Western Culture Versus Modern Culture

Developing nations complain about the threats of "Western Culture" to their indigenous coultures. So for that matter do Francophone nations complain about the threats of Anglo culture to their French culture. I wonder whether they are confounding the cultural changes accompanying changes in economic bases of their society with changes due to adoption of foreign "memes" or cultural elements from the cultures which are more dominant in the global economy.

If a national culture changes due to longer life expectancy or in an attempt to improve health it will probably seek prototypes for those changes in other nations which have already improved health. That would seem to be an inescapable aspect of modernization. The issue would be whether the people involved chose the right memes from abroad and wether they adapted them appropriately to their own cultural matrix.

On the other hand, a generation of kids abandoning the musical traditions of their own culture to listen only to foreign popular music, especially if this it the result of dumping of CDs or domination of the local media by foreign music vendors. would seem to be a real intrusion of the foreign in local culture.

Of course, it is not always clear which memes should be adopted to make possible theircontribute to social and economic development, and which have little social nor economic value but simply debase existing culture.