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THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
Ruslan HANAHU
D.Sc. (Philos.), professor, head of the Philosophy and Sociology Department at the Adighe Republic Institute of Humanitarian Studies (Russia, Maykop, the Republic of Adigey).
THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION
Abstract
Globalization is undoubtedly a complex and contradictory sociocultural phenomenon affecting both numerically large and small nationalities, but its consequences can differ. The cultures of numerically small ethnic groups experience the consequences of globalization
under the same conditions as large nationalities. But whereas large ethnic groups are in relatively little danger of losing their language and culture, the threat to the culture and uniqueness of numerically small Caucasian nationalities is extremely high.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
Much has been written about so-called small cultures in the scientific and sociopolitical literature on cultural globalization, whereby the emphasis is placed on the special features of local cultures. However, when we begin talking about the prospects for sociocultural processes and consequently the future of numerically small cultures, we find significant differences.
Regardless of the academic views on the prospects for sociocultural processes, the publications on various universal aspects of the existence of small cultures, the motivation for their activity, and their survival in the face of the new challenges appear to be a relatively independent trend. In so doing, the elaborations and recommendations of cultural study specialists based on these publications are not targeted at any specific sociocultural environment.
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It is presumed that if the gap between the universalist theories and sociocultural practice is not closed, it will be difficult to draw up effective means designed for specific cultural areas. In order to resolve this problem, we need to look at the features of sociocultural development in the context of their mega trends and try to assess their future. This problem looks particularly urgent in the context of globalization. In actual fact, globalization and its challenges can serve as a starting point for discussions on the prospects for global and local sociocultural phenomena.
Cultures of the North Caucasian Nationalities in Terms of Global Changes
After the collapse of the U.S.S.R. as a multinational state, many former republics and autonomous formations were left to deal with their problems and indefinite economic and sociocultural future on their own.
For example, the post-Soviet sociocultural processes in the Northern Caucasus often looked, from the theoretical viewpoint, like an attempt to return to the glorious past, to the world of traditional culture. In addition, these processes served as a basis for particularist trends.
In 1995, well-known specialist on Adighe problems I.L. Babich wrote: “Regeneration of the traditional ethnic forms of life in the Adighe nationalities has had the greatest effect on social life. The structural elements of social life, the socio-normative and etiquette-behavioral complexes associated with them, as well as the ethno-psychological precepts are currently up to date within the framework of the state ideology of most North Caucasian republics. In current Adighe reality, the social sphere is the main mechanism of intraethnic consolidation and integration uniting the group in terms of the cultural traits that are important to it. Attempts are being made to revive several traditional institutions, such as Khase (the traditional form of self-government of the Adighes) to replace the former rural Soviets, or traditional peacekeeping rules as a universal mechanism capable of establishing a civil and ethnic world in the North Caucasian region.”1
Seven years later another well-known expert on the Caucasus, academic V.V. Chernous from Rostov-on-the-Don, wrote in more critical tones about the sociocultural processes engulfing the Northern Caucasus. Touching on the same problems as I. Babich, he noted: “An archaic syndrome appeared in the Northern Caucasus, as in other societies, under crisis conditions and during disintegration processes, so-called regeneration of the complex of archaic phenomena, ideas, stereotypes, and standards of behavior, erosion and shrinking of the rational sphere, and the effect of an irrational and sensual-emotional perception of the social realm became stronger, and mythological thinking became reinforced (including the heroics of horsemanship, slave-selling, non-subordination to state power, and so on). This process appears at different levels and in different forms.”2
North Caucasian sociopolitical figures and academic social study experts provided numerous reasons for such assessments. For example, at a conference on Chechnia’s problems, a Chechen researcher said that under Dudaev “the strategic choice was clear—not to do away with, but to improve the old rules,”3 meaning the rules of traditional society. Another participant in the conference was convinced that for Chechen society “the social ideal is seen not in the future, but in the past.”4
1 I.L. Babich, “Vzaimodeystvie adygskikh traditsiy i etnopoliticheskikh izmeneniy na Severnom Kavkaze,” in: Filosofiia i sotsiologiia v Respublike Adygeia, Maykop, 1995, p. 4.
