Culture Shock

The readings for this week can definitely be circled around the question of how can we determine if (or when) a culture change is either positive or negative. I would consider that trying to label which culture has had a positive or negative experience all depends on their certain situation and the affects that have occurred due to that situation. We can’t assume that all culture changes only either have a positive or negative effect on the culture because the outcome could be different for each different type of society that is being affected by globalization or a strict culture change. There are many different types of cultures that have been affected by modernization or some sort of culture shock, yet they all have had different kinds of responses to it. What makes the Gebusi so different in this scenario is that instead of being the kind of culture that is forced to change, they willingly change their culture and way of running their society in order to “fit in” and be noticed by the western culture. They start to sell their stuff in the markets for less money in hopes that the white people will see them in a different light, the women work more and are paid less, they just completely lose their previous cultural significance and give up on anything that they’ve previously considered to be a part of their culture. Normally, it’s the western culture that forces itself onto other tribes or cultures that they consider to be in need of help or in need of a culture change, but the weird thing about the Gebusi is that they willingly are giving up their culture in order to fit in with the big dogs and are trying to prove that they can be a part of the western culture as well. This kind of situation makes you wonder if a culture is assimilating to another culture, then how can we not justify globalization?


This type of situation makes us second guess if globalization and a forced culture change could be considered positive or negative if the culture that is changing is fully accepting the consequences of the culture shift? The Gebusi are willingly doing this and the affects of the culture change are taken into their own hands and they deal with it because they just want to fit in and be part of a culture that is considered to be better in some people’s eyes. When considering the question how can we determine when or if a culture change is positive or negative, we can see from this example that it all depends on the situation and how the culture takes the drastic change. We can never pre-determine how the affects will take place or what will happen to the assimilated culture, but we can assume that the culture change will definitely affect it somehow. There are just as many cases of negative effects from culture change as there are positive. It all comes down to how the culture will take the change and what they do in reaction to globalization.