Totalizing criticisms might be made as empirical generalizations.
But such empirical claims are challengable either concerning their total coverage or concerning the absoluteness of their claim to cover every aspect of the places being criticized. Nor are the criticisms supported by sufficiently wide empirical consideration of the variety of places today.
Also, such claims often confuse the universality of systematic or economic effects with the local reinterpretation of meaning and norms. If we distinguish the two we find that systematic or economic effects (on resource distribution, for example) may indeed be present everywhere, but their impact on the meaning and norms for local places is determined through local reception. So it is illegitimate to conclude that the global forces are automatically forcing one meaning or one kind of place on everyone. McDonald's is not used in the same way or with the same meanings everywhere. (See Watson 1997)
(c) David Kolb, 1 August 2001