2 V.V. Chernous, “Sotsial’no-polititicheskiy protsess na iuge Rossii: ot vspyshki ksenofobii k regeneratsii etnokul’turnogo vzaimodeystviia i osoznaniia edinogo grazhdanstva,” Ksenofobiia na iuge Rossii. Iuzhno-rossiyskoe obozrenie (Rostov-on-the-Don), No. 6, 2002, p. 4.
3 Chechnia i Rossia: Obshchestva i gosudarstva, Moscow, 2002, p. 196.
4 Ibid., p. 332.
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The attempt to hypertrophy ethnocultural differences was criticized by well-known ethnologist V. Tishkov, who wrote in one of his works: “The frantic search for cultural uniqueness, ‘national’ characteristics and psychology, deep historical roots, ‘historical injustices,’ external enemies, and so on is leading to more prominent dividing lines among citizens of the same state.”5 From the academic’s viewpoint, “The Russian people have many more common cultural and historical values and social rules than differences among citizens due to their ethnic affiliation. The level of daily interaction of people within multiethnic communities and collectives (including family-kindred) is a degree higher than among the representatives of political and intellectual elites who cannot even say the words ‘Russian people’ and ‘Russian.’ And for them Chechens are, on the whole, an ethnographic relic with a certain military democracy, teip (family-tribal) organization, and adat and Shari‘a laws, even though Chechens today lived and continue to live according to the same Soviet and Russian laws and hold Russian passports, not wishing to exchange them for Maskhadov’s or any other kind.”6
Practice has indeed shown that the sociocultural differences among former “Soviet people” of different nationalities are hypertrophied in many cases. At the same time, it is presumed that the mass, but essentially perfunctory and superficial intent toward antiquity and its mythologization was natural.
Russia is a society with a fragmented culture. In addition to contemporary culture, it also preserves traditional culture. Its influence on the Northern Caucasus is especially great. The preservation of traditions here is explained by the fact that many ethnic groups of the Caucasus remained within the framework of traditional society for quite a long time. Revolutionary changes under conditions of socialism did not have radical consequences with respect to cultural traditions. The socialist changes in the Caucasus even seemed to conserve many forms of traditional culture.
Tradition and socialism agreed on the fact that the public (“suprahuman”) was higher than the personal (human) in confirming collectivist values, in strict adherence to moral precepts, and so on. The Northern Caucasus was drawn into industrialization to a lesser extent than many other regions. There was no mass exodus of rural residents to the city. Preservation of traditions was also promoted by wide use of the national languages and the impact of other mechanisms of sociocultural heritage.
At present, due to the transition to the market economy and democratization of the political sphere, as well as to the implantation of new cultural standards, the traditional Caucasian culture (like other traditional cultures) is being subjected to an endurance test. What should we do in this situation, how can we find a humane approach, and what should this humaneness consist of? Should we be shedding traditional culture, or restoring it, but in a new quality? Can this problem be formulated differently: is conscious destruction of traditional culture humane? This problem is not as simple as it may seem at first glance. On the one hand, public processes require raising the level of rational behavior and thinking to the detriment of conventionality, while on the other, the destruction of conventionality could lead to rationality itself losing its meaning.
Post-Soviet practice has already shown that a mechanical transfer of Western European and other cultural standards to Russian soil is far from always effective. This is explained by the specific nature of the Russian culture and the uniqueness of the Russian population’s mentality. In particular, the moods of “fleeing from freedom” (an expression coined by E. Fromm) to the protective shelter of the state and ruling elite have been transferred from traditional to contemporary societies. They do not correlate well with the demands required of a civil society and civilized market, or with the principles of democracy.
