Can we sell American values? Is it ethical?

I am currently taking an intercultural class and we had a controversial discussing whether you can sell American values. In your opinion, can you sell American values? Is that ethical? Here's my report in this issue.

A person can try to “sell American values” but at the end, they will not be successful. However, cultures can imitate American values if they seem interested. As an example, when the movie Titanic came out, Leo-mania fever started. Leonardo DiCaprio became one of the hottest and most talked about actors in the entertainment industry. A friend of ours went to Japan during the launch of Titanic and she said, the majority of the guys were coloring their hair and dressing like DiCaprio because they wanted to imitate the “American fashion” and they wanted to get all the girls. In this case, it seemed like Japan wanted to “borrow those trends.” Selling values, pressuring values also reminds me of the movie Bruno. A controversial movie about a German homosexual played by Sasha Boren Cohen that comes to America wanting to be part of the American fashion and entertainment industry. In one scene of the movie, he is with a pastor in Alabama learning the values and ways to be heterosexual. Of course, the scene it’s hilarious because of the way the actor is portraying everything but it makes you think, can you sell other values? Why pressure a person, in this case, culture to be more “American”? 

I believe it’s ethically wrong to “sell American values” to other cultures. It’s wrong to sell any values from another country to another society, period. I decided to listen to the whole podcast of “Shouting Across the Divide,” in the American Life segment. In the first act, shocked me when Cloe is in class and the teacher tells her if you don’t believe in Jesus you are going to hell. Number one that teacher should’ve been fired on the spot but number two, how egotistical and ethnocentric of her to try to change her beliefs. “It is clear that religion and culture are inextricably entwined…. Religion and civilization seem to have gone hand in hand in the evolution of human society to an extent that one could conclude that they are coequal and coterminous, ” (Samovar, pg. 105). We need to be more respectful and open minded to other cultures. Again, you can try to sell other values but you will not be successful.

Persuading cultures to be more American it’s a form of ethnocentrism. “People have great pride in their cultures; they must, because culture is their source of identity; they have difficulty understanding why others do not behave as they do, and assume that others would like to be them if they could,” (Samovar, pg.181). Cultures have been around for centuries, why try to change an entire population thought process?