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Jackie,
Excellent points you bring up. Opinions always welcomed.
I too hope that my doom and gloom prediction of things will not come to pass. However, living in the heart of the Midwest in America, I am inundated with it. Where I live is quite literally a test market for a huge amount of these companies. We might even be living in the epicenter of this McDonaldization.
Perhaps it is this concentration of this process where I live and the fact that any traces of identity (perhaps identity is a more accurate word than culture) are rapidly being absorbed. Homogeneity run amuck. We have many in town who have fought this progress but it is futile. They simply do not have the economic strength behind their passion to retain a sense of identity. Sadly, so much identity these days is being defined against it, yet it is still the force causing (or, perhaps, acausally) definining identity.
So the force, as I see it, is not life-affirming. I am sure someone at some point said that one Wal Mart in my hometown will not destroy identity and culture either. I firmly believe that one Wal Mart in England may be a sign of things to come if there is no resistance to this force. Perhaps it is unique in America. I personally do not believe so. I think you may see an increase not so much in warehouse style business practices but in the standardization of life on many levels. While the impression is that we have many choices, in reality we have few choices under the illusions that multiple brand names, packages, etc. are all under the banner of - as you noted - two or three large companies.
Where I live, Wal Mart has created its own culture. Perhaps what is most ironic, to me anyhow, is that not only has it really wiped out local culture, it has created its own culture. Teenagers hang out at Wal Mart on Friday night! It will someday, if it hasn't already, created its own language.
So it is a subtle form of imperialism, a virus that doesn't so much change a culture from without but transforms it from within.
Which brings me to another paradox: a truly homogeneous culture would actually BE a culture would it not?
Anyhow, maybe I'm looking for a more technical term for McDonaldization. I hate to use that word to describe the force because to use the word makes the user victim of the very same force it is trying to describe. Argh!!!
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veteran
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veteran
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cultural cringe cul·tur·al cringe noun
Australia sociology feeling of cultural inferiority: a sense of embarrassment caused by a feeling that your national culture is inferior to others
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Lixiviate:
1) To wash or percolate the soluble matter from.
2) To extract a soluble constituent from (a solid mixture) by washing or percolation
Metaphorically speaking, this is pretty good. I propose:
Lixiviation: the process of washing away the soluble matter or soluble constituent from (i.e. substance, meaning, identity) of culture.
Usage: 'McDonaldization is a form of cultural lixiation.'
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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lixiviate
interesting. I've not had occasion to actually use this word; but doesn't it have mostly positive connotations, in that you're either purifying something or trying to extract the good stuff for use (say, gold)?
it's closer than corrupting or defiling or defacing which all have the element of pollution; but it still doesn't evoke the action of throwing out the baby with the bath water that you seem to want.
here's some synonyms that might clarify my point:
purge, expurgate, elutriate, lixiviate, edulcorate, clarify, refine, rack
the shared element of all of these seems to be removal of something unwanted
elutriate - to purify
expurgate - remove offensive bits
rack - remove the dregs (from wine?)
edulcorate - to sweeten
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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edulcorate
I will be awake, probably for a very long time, tonight, trying to figure out how to use this word on the bench tomorrow morning. Drat!
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The definition for leaching is almost identical: to part with soluble constituents by percolation (kind of like we do with coffee).
The root of lixiviate is 'lye'. Water was passed through wood ashes and the resulting constituent part removed was lye. While it is a caustic substance on its own, lye is used in the making of soap. Something unwanted is found useful.
If we look at McDonaldization as a hot liquid percolating over our culture, what is ultimately removed by this process is that which we generally recognize as 'culture'.
I'm not quite comfortable calling McDonald's a culture, although in a technical sense I suppose it is. For the sake of argument, it isn't.
While the other words associated with lixiviate seem to carry the conotation that the removal of something negative, the end result is something useful. With a literary or imaginative twist, if those traits that indicate a culture are lixiviated, what is removed can perhaps be seen as a negative of the homogenizing force.
In this case, would it lixiviate it, market it and ultimately homogenize it?
In this case the lixiviation process is attempting to squeeze out those parts that are marketable. Instead of lye, what is extrapolated would be things identifiable as 'cultural' or 'subcultural' or 'countercultural'.
Even Woodstock had corporate backers. It would not be long after Woodstock that tie-dyed t-shirts were sold in department stores. Hippy culture lixiviated.
We squeeze out the culture and are left with a shell of something that once was deemed to have had substance. What is left is imitation.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I think there's a chemical process involved in lixiviation that doesn't transfer well here. leaching alkaline salts with lye, or someting like that. but if you like it, it's yours. : ) http://home.mn.rr.com/wwftd/
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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So, Father Steve, did you manage to use your newest word toys? I'm thinking that you could have batted 3 for 4 in imposing a sentence:
Mr Smith, I intend to elutriate society by expurgating your client; however, I will edulcorate this judgment by refraining from filing a judicial objection to eligibility for parole.
By the time either counsel processes this statement, it'll be too late for objections, since you'll have adjourned and left the bench for lunch. How's that for efficient?
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Carpal Tunnel
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I accomplished nothing as marvelous as Sparteye's suggestion. I DID state, on the record, at the taking of a plea of guilty, that it appeared to me that the prosecutor had edulcorated his offer, when compared to the initial offer made at arraignment. I was greeted by a tableau vivant of uncomprehending yet inquistive faces ... which suggested success!
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I was greeted by a tableau vivant of uncomprehending yet inquistive faces ... which suggested success!
SWEET!
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