of Guinness. This advertisement will make people to take drinks and thus contaminating their religion. The globalization, which make them to watch events, which take place in far places and thus making them to embrace the culture of other people and thus contaminating their culture and faith. As far as globalization brings good things, it is also associated with evil activities (Appiah, 7). The activities aired through the radio and televisions have impacts on the culture and religion of the person watching such events.
It is true that the good effects of modernization found these days in the world for example easy access to effective medicine, more access to clean and drinking water. There is also emergence of schools which making learning easy. Teaching in schools may affect the culture and religion negatively. This is because western education may make pupils and students to hate their own culture thinking that the western culture is more important than their own culture (Schramm, 29).This may make them to change their minds towards western culture. As far as education bring good effects to an individual’s life, the negative effects associated with it also contaminate the religion and the culture of the people. Education is one of the results of the globalization and this in turn affects the religion and the culture of the people. This means that the modernization have effects on different individuals and the thus contamination by modernization is felt.
The globalization also bring imbalance to the society in terms of economy. This in turn affects the culture and religion of the society. The rich tend to embrace and adopt the technology very fast as compared to the poor who may not afford to adopt such technologies. Such differences bring disparity in the society. The disparity affects the culture of the people in the society. The ones, who are rich, become richer. The farmers in Ghana who involve American farmers depict this (Schramm, 34). The Americans farmers own a lot of land depicts this and they engage in large agribusinesses. This affects the culture of Ghana people as they are forced to follow the culture of the rich who in this case are the rich American farmers in Ghana. Thus, the native culture of the Ghana people does is contaminated by the western culture.
In the traditional societies, people had different styles of clothing which reflected respect in the society. People used to dress well but after modernization the attire change changed completely and now people wear attire, which do not show respect. This reflects the actual contamination that the globalization has brought to the culture of the people. People had different cultural beliefs, which reflected the respect in the society. The upcoming of different religious groups due to modernization has contaminated the traditional religious beliefs where people used to worship in sacred places (Egger, 72). Nowadays people can worship anywhere. The modernization and globalization affect the entire cultural and religious beliefs. The dressing style nowadays has changed completely and people cloths, which do not reflect the respect. You find some people wear clothes, which do not the whole of their bodies. They leave part of their bodies exposed. Before globalization, such behavior was not allowed in the society. This behavior is sign of lack of respect. When celebrities act while having such cloths they infect the society as people copy such behaviors after watching through social media.
The globalization affects religious beliefs on the concept of marriage. Marriage was considered as the unification between male and female counterparts. God ordained marriages and the couple were supposed to bear children as a sign of blessing of the couple by God. However, because of the modernization and globalization marriages institutions have changed. People of the same gender nowadays marry each other. This spreads globally and the effects are felt all over the world (Schramm, 37). Contamination of religious beliefs and practices by modernization lead such evil acts. The modern religious practices are different from the traditional religious practices. These effects are due to the modernization.
Social sites have contaminated cultural beliefs of the people as these social sites contain a lot of information. Internet is the most visited site. It contains all the information both good and evil. The evil information contained in the internet has contaminated the moral beliefs and culture. The internet posts information concerning sexual activities. People have post phonographic videos and pictures in the internet. Traditionally the information concerning sexual activities was regarded sacred and people were not supposed to take of it in public or expose to children (Egger, 89). However due to the exposure of these immoral activities and the pictures concerning the same, minds of children and other people are corrupted. Thus, this leads to contamination of moral culture by the immoral activities.
Modernization, despite affecting the lives of people positively, its effects have contaminated the moral cultural and religious beliefs. People’s life has change due to the modernization. As far as people try to adopt changes brought by modernization, these changes also bring negative effects on the individual cultural and religious beliefs. These effects contaminate the cultural and religious beliefs of the society. Modernization and globalization thus contaminate the culture and the religion of people and this in turn affect the lives of individuals in the society. Thu, Kwame Appiah beliefs that modernization contaminates the cultural and religious beliefs, it is true and I support it. This is because of the negative effects on religion and culture.
Works Cited
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. "The case for contamination." New York Times Magazine 1 (2006): 32.
Egger, Hartmut, and Udo Kreickemeier. Worker-specific Effects of Globalisation. Munich: CESifo, 2009. Print.
Schramm, Wilbur, and Donald F. Roberts. The Process and Effects of Mass Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. Print.
