Cultural Hegemony In English Essay

Culture implies a variety of things. It encompasses complex systems of thought and belief across a group. It provides structure to the morality and behavior of a community-not only directing their actions, but providing context as to why they act that way. Naturally, the culture one grows up in helps build their identity, as does the language they speak, the social class they belong to, and the country that breeds them. How atrocious, then, is the act of transforming one’s indigenous culture into something flashier, yet manufactured and alien? How ruthless is the practice of taking away everything someone knows and replacing it with an overpoweringly foreign system? Not so much, as it turns out, for it is an almost inevitable consequence of these times. With globalization, Western ways spread far and wide, and with them comes the ugly institution of ‘cultural hegemony’, wherein indigenous cultures are manipulated into sacrificing their thoughts and their tongues in favor of more attractive and “progressive” Western alternatives. A major reason for this is teaching students in English instead of in their native language, which results in them …show more content…
This “educated elite” is a key agent in the propagation of cultural hegemony- “The prototype imperial collaborators are the upwardly mobile third-world professionals who imitate the style of their patrons” (Petras 2072). Here, the imperial collaborators are the educated intermediaries of the third world, who help propagate the culture of their patrons, the West. Petras speaks of cultural imperialism as experienced by people in third-world countries, wherein the locals are convinced by media and technology (controlled by the intermediaries) that Western culture is superior and to be implemented, lest they run the risk of being labeled ‘regressive’ and