5 V. Tishkov, “Strategii protivodeystviia ekstremizmu,” Set’ etnologicheskogo monitoringa i rannego preduprezh-deniia konfliktov, Bulletin (Moscow), January-February 1999, p. 8.
6 Ibidem.
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Under the conditions of the systemic Russian crisis of the beginning of the 1990s, people began to return to the values of the “glorious past,” including to traditions. In essentially all the national regions, the need was declared at different levels to revive the national culture.
Neither then nor later were the Russian political elite or intellectuals able to offer society any sort of productive ideology that consolidated all layers of society and ethnic groups. After futile attempts to find a national idea “in correlation with the directives from above” (Boris Yeltsin’s times), such attempts were halted completely.
It stands to reason that any attempt to return to the past forms of sociality and conventionality was doomed to failure from the start (nor did the ancient philosophers doubt the futility of such attempts). Instead of returning to the “glorious past,” the Northern Caucasus, like other regions of Russia, encountered enormous economic, social, cultural, and other difficulties in post-Soviet times. Deindustrialization, the folding of the social safety net, and the loss of any kind of ideology, even those that had no remote resemblance to world ideologies, perhaps occurred with greater intensity here. Ethnicity proved to be the only para-ideological and spiritual-cultural anchor to which the individuals and ethnic groups left to the mercy of fate tried to cling.
At the same time, ethnicity, which was positioned in the center of the universe and not entirely successfully “furnished” in terms of the “revival of national cultures,” essentially meant not only a spontaneous striving for social order shifted toward archaism, but also confirmation of this order to some extent. In other words, archaism in certain spheres of social life promoted and continues to promote the streamlined organization of reality. For example, it is difficult to deny its streamlining effect in the domestic sphere and in small groups.
The archaism of social ties and relations could not help but have an effect on the activity of different organizations, on the form and content of their management. Ethnic solidarity as “organized and targeted friendship” also served as a basis for differentiating some of the commercial and noncommercial structures according to the ethnic principle. On the whole, small family-type enterprises that did not require highly qualified workers were formed on a monoethnic basis.
In addition, extremely modernized organizations existed and continue to exist which do not function efficiently on the basis of purely ethnic solidarity. These are primarily enterprises which rely on the professional rather than ethnic characteristics of their personnel to function efficiently. It should be said that contrary to the expectations of several sociologists and politicians, Islamic work ethics have not shown the required efficacy either. So the archaism of North Caucasian sociality was not all-encompassing and left room for modernized and even post-industrial organizations.
The more than ten years of reforms in the Northern Caucasus did not provide a clear answer to how this region would culturally evolve. Reality neither proved the “inevitability” of ethnic (religious and so on) particularism (isolationism) and a frontal conflict of values, nor the “inevitability” of liberal-democratic homogenization.
Different prophecies exist regarding the future of cultures and the organization of socioeconomic life. In a book published in the U.S. called Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, which aroused a great deal of interest and received positive responses, cultural anthropologist R. Schweder concedes three scenarios for the future: according to Francis Fukuyama (“the end of history”), according to Samuel Huntington (“the clash of civilizations”), and according to his own forecast, which the academic finds the most probable.
