The world isn't as fragmented as it used to be.

While there is still a vast wealth of varied cultures spread out all over the globe, there is a McDonalds in seemingly every country and at least a hint of good old American Capitalism sneaking its way into every economy. We live in a more connected world than we did even a century ago, and, whether it is good or bad, one may think he or she begins to see the emergence of a single, global culture as the variety of human society slowly decays. However, the process is not simply a case of American Capitalist culture consuming the world; it is a matter of cultural norms, art, and globalism. Globalism is the false sense of a global society built around cultural illusion and based on the reality of our global economy. To understand globalism beyond a one sentence definition, however, one must first look to cultural normatives and values. Different cultures don't necessarily consider the same things to be socially acceptable or normal. What may be acceptable to do in British culture may not be viewed the same way in Maori or Chinese culture. Furthermore, different cultures oftentimes have different sets of values that influence their art and beliefs. This is what has given the world such a vast richness of different viewpoints which are expressed through art and writing. However, there are certain seemingly universal ideas and values that are presented as transcending all cultural boundaries, described using the term hegemony. Hegemony ties into globalism in that the ideas and values of a small group of people are presented as applying to a much larger group, so certain cultures may give the illusion that their values and beliefs apply to other cultures as well, whether or not it is actually the case. This illusion of a more united, global culture is supported by the global nature of the economy. Countries import and export goods all over the world, and companies, especially in America, are exporting jobs to other countries. This has created a world-wide force of manual labor composed of disempowered workers that work for big companies instead of their local communities. The fact that their labor is global is often misinterpreted as meaning that they are taking part in the larger, capitalist global culture as well, when in reality it simply means that they are partaking in a global economy. This, not necessarily unified culture, is exactly what globalism is about a huge, global workforce of manual

labor. The idea of globalism affects how we read and think. It tries to make us understand the different viewpoints of other cultures and to look into what they see as art by dumbing it down into an easy, consumable format. However, instead of furthering our understanding of these cultures, it kills those other cultures and replaces them with a more consumable one. This means that, when we explore writings and art from other cultures, the works are viewed in an incorrect context. Instead of seeing the individual ideology of another group of people, we inject some of our own values and beliefs into the cultural works in order to easier understand them. In terms of literature, globalism means that we lose a lot of the meaning behind cultural works of art and writing and lose touch with the sublime. The dumbing down of foreign cultures affects the way that we view and think about non-western societies. The consumable cultures created by Globalism mean that we are able to group the world's vast variety of cultures into two basic groups; western and non-western. Western cultures we tend to associate with logic, science, intelligence, and industry. Western culture is seen as the drive forward into a future of technology and full of innovation and education. Non-western cultures, however, are viewed in a more primitive context. They are viewed as more spiritual and associated with magic instead of science and religious belief instead of logic. While neither type of culture is necessarily good or bad, such generalization results in the loss of a lot of individual cultural ideologies and values that could help to expand our view of the world, our views of art, and our understanding of the sublime.