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Global Culture, Local Cultures, and the Internet 315

Kritchai’s attempt to persuade SCT members to use Thai in their
posts amounts to nothing less than changing the whole face of the
group. However, he has a point. The level of English understanding
in the country is generally poor, and the language is not in wide-
spread use at all. Proficient users of the language are few compared
to the whole population. Thus, Kritchai apparently believes that if
Thai is used more in SCT, more Thais would be persuaded to join
and the ensuing discussions would be good for them.
Another reason in favor of using Thai in SCT concerns power re-
lation among different language speakers, as implicitly stated in
Kritchai’s post. Thais sometimes feel it unfair that they have to
communicate in a foreign language instead of their own; they often
feel inferior to native English speakers just because their English is
not as efficient at enabling them to talk as fast or to argue as effec-
tively as the natives. Using Thai in this context amounts to an em-
powering of non-English speakers so they feel confident enough and
less self-conscious enough to participate actively in the newsgroup.
Since English has never gained a foothold in the country except as a
foreign language, many Thais feel resistant to the idea of having to
talk in English on matters of themselves and their culture. They do
not feel that SCT is a forum about Thailand and its culture, but they
appear to feel that it is also for Thais and sometimes Thais only. In a
tight, close-knit culture such as the Thai one, such feelings are not
uncommon.

Internet as Globalizing Agent?

Let us return to our original questions. Does the Internet succeed in
turning all cultures of the world into one monolithic culture where
all the important beliefs and background assumptions are the
same? In one sense, it would appear so. When participants of widely
disparate cultures come to interact, what happens is that there
emerges a kind of culture which is devoid of historical backgrounds
that give each local culture its separate identity; it is, for example,
the culture of international conferences. The newly-emerging cul-
ture is comparable to piped music one hears in airports or in mod-
ern supermarkets; that is, it is shorn of its value, its role in a
people’s scheme of things. It plays no part in the ritual of a tradi-
tional culture. In short, it has become sanitized and modernized.
Let us call this kind of culture the “cosmopolitan” one. One aspect of