In our opinion, its essence boils down to the following. In the long term, two “castes” will develop: cosmopolitan liberals in the Center and local non-liberals. The two tiered world system will correlate to both elites. The global elite will recruit representatives from the most diverse ethnic groups and civilizations into its ranks, but other elites, which cannot deny the supremacy of the cosmopolitans but will not permit them to change the local non-liberal flavor of life to suit themselves, will rule in their homelands. Economic interpenetration (convergence) will become possible only providing it does not touch the deep or thick aspects of the local cultures. However, if globalization demands the
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transformation of the deep layers of local cultures, it will not be able to draw the latter into its orbit and will be rejected by them.7
As some authors believe, still one more macro hypothesis of the sociocultural evolution of the future, which directly interprets the mechanisms of cultural changes, is claiming its birthright. It contends that the universal unification of sociality does not come from globalization. Foreign cultural influence, no matter how global it may seem, does not lead to individuals passively perceiving and adopting foreign cultural morals, world outlook, and world understanding. Different societies react to foreign cultural global trends differently, ranging from resistance to other cultures to blind imitation of them. As ethnologist M. Sahlins aptly noted, societies use what is alien to them in order to “become greater than themselves.”8 In other words, globalization can only look like an all-encompassing process of acculturization on life’s surface. Essentially, however, local and regional cultures demonstrate the ability to “domesticate” global trends to suit their needs. The Adighes of traditional society were even able to adapt the world religions, first Christianity and then Islam, to the requirements of the life of traditional communities. Both the Adighe enlighteners of the 19th century and contemporary Adighe study experts wrote about these processes. For this very reason Western institutions (democracy, the parliamentary system, the market, and so on) assume extremely whimsical traits in these societies. So the fragility of local and regional cultures should not be overestimated. They are highly flexible and demonstrate great tenacity.
Despite the naive declarations and attempts to return to antiquity, the North Caucasian republics, during the deepest economic and social crises of the past decade, interference from outside forces, as well as failures of the federal center’s regional policy, have demonstrated amazing integration into the Russian sociopolitical space. As K.F. Dzamikhov, an academic from Kabardino-Balkaria, writes, “on the one hand, these special features were objectively formed throughout the whole course of previous history, while on the other, they are essentially irremovable and will retain their supremacy for the nationalities of the region and for Russia as a whole for the foreseeable future.”9 Authorized representative of the Russian President to the South Federal District, now professor at South-Russian University, V. Kazantsev said approximately the same thing in one of his speeches, stressing: “We need to get away from the mythologeme that the Caucasus is primordially conflict-prone due to its civilizational-cultural diversity and that North Caucasian peoples are supposedly incapable of peaceful coexistence and interaction.”10
And although the conflict potential of the Northern Caucasus due to its multi-confessionality and polyethnicity should not be underestimated, the main thing should be emphasized: the Caucasian region should not be mythologized by pedaling its conventionality or finding other principled civili-zational-cultural “insurmountable” differences.
Sociocultural Transformation Processes in the Ethnic Cultures of the Northern Caucasus
Globalization has become a real factor in the sociocultural transformations. It is giving rise to new problems not only in the economy and in the technological information structures, but also in culture. What is happening to culture? Is it becoming archaic, global, or something else? The research studies of recent years provide answers to these and other similar questions.
7 See: Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, ed. by L.E. Harrison, S.P. Huntington, Basic Books, New York, 2000, pp. 169-171.
J. Breidenbach, I. Zukrigl, “Cultural Battle or McWorld,” Deutschland, No. 3, June 2002.
K.F. Dzamikhov, Adygi i Rossia, Moscow, 2000, p. 148.
1 V.G. Kazantsev, Sotsial’naia i etnopoliticheskaia situatsiia v Iuzhnom regione Rossii, Rostov-on-the-Don, 2000.
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Ethnographic and sociological research studies show that the principles of everyday life (in the broadest sense of this word) which are being embodied by globalization—rationalization, standardization, availability, and predictability—are coming up against resistance from local and regional cultures. The studies of many sociologists who came to the conclusion that “the world is being Mac-Donaldized” were rejected. Habits and tastes do not always become the same due to the leveling effect of globalization. Studies show, for example, that outside the U.S., MacDonald’s was only perceived as a symbol of the American way of life in the beginning. It transpired that in East Asia the unwritten “fast food” rule does not work. And MacDonald’s positions itself as multi-cultural and does not claim to reduce the habits of its customers to the same level; on the contrary, it tries to take into account the special features of local cultures. Graphic examples: the company offers kosher food in Israel, and vegetarian dishes in India.
