Never-smiling Land

As I was telling you about this book that I am reading, "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman, I have been thinking about the impact of globalisation on our daily lives. Other than the model of urban growth (where you could view the development of the world as a city), the impact of globalisation on our culture is something that cannot be treated lightly.

George Ritzer argued that our societies are being transformed by a process he labeled "McDonaldization" - the principles of the fast-food restaurant have influenced other social aspects, such as our family, politics, education, travel, and leisure (ie, our culture because a cultural system consists of all those, and more). In his article of "The McDonaldization of Society", Ritzer argued that our society has become more efficient because we need to achieve the maximum in minimum cost (hence, fastfood), we are more predictable (franchised of McDonald's - they even standardize the number of sesame placed on the burger), we focus more on quantiy rather than quality (Friedman described how a franchisee of McDonald's in USA outsourced the drive-thru order to cut down on customers' waiting time), and of course, the standardization of human being (think the robotic ways of greeting and serving over the counter).

The McDonaldization is becoming more prominent as our world becomes "flatter".

I can't help but link all these to our current"400 million smile campaign" . Think about Ritzer's arguments. Think about our society. I think along the way towards advancement and globalisation, we some how forget the more important aspect of our society - the humane part of it. We need more than just hardware or infrastructure or campaigns etc to create a gracious society because it has to come from the heart.

While we are "upgrading" our buses to make it more convenient to the wheel-chair bound, perhaps we also need to see how we can make our society a more forgiving and tolerant toward the less fortunate.

While we are spending millions of dollars to encourage people to smile, perhaps we also need to reflect on why we don't smile in the first place.

What are the factors toward social change again? Economical and political. Which has a great influence on our culture.

Is this the culture we want? Is this the society we want? While we eat at McDonald's, perhaps we should also talk to the aunties and uncles who work there and, you know, just talk, with no ultimate objectives.