"A Distraction or Cultural Connection"

This week the main topic I feel we discussed was worldly connections and how they influence culture. Through examples in the articles about how the production of cocaine is worldly defined supply and demand process. As we sat and talked about the world system and how people from all over the world influence our survival in our society, as well as we influence theirs, I was a little mind blown about how someone I don’t even know helps me to survive, and I possibly the same or the opposite. One example we talked about in class was the pair of jeans we wear to keep us warm and clothed in our environment, keeps a young girl in China employed providing a means of living for her. I’m not sure if this example of the world system is necessarily positive, but it’s easy to see how our demand for clothes is met and her demand for a job is met, where as in the article about Bolivia and the coca plant the world system doesn’t seem as such a positive thing. In the case of Bolivia, America has a demand for the drug of cocaine, and Bolivia has the supply of the coca plant, but because the drug trafficking and drug war are being fought and tried to be destroyed, many people are attacking the supply system destroying Bolivian’s way of life. I feel like this example of the world system is a more negative example, because there is culture being lost. So as I was trying to decide what to write for this blog, I thought of all the preceding examples and tried to connect them to my life, which made me think of how much probably everything I touch is some how related to the world system and connects me to someone, somewhere in the world living a life way different for me. It is such a big concept I was trying to think of a small scale world connector. Well to say the least as I was thinking I was getting very far, as I was extremely distracted my our cultures favorite networking tool, Facebook. Here I was trying to find an example of the world system and connections, and it was staring me in the face. Facebook, is a huge part of our culture, but I think also part of the world system, which as we talked about is pushing culture out a bit. When you get to the login page, you can set the language, I looked at how many languages were offered and there were a high number of languages, at least 80, this proves that people all over the world are possibly using Facebook. So that girl in China who is making my jeans, maybe just a click away. Not only is Facebook a social network, but I would also say a culture network, individuals can express what they identify themselves with, and who they identify themselves with. In a small way it’s exactly like the world system in a way each person is an individual culture, but each individual is regulated by this overriding system that controls what you can do, have access too, and formats the website for everyone the same. Facebook to me screams culture connections, just in the way you can access many people from everywhere and learn about all sorts of people and cultures, but it also represents to me a miniature version of the world system. So the real question is: is Facebook a homework distraction or just a form of connection and cultural enrichment?