In Cultural Imperialism, author John Tomlinson addresses the isolationism engendered by globalization. It is the latest phenomenon in the historical trajectory of modernity in which the world s economies and cultures are increasingly integrated into the whole of the global information age. Much of the critique of cultural imperialism seems to lie in a critique of modernity. Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann s sociology of knowledge fleshes out this notion of a self-constructed reality.
Human culture is a product of our own making.
And if cultural experience is an abstract framework in which we construct our social reality, then modernization is the accompanying process of this cultural experience . Modernity presents many challenges as the apparent globalization of culture ensues but the debate over cultural imperialism ignores the vitality and inherently assimilatory nature of human cultures. This perspective challenges the implicit notion that cultures are static, empty receptacles incapable of assimilating change wrought by the forces of modernization. Our daily lives are affected by abstract invisible forces, which insidiously alter the balance of power between individuals and sovereign states. My research indicates that an analysis of cultural imperialism reveals that it may really be a decay of cultural will that invokes the human agent in the social construction of culture.