Of course, there is no reason to doubt that the global commodity and financial markets, the mass media, migration flows, and other phenomena related to globalization have led to the dramatic and intense interaction (“blending”) of different cultures and an intensive cultural exchange. In just the same way, there is no reason to doubt another obvious truth—globalization is indeed leading to the disappearance of customary traditional ways of life.
But it is also impossible to ignore that globalization is leading to the emergence of new forms of culture and ways of life. Thanks to the intensive movement of capital, goods, services, and ideas, local cultures are establishing all sorts of diverse relations among themselves and opening up to each other in the most unusual ways.
The differences between cultures are not perceived as insurmountable. Tolerance toward “aliens” is increasing. Often the boundary between “mine” and “yours” is hardly noticed or not noticed at all. A certain cultural patchwork quality and multiple identity are being seen not only at the level of individuals and individual families. These characteristics are increasingly becoming inherent in entire societies. In other words, new forms of culture and identity are emerging.
Some people think that during globalization any local (ethnic, regional) content is lost and such losses are irrecoverable. This is difficult to deny, just as it is difficult to deny that throughout human history different types of culture have left the planetary scene and certain images of the world have been replaced by others. Globalization has only accelerated this natural process of changes and losses.
But our world has not become less diverse. The new types of cultures are not impoverishing the diversity of lifestyles; new cultural forms are being created that are partially incorporating the old. For example, the Adighe culture preserves many elements of the traditional culture, particularly the moral-ethic imperative of “adygag’e.” The Adighe word “adygag’e” translates literally as “Adighism,” that is, a characteristic (proper and real) inherent in all Adighes, in all representatives of the ethnic group. This same word can be translated as “humaneness,” which shows the orientation of ethnic ethics toward universal values.
This phenomenon plays an important role in the people’s way of life, is a regulator of individual and group behavior, a basis for ethnic identification, and a factor of communication and socialization, which is confirmed by special sociological studies. It was revealed that following the imperatives of “adygag’e” (Adighism) forms the foundation of traditionalism, which has become part of the here and now. The imperatives we have analyzed are changing quickly, especially under the influence of globalization, but they are trying to manifest their “uniqueness” in the transforming world and reinforce the “we-they” antithesis in a symbolic form that is only of an external traditional nature.
The morphological and semantic traits of the Adighe culture could not help but have an influence on the mental capacities of the nationality bearing this culture. The preservation of the most important traditional origins in the sociocultural sphere led to domination in the subjective-motivational sphere of such characteristics as communitarism, corporativism, subordination of the interests of the individual to the interests of the group, adherence of each person to his own reference group, stricter understanding of hierarchy, and the imperatives of duty and obligations.
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On the other hand, the contemporary forms of culture could not help but bring about certain changes in the mentality of the Adighes. Their mental capabilities are being tested by such prevalent trends of world development as individualism and globalization. Some Adighes who ended up living outside their own region were forced to play according to the rules dictated by contemporaneity and preserve traditionalism, mainly in domestic life. For example, young people living or studying in a mixed (for instance, urban) setting manifest more variations in their behavior than young people from a uniform (village) setting, which follows the requirements of traditional etiquette. What is more, the behavior of the young generation can change depending on the surroundings in which it finds itself. In an unfamiliar place, where young people do not know anyone, they think that they do not have to follow the rules of etiquette. In their reference group, on the other hand, among their own people, relatives, parents, these rules are fully observed. Evidently the strict social control existing in the villages promotes this kind of behavior. In a mixed environment, particularly in large cities where people live according to the laws of “free” society (everyone looks out for himself/herself), young people learn “doublethink” and are guided by the rules of expediency, that is, they do what they consider to be of benefit to themselves and not to those around them.
