Reading Response, Tourism & Globalization, INTC 251 (Cultural Globalization)

As I read David Nicholson-Lord’s article "The Politics of Travel", it reminded me of some of the points made by Jonah Goldberg in a little piece he wrote in a recent issue of National Review. In that piece Mr. Goldberg opined that there was an inherent contradiction and tinges of hypocrisy within some of our (western) culture’s conceptions of tourism. We value cosmopolitanism and the sophistication and enlightenment that comes from having visited and absorbed multiple cultures, yet we believe that these foreign cultures should be left in their pristine, traditional form—for the benefit of our enjoyment.

This is an issue we have discussed on occasion in class and many have expressed and sympathized with the concern that the process of globalization is contaminating and eliminating traditional cultures throughout the world.

But in holding this opinion aren’t we applying a different standard to ourselves than we do to the rest of the world’s peoples and societies? We welcome and relish the opportunity to amalgamate with other cultures, but try to prevent the same thing from happening to those cultures. As Mr. Goldberg writes, "The man who wants to see Vietnam stay Vietnamese is enlightened or exotic, but never provincial. The man who wants America to stay American is a boob."1

I do find hypocrisy in this sentiment.


1. Goldberg, Jonah (2007, September 10). Global Village People. National Review, LIX(16), 8.

Letter to the Editor, PLU MAST, for the PLU GOP

In an Op-Ed in the October 5, 2007 edition of the Mast, Ethan Jennings made several assertions regarding Iran that we feel we must respectfully but wholeheartedly respond to and correct.

The picture that Mr. Jennings paints of Iran does not resemble reality. He writes that "Iran is not stupendous" in the category of human rights, which suffice to say is a deep and frankly startling understatement. There is no democracy in Iran whatsoever, only tainted and fixed elections and a despotic class of mullahs which have ruled the country for over two-decades now.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s anti-semitism runs beyond simple holocaust denial as well, extending into repeated calls for the nation of Israel to be destroyed and wiped off the map entirely. He has also declared that there are no homosexuals within Iran, which would be true if the Iranian policy of persecution and execution were carried out in full.

Mr. Jennings also grossly distorts fact in asserting a similarity between Iran’s persistent support for terror and previous actions by the United States. Iran actively supplies and supports terror within Iraq, and in many cases it is Iranian weapons which are responsible for the deaths of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians in that country. Iran is also the patron of Hezbollah, a large and destabilizing terrorist organization within the Middle East.

Iranian support for terror is an institutionalized state policy, and to compare that to American support of anti-communist and anti-Soviet elements in the Cold War—as Mr. Jennings does—is completely misguided.

Finally, the reason that the United States does not object to countries such as France, Britain, and India possessing nuclear weapons is because those countries and ourselves are legitimate democracies accountable to their people. Iran clearly does not meet that criterion. It is and ought to be the United States’ and the civilized world’s policy to prevent a terror-sponsoring nation with hegemonic designs within the Middle East from having nuclear weapons. Does anyone really think it is acceptable to allow a country who has professed a desire to destroy Israel the means to do exactly that?

Iran is no ally of the United States or of free and peaceful peoples, and any truly "holistic picture of the situation" will demonstrate as much.

Geoff Smock
President, PLU GOP

The Death of Chief Illiniwek

Last year the University of Illinois finally capitulated to pressure from liberal activists and state Democratic politicians—the traditional officers of the Political Correctness police force—to sack the school mascot Chief Illiniwek, whose existence and traditional dance during halftime of UI football games was deemed by critics to be insulting to Native Americans. The NCAA even went so far as to label the Chief to be one of the nation’s "hostile and abusive racial/ethnic national origin mascots."

This makes no sense and is indeed counter-intuitive and basely illogical. A simple question and its answer exposes this as truth: Why does a team or school adopt a mascot of any kind? To identify themselves with the region they are from and/or to inspire their members and supporters. No one adopts a nickname and mascot for themselves that is insulting or demeaning of another group or entity, for to identify themselves by an insulting and demeaning nickname is to insult and demean themselves. As UI alumnus Robert Novak points out, "colleges all over America adopted Indian nicknames, symbols, and mascots for their football teams--not to mock the country's defeated native population but to inspire warrior-like fierceness on the gridiron."

Beyond just this simple exercise in flat illogic is the hypocrisy and shallowness within the movement to remove Indian nicknames and mascots from schools and sports teams. Why is the nickname "Indians", "Braves", or "Redskins" culturally and ethnically insulting while a nickname such as the "Fighting Irish", complete with a pugnacious and diminutive leprechaun as its mascot, not insulting to Irish-Americans? What’s the difference?

There isn’t one.

Political Correctness and its tyrannical police force have run amok in this country, attempting to stifle, as Mr. Novak eloquently writes, the human spirit with its "dead hand."

Those P.C. police have indeed won and the Chief is dead, but the political correctness which killed him ought to share his fate.