Flatten the world

The crisis of culture and the dominance of rules and standards

Author: Olivier Roy

Identities versus universalism, gender versus sex, republicanism versus collectivism, racism, feminism, immigration... What these issues, with their powerful political implications, have in common is culture in every sense of the word. But here, Olivier Roy rejects the hypothesis of a "culture war" or a clash of values. What is in crisis, in his view, is the very concept of culture, which has been reduced to a system of globalized symbols that invade universities as well as kitchens, identity battles, religions as well as intimate relationships, and even our feelings, categorized by emojis.

It is indeed a global cultural abstraction that Rowa diagnoses and examines its contradictory mechanisms and effects: both the dominant and the dominated feel threatened and suffer, Globish and manga become imitations that destroy the richness of the English language and Japanese culture, and communication processes contribute to the creation of a “united future”...

A lively and critical book that raises concerns about our easy acquiescence to expanding norms.