JLO63O, 3/26

When I think of culture I think of something unique, special, and comparably different. I think of indigenous tribes with campfire rituals and I think of tea ceremonies and chopsticks. So when Adorno wrote, “Culture today is infecting everything with sameness” (41) it sounded like an oxymoron. Unfortunately, the more we talk and think about it, the more oxymoronically correct this statement becomes. It seems more and more like everywhere we go and everything we see there are a set of norms and sameness in the results. After traveling much of the world, I found that in no matter what country— however same or different from the US – I would always be able to get around. In Tokyo for example, among all the Japanese Sanskrit, I could find a Starbucks logo. I could go into a starbucks the same exact menu (and same exact seasonal specials!), and I could even use my Starbucks card I got for my birthday back in the States. The more we expanded on this concept in class, the more we came to realize that sameness was truly infecting everything. Pandora radio is an example that I thought was exceptionally interesting in the fact that Pandora prizes itself on supplying a wide array of music, but in the end, we’re still all listening to the same songs! We see sameness in fashion and movie constructs as well. In Tokyo the majority of people weren’t walking around in Kimonos but rather in Jeans and high-heels. And Tokyo, to me, when I went in November was exceptionally familiar because Christmas music was echoing in the streets and shops were decorated with fake snow and ornaments.

I took this picture when I was abroad in Japan because I remember looking at it and thinking how unnatural this seemed. I realize, after saying that, how this statement can be viewed as naïve or narrow minded, but I came to Japan with a set list of norms and values that I would have to adapt to in order to pay respect for the country (such as bowing and using chop sticks). I thought they were Buddhist and Shinto, and not to say that I wasn’t pleasantly surprised how comfortable I was half way across the world, but I was surprised how same their culture was/is becoming to ours (and I say that because I know for certain that we’re not becoming more like them!). On the one hand, it’s a very easing feeling knowing you can travel the world and almost know what to expect… or at least know wherever you go it won’t be uncomfortably foreign; but on the other hand, there is so much less to be learned from sameness.