mcdonalds and hellenism

i pass a mcdonald's everyday. it's on jamacha in between jamba juice and denny's. i haven't been inside it in years, but i see those golden arches everyday. when i go to school, i see another mcdonald's. i'm sure most people see a mcdonald's on their way to work or to school. mcdonald's has approximately 58 million customers a day, and has 31,000 locations around the world. there are mcdonald's in 119 countries. they have made 22.6 billion dollars since they have opened. everyone in my generation would be able to recognize ronald mcdonald. the reason i am spewing all this information out is not because i find mcdonald's as some evil corporation, or because i just watched 'super size me' and i think it has a good point on unhealthy eating in america. i find a more troubling fact in all of these statistics. americanization can be found everywhere. 

"do you know what they call a quarter pounder with cheese in france?... a royal with cheese." - vincent vega

back when alexander the great was conquering the world, he made every culture "greek". during this time when you saw the buddha he was shrouded in a toga, looking more like sacrates and less like siddhartha guatama. when you went into the city of alexandria (city in egypt) you wouldn't see plays based on the culture in egypt, but rather traditional plays from greece. everyone spoke the same language and everyone used the same currency. my point is that diverse culture was lost and globalization was in full effect. that time period is known as hellenism.

american culture can be found in almost every crevice of the globe. our american dream has become the dreams of other cultures. culture is diverse, but america can be seen around the world. capitalism is a philosophy that has taken over each continent. we are by no means the original capitalistic nation, but we promote it proudly. capitalism has done great things for our nation, but the truth is, at some point it will cause our demise. capitalism gives opportunity for greed, and greed, in history, has lead to the downfall of every single important empire. greece, rome, egypt, assyria, persia, ottoman, they all fell due to this fact. 

i am no way promoting some sort of socialism or communism, but we need to realize what we are. we are the rome of now. we are the modern greece. and like those before us, we will fall. the recession has proved that we are not at all invincible. i'm scared that our greed and need for american culture to be present across the globe is going to cause us to be a cautionary tale. i want to start embracing the importance of diverse culture. 

i know that this all sound preachy and lame, and "america bashing" but i am legitimately scared for us. and with the facts that we are behind many countries in education and domestic dominance, it makes my fears feel very real. we may not literally control the world, as far as owning their land, but it is obvious that our culture is everywhere. 

somewhere in france their is a person eating a royal with cheese and we are scrambling making sure our economy doesn't crash and that we don't lose our homes. we aren't exactly hellenistic, but we come as close as any modern civilization can, and that scares the hell out of me. "those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." let's stop making sure the ideology of capitialism is spreading through out the world, and let's fix what we got going on over here. before we know it china will be taking us over, and we will be left wondering, what the hell happened?