Cosmopolitan Culture Gaining Ground

Cosmopolitan culture has been flourishing in several fronts, impacting many aspects of human lives - both tangible and intangible. It has spurred cross-cultural waves, thereby turning them members of multicultural society. One aspect of cosmopolitan culture is the process of integration which widens space for inclusive cultural norms. Another critical aspect of it is: it also considers acute sensitivity of individual cultures.    

This phenomenon has encroached upon indigenous cultures. It has, though, enhanced process of cultural diversification. Identity of culture, its existence, and diversification determine how cultural integration process takes on as it is intrinsically embedded with identity.  In his epoch making book, Personal Identity and Self-Consciousness, Brian Garrett presents an original and comprehensive theory of persons- their nature, values, and self-consciousness. That is to say, culture, as an umbrella term, is conditioned by individual aspirations, values, and social and cultural consciousness. In the same vein, Michelle Foucault, the great thinker of twentieth century, has contended that culture is associated with power, ideology, and social realities. 

Cultural adaptation 

As soon as multicultural values get adopted in course of time, there could be constant wane on the values that identify minority groups and ethnicities.  In addition, globalisation and technology transfer entered pervasively in many societies that remained stagnant in past, paving ground for integration. Cosmopolitan and multicultural landscapes gradually came at the outreach of several people. We can take example of birth day and marriage anniversary systems in our societies as multicultural values. It means that societies and nations do not get enclosed with border, but they get widened with cultural transformation human interactions.

 In the modern open society, people have direct interactions no matter they existed in different socio cultural contexts.  Sometime ago, Martin Hedger had to say that societies do not end over wall, rather they begin from it and Greek and Jews proved it that way.  Cultural adaptations, thus, go through gradual process when people try to interact, share, and react in the healthy environment.  This process starts from tangible to intangible aspects of culture. However in some cases, one can have cultural shocks and may feel intimidated until one gets adjustment.      

Twenty first century, experts indicate, is the time of cultural rejuvenation.  In his famous book, The Location of Culture, Bhabha points out that cultural concept is on transformative stage because culture is nothing to do with land, people, and border, it is rather in human sentiments and psychic influence.  Against this backdrop, it is to note that, though, culture is not simple passing episodes of time; it has a deeper root in human civilization. In some cases, culture becomes so personal and radical to bring great disaster if it is handled carelessly.  

Some years ago, in a mixed community town in the United States, people decided to rename the town and they proposed it "Christmas Tree" and the non -Christians like Jews and other community people  raised the voice against the name because they  did not  feel  comfortable with  that name  because they  were not  celebrating Christmas. Again, they proposed the name "Holiday Tree" to encompass sentiment of the people as more inclusive. Nevertheless, it, too, did not work because the Christians did not feel easy with the name because they were living there for a long time and they feel deprived of their cultural patrimony.  

Cultural revolution is the basic foundation political transformation.  The Cultural Revolution in China under the leadership of Mao brought revolutionary changes. It was the landmark event in the formulation of political landscape in China. Similarly, the French Revolution also ushered in an epoch making change in the society, giving space for individualism and freedom. However, some cultural controversies have had devastating impact on the society. One such bitter example is the Civil War between Industrial North and Agrarian South in the US. 

In the post-modern context like our times, culture is a form of collective unconsciousness that people knowingly or unknowingly get associated with. At the same time, people belong to certain identities, ethnicities, clan, nationalities, and implicit belongingness that psychologists define in terms of the theory of collective unconsciousness. In Marxist point of view, culture is taken as formulation of mass consciousness towards dialectical conflict so as to pave class conflicts for resultant change in the society. This further impacts on production, capital formation, distribution and class formulation. Marx, further, highlighted that culture is an expression of consciousness directed towards changing institutional and political structures.   

National identity

Countries are now realising cultural importance to promote their heritage and cultural values as national identity to expand global influence.  Realising this need, many countries, including China, take culture as the forms to accelerate human actions and interactions.  Cultural exchange comes from different ways - it should not be exactly in the same traditional forms as many people took in the past. Microsoft is the business and cultural orientation which is impacting most of the academic and technological expansion in the world. Many linguists contend the views that British English and its syntactic structure is gone ever since the easy American English became popular. 

Culture, without doubt, may become the major element of bridging gap between and among countries, nationalities, and societies. We can take a simple example.  A large number of Indian people detest British rule in India and show their resentment that India would have made surpassing change had it not been British colony. However, not a single Indian would think of breaking the Victoria Memorial Park in Kolkata. In the modern time, we are talking many theories of democratic rights and participation. Multiculturalism, inclusion, participation are on the intellectual debates. They give basis for strength in diversity. In the same vein, the inclusive world will be only possible through cultural inclusiveness and understanding.

(The author is an assistant professor at R.R. Campus, Kathmandu.)