Laudato Si on Lady Gaga, Walmart, and McDonalds as Global Cultural Kudzu

Many intensive forms of environmental exploitation and degradation not only exhaust the resources which provide local communities with their livelihood, but also undo the social structures which, for a long time, shaped cultural identity and their sense of the meaning of life and community. The disappearance of a culture can be just as serious, or even more serious, than the disappearance of a species of plant or animal. The imposition of a dominant lifestyle linked to a single form of production can be just as harmful as the altering of ecosystems.

Maori, Eskimos, and San people all wearing t-shirts with corporate logos and dreaming of singing “Like a Virgin” on TV are examples of cultures having their DNA overwritten by the virus of imperial first world culture.