This behavior by young people is difficult to evaluate within the framework of the customary explanatory model, when the behavioral culture of young people is perceived as a relatively static magnitude with a clear geographical boundary. Conceptual difficulties are related here to the fact that the geographical boundary indicating a local cultural area is in most cases incorrect with respect to interpreting the culture in this area, since the culture is extremely differentiated. For example, the predominant culture in a North Caucasian industrial city can be very different from the predominant forms of culture in the auls and stanitsas located close by. It is presumed that drawing up new explanatory models is related to a necessary shift in accent from the affirmation of the cultural monotony of the local area to affirmation of mixed cultures within the framework of one and the same area.
Contemporary German ethnologist U. Hannerz suggested using the term “creolization” to describe such processes, which he borrowed from the linguists. It was originally used to explain the linguistic processes of the nationalities of the Caribbean Basin, focusing attention on the mixing of the colonial with the African languages, which led to intensive processes of original word formations.
If we make an analogy with the sociocultural processes, we can say that the contemporary cultural diversity of regions is more the result of cultural interaction than of autonomous insularity. This view of culture makes it possible to interpret it not as a frozen magnitude localized in space, but as a very complex flow of interactions that permanently produces new sociocultural groups and relations. In so doing, a certain geographic paradox arises—geography loses its sociocultural meaning to a certain extent. Transnational cross-cultural communities form: programmers, artists, sociologists, the supporters of various religious trends, as well as any other social groups consolidated by idealized ties into a single “global village” are linked by the Internet or other forms of communication.
It would be an acceptable approximation to say that a multilayered culture arises. On the one hand, international legal acts (for example, the conception of human rights), the interrelation and interdependence of economies, the appearance of youth idols from among pop singers, sportsmen, and so on, promote the emergence of a world global culture; while on the other, within the latter, different positions and relations form. Cultural loci do not perceive global effects automatically. As a rule, they process the global effects, adapt them to their environment, and in so doing create new cultural forms that have nothing in common with the Western model.
In other words, the appearance of a new system of correlations—the global culture—does not make all people identical. The content of their lives, like the content of the lives of communities, do not automatically change under the influence of globalization. We can say that globalization has more of a structural than content significance. For example, certain ideas become global—human rights, organizations’ work principles, and so on, but they are implemented in extremely different ways in different regions. For example, in different regions of the world, the global idea of feminism encoun-
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ters very specific cultural resistance. And the participants of feministic movements themselves usually have quite a different understanding of what feminism is: Western feminism is one thing, Russian is something else, and feminism in Islamic and African countries is something else again. Global standardization proves to be powerless in this case.
Thus the global culture is not all-encompassing and all-absorbing. For most people, the global culture is not a state, but a certain potential that, while being realized, can take the shape of new unpredictable “creolized” cultural formations. Culture flows multiplying and intersecting in today’s globalized world will continue to give rise to a wide variety of sociocultural phenomena and local versions of cultures. Of course, it stands to reason that not one country in today’s world can seal itself off hermetically from foreign influences. But it is still not clear how global and regional culture will look in the future.
Methods of applied sociology make it possible to determine the specific state of today’s cultures and how they feel in light of the globalization processes. An interactive poll on this question was carried out which produced quite an interesting picture.
Ethnic Cultures in the Globalization Era: What Do the Results of an Internet Poll Tell Us?
Probing public opinion by means of a questionnaire on the Internet obviously does not fully correspond to the strict scientific requirements of sociological surveys. But a skillfully conducted Internet poll, like other interactive methods used by the mass media to gage public opinion, makes it possible to gain an understanding of the main points of view, precepts, preferences, and assessments. What is more, an Internet poll can be used as a search study for investigating how the questions, study logic, and other things known to sociologists work.
In our case, carrying out an Internet poll to assess the future of the cultures of numerically small peoples as globalization gains momentum made it possible to reveal some of the principal views. The poll was conducted by the Department of Philosophy and Sociology of the Adighe Republic Institute of Humanitarian Studies in 2006-2007. A total of 188 people responded to the questionnaire on the Internet. One hundred and eight of them were from Russia and 80 from foreign countries. The foreign respondents were mainly residents of Turkey, although there were some from Israel, the U.S., and other countries.
