Moving Towards A Global Culture

Culture has many connotations. Culture is refinement. Culture is value addition to life. Culture is the sum total of a people's behavioural patterns, evolved over time. Since time immemorial. It is the gist of a civilization that is on display in many a manifestation of traditions, institutions, arts, music, festivities, beliefs and lifestyles. Culture is all pervading, all encompassing. It is a composite product of a community's work and thought. In different contexts culture means differently as in the case of a class, of a period, of a community, of a population, or of a whole nation. Most nations are proud of their culture as individuals of their nations. In a focussed way culture is seen as intellectual and artistic activity and the works produced by it, which also reflect a high degree of taste and refinement formed by aesthetic training. All these definitions are, at a level, academic. Let us look at, in a pragmatic way, a different culture, namely business culture, which is evolving worldwide. We are now living in an age of globalization of industry and commerce. Globalization has made nations inter-dependent. It has brought nations closer to each other than ever before. Already the term corporate culture has come into vogue as mentioned above as a widely-used phrase. It reflects the thinking, the strategy, the power and might of a whole business class. The term corporate culture is now popularly used by newspapers and magazines. Globalization is being aided by a revolution in communications, mainly the Internet and net-based services, including e-commerce. Aviation technology has shrunk the world further and created a boom in the global tourism industry, which is actively helping nations and peoples share their cultures with each other. All this process might help in the evolution of a composite global culture, which in a larger context would reflect every culture. The World is slowly but surely, whirling towards that goal.