Cultural Invasion or union?

One of the complaints that everyone has is that the West is encroaching the other cultures, and eroding the existing values. Examples often sited are McDonalds and Hollywood flicks. This supposedly covers food, entertainment and fashion sense; not to mention the sexual values. I really don't understand the argument that teenagers learn promiscuity because they see it on screens - wonder how our cousins the chimpanzees are promiscuous without the advantage of hollywood!

Anyway, there is a grain of truth in those complains, but only a small grain. True, McDonald's and other institutions have slowly captured the low end food market across the world. True, that Hollywood movies are setting standards (!) for entertainment.

What I am surprised at is how the cultural encroachments of one culture over the other are treated differently based on whether it is happening right now or whether it happened hundreds of years ago. When Alexander attacked Afghanistan and India, he left rulers in the areas he conqured. Two thousand years ago the local art changed. Greek symbols and styles made their way into different designs, architecture, art. I distinctly reading about it as cultural union, creating a new style "Gandhara style".

In posterity, we have the luxury of looking back, and applying the standards of beuty of our age to proclaim that Gandhara style was actually a good thing. But for the artisans who worked with the traditional designs it must have been a horrible time. You have a new foriegn government, that has its own idea of what is aesthetically pleasing (because they are used to the Greek culture) and funds the new architecture. The upper class, wanting to be in good books with the rulers, starts emulating them, and demanding newer design. Since the locals don't know how to produce them, they import cutting down on the local artisan's business. The culture trickles down to lower strata who want emulate the upper classes and demand diminishes further. A lot of local artisan die out, and the money is diverted to the Greek artisans. Only those who adopt survive. But any learning takes time. And the intervening times are tough.

Isn't that exactly what is happening right now in terms of food habits and movies? Pizzas, Burgers and Fried Chicken is new to many developing countries, and is thriving because the change in the taste of people due to need to emulate. This happens all the time. Then why do we consider what happened 2300 years ago as good thing vs what is happening today?

All cultures evolve, and the change is unbearable to some part of the population that is used to the good old ways. The key difference between 21st century and 3rd century BC is that we are living in the current one and somebody else lived in the 3rd century. Someone else suffered. We tend to look back on our ancestry and remember the good parts. We look at ourselves, and highlight the bad parts. Maybe 40th century anthropologists will dig up the records and say, gee, the global cultural unification took place, and look at us now - everyone is trying to assert their individuality by owning a restaurant that is designed to serve only themselves and their diverse little tastes. Things were so good back then!

We are kind of fickle that way.