The views of the respondents from the Russian Federation and foreign countries were for the most part similar, they correlated with each other. For example, 52% of the total number thought that small cultures have a chance of preserving their uniqueness (identity), while the other 48% did not believe these cultures had this chance.
Nevertheless, in some cases, significant differences were noted. These were mostly recorded in the answers of Russians and foreigners to two questions. To the question: “How do you think small cultures feel under globalization conditions?” fourteen percent of Russians chose the response, “they adapt the global trends to their needs,” whereas twice as many foreigners (28%) picked this answer.
There was even more difference between the responses of Russians and foreigners to the question: “Do you think small cultures have a chance of preserving their identity in the future?” Seven percent of the Russian respondents answered “No,” while many more foreigners (23%) chose this response. There was not such a great difference between the respondents in their responses to the other questions, although sometimes they were quite significant. In the text below, the percentage of foreign respondents replying to certain questions is indicated in brackets.
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The poll showed that 60% (52%) of the respondents think that the ethnic cultures of numerically small peoples have the greatest chance of preserving their uniqueness under globalization conditions in domestic life. Most people believe that private and domestic life are the most reliable and almost the last bastions of ethnic cultures. The opinion of the respondents is confirmed in West European practice, where the domestic culture of the ethnic diasporas (Turks in Germany, Arabs in France, and so on) proved least of all affected by the foreign cultural (European) influence. Twenty-six percent (22%) of the respondents have little faith that the ethnic cultures of small nationalities can be preserved in domestic life either.
Approximately half of the respondents believe that traditional morals and ethics can be preserved. But even here every fifth Russian respondent (and approximately every fourth foreigner) gave a negative response, which shows the correlation between answers to the questions indicated above.
It is interesting that every fifth Russian (and every third foreigner) also thinks that under the conditions of globalization the ethnic institutions of hospitality are unlikely to be preserved. Even fewer respondents, a mere 6% (although 23% of the foreigners) believe that the institution of elders will be retained (in our opinion, it long exists only in theory, having turned, like many other social institutions, into an imitational pseudo-national structure).
The forecasts of the respondents regarding the prospects for the ethnic cultures of numerically small nationalities are contradictory. Approximately half believe that they are gradually disappearing, and one third of the respondents say directly that “their complete assimilation is more likely.”11 Although, on the whole, the forecasts of the respondents about the future of ethnic cultures are pessimistic, there are positive connotations in their responses. For example, a third of the respondents believes that globalization is promoting an increase in ethnic tolerance. Every fourth noted that internationalization of the mass media and, in particular, the wide dissemination of the Internet are opening up new possibilities for ethnic cultures, giving them the opportunity to declare themselves in the global mass media.
It also seems positive that only 3% (13%) of the respondents believe that the only way to save ethnic cultures is their self-isolation. The responses to the poll questions demonstrated another important feature—up to one third of the respondents could not answer certain questions. This can be explained by the fact that the poll topic—the influence of globalization on ethnic cultures—is extremely complex and arouses acute debate not only among ordinary people, but also in the expert community. Specialists professionally engaged in studying globalization are just as contradictory in their evaluations as ordinary people.
C o n c l u s i o n
When talking about the problems of the globalization of culture, it should be emphasized that the worries about sweeping cultural standardization cannot be sufficiently justified. Upon closer inspection, globalization is a dialectic process of integration and differentiation, universalization and particularization. And these trends are not mutually exclusive, rather they are complementary. Contemporary cultural processes, into which the Northern Caucasus, like the rest of the world, is being drawn, offer new possibilities and new risks. In so doing, reversing history or resorting to cultural self-isolation do not appear to be viable alternatives.
Available at [http/www/arigik.ru/socic/anketa.php], 29 January, 2008.
