What if we apply Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection to culture?

Often times I wonder  if the degradation of some cultures, the drowning out of ancient traditions, languages is just natural selection at work. The “Americanization” of the world as it were. Is it really the west forcing its culture on the East? Or is it the East craving the open,  free, individualistic culture of the West- propagated (willfully or naturally?) through technology.

It is definitely true that the superpowers of the world have a lot of influence, and in the past, in periods of colonization, and imperial  voyages the purpose was to specifically “westernize” and “civilize” the barbarian/savage people around the world.

But we are at least a hundred years after that period, and technologically we are millions of years ahead of that period.  The world isn’t as big as it was before. Travel is not a luxury unique to the rich, and a click of the mouse can open the world to you.

With this shrinking, it seems to me that the melding of cultures, the gradual merging of separate cultures into one world culture is just a natural progression.  And in this merging it is natural for the more popular, progress-friendly ideals to win out against the, archaic non-functional ideals to fade away.

Then i think about terrorism, and extremism. From the Islamic “Jihad” to skin heads, to all the ethnic conflicts in the world; the fight they are fighting is to save their culture, a culture that is losing the game of Natural Selection. Their laws are outdated, and are not in tune with the modern world of Facebook and YouTube. I know that sounds cliché, but when you think about it all they are fighting is change.

A natural selection of Culture. Survival of the fittest.