Globalization and Contamination

Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto; "I am human: nothing human is alien to me."

In “The Case for Contamination,” Kwame Anthony Appiah, a Ghanian-American cultural theorist, argues for the importance of cultural diversity that occurs as a result of globalization. As a liberal pluralist, he takes a cosmopolitan view of culture, meaning that he sees the mixing of different cultures as inevitable, eternal, and overall beneficial. Instead of globalization creating a homogenous world culture based on Western consumerism as UNESCO and others trying to maintain cultural purity would claim, it instead emphasizes the idea that we are all “citizens of the world” and subject to a basic universal moral code focusing on the importance of individual freedom and tolerance. National and cultural boundaries are irrelevant in the pursuit of a larger system of “tenable global ethics” (sect 6, par 4) which will balance diversity and freedom.

In the first section, Appiah illustrates how globalization has led to a great deal of cultural diversity in Kumsai and contrasts this “big, polyglot, diverse world of the city” (sect 1, par 10) with the nearby smaller villages that he feels are “fairly monocultural” (sect 1, par 10). He argues that the influx of globalized ideas of technology, medicine, and education, into these villages as beneficial for the individuals of the society, and such positive gains far outweigh any perceived loss of cultural difference. He argues that such cultures are “rapidly inventing new forms of difference: new hairstyles, new slang, even, from time to time, new religions. No one could say that the world’s villages are becoming anything like the same” (sect 1, par 11). This emphasis on the fact that cultures do not remain static is related to the idea that “trying to find some primordially authentic culture can be like peeling an onion” (sect 2, par 5); since globalization has been occurring throughout history, no culture has ever remained completely isolated and distinct. He sees evolution as a defining trait of culture: “Cultures are made of continuities and changes and the identity of a society can survive through these changes. Societies without change aren’t authentic; they’re just dead” (sect 2, par 5). At the point where all cultures always have been and always will be mixtures, redefining norms of belief and behavior only strengthen cultural diversity. In naming this process he borrows from the playwright Publius Terentiues Afer the term “contamination,” in which all human ideals are intermingled.

-Though Appiah criticizes UNESCO and other cultural purists for treating people of non-western cultures as “empty vessels” who will blindly accept all Western values to which they are exposed, does he ever truly address the domination of Western consumer culture?

-Does globalization actually increase or decrease homogeneity? As cultures become less distinct, does this mean that they cease to exist? Are values actually lost as they are melded together? Does Appiah actually see cultures as ever having been distinct from one another? How does this interact with Ruth Benedict’s theories of culture?

-In describing neofundamentalist Muslim groups, does Appiah separate ideas of religion from culture? How would Eliot disagree with this distinction?

-Both cosmopolitans like Appiah and the neofundamentalists allow for tolerance as long as it abides under a certain moral code. As a pluralist, how can Appiah feel that the cosmopolitan view is superior?

-As all individuals are different, Appiah argues that a diversity of culture is the best way to achieve cultivation and happiness. Though the idea of culture as a cultivating process is shared by both theorists, how do Appiah and Matthew Arnold contradict?