Mods and 'Raqers

(apologies for the single worst headline ever committed on H&R).

Via Arts & Letters Daily comes this interesting Time essay by Michael Elliott. Elliott argues that many observers get it wrong when they associate "modernity" with America." There are, he says, many paths to modernity and while Iraq and many other places must modernize, they needn't necessarily Americanize themselves.

A valid point and one that goes at Donald Rumsfeld's claim earlier this year that American "is truly the light of liberty and the hope of the world." Elliott's example of Crete, which he notes has modernized over the past few decades while not becoming an American manque, should warm the cockles of folks who worry about the coming global "monoculture."

Reason has been covering the cultural implications of globalization for some time now. Check out these pieces for analyses of how globalization doesn't necessarily mean American culture will dominate the planet like a Bond villain:

Tempest in a Coffeepot
Starbucks invades the world
Jackson Kuhl

We Aren't The World
American culture is not dominating the globe.
Charles Paul Freund

Really Creative Destruction
Economist Tyler Cowen argues for the cultural benefits of globalization.
Interviewed by Nick Gillespie