http://arlenegoldbard.com/2005/10/21/making-the-world-safe-for-hollywood/ Purpose & pleasure. Aligned. Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:23:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://arlenegoldbard.com/2005/10/21/making-the-world-safe-for-hollywood/#comment-138 Arlene Goldbard » Blog Archive » Cultural Complexity Fri, 06 Jan 2006 20:36:36 +0000 http://new.arlenegoldbard.com/?p=120#comment-138 [...] But in his Times essay, Appiah elaborates an entire cultural policy based on nothing more than the individual’s right to make his own path by walking through the cultures of the world. On October 21, 2005, I wrote about UNESCO’s “Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions,” adopted the previous day by member states with only two no votes, one of which came from the United States. Appiah sets up a straw man to stand in for those who endorse the Convention. He calls them purists and compares their relationship to cultures under pressure from globalization to the anxious “assistant on the film set who’s supposed to check that the extras in a sword-and-sandals movie aren’t wearing wristwatches.” He says (without a shred of evidence) that those concerned to preserve cultures want to force people to “maintain their ‘authentic’ ways,” a goal I have never heard anyone espouse (and I am moderately well-informed on this subject). And he dismisses those who feel their own cultures are threatened by globalization as merely expressing discomfort with change: “[T]he world, their world, is changing, and some of them don’t like it.” [...] [...] But in his Times essay, Appiah elaborates an entire cultural policy based on nothing more than the individual’s right to make his own path by walking through the cultures of the world. On October 21, 2005, I wrote about UNESCO’s “Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions,” adopted the previous day by member states with only two no votes, one of which came from the United States. Appiah sets up a straw man to stand in for those who endorse the Convention. He calls them purists and compares their relationship to cultures under pressure from globalization to the anxious “assistant on the film set who’s supposed to check that the extras in a sword-and-sandals movie aren’t wearing wristwatches.” He says (without a shred of evidence) that those concerned to preserve cultures want to force people to “maintain their ‘authentic’ ways,” a goal I have never heard anyone espouse (and I am moderately well-informed on this subject). And he dismisses those who feel their own cultures are threatened by globalization as merely expressing discomfort with change: “[T]he world, their world, is changing, and some of them don’t like it.” [...]

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