Urbanization and Cultural Universals

In "Cosmopolitan Contamination," Kwame Appiah (94) asks the question "Do we need universals?" The question of universals becomes even more significant in the wake of globalization that has undermined distinctions or boundaries of nationalism, culture, geographic borders and governments. The challenge in such a consumer driven global culture, according to Appiah (xiii), is "to take minds and hearts formed over the long millennia of living in local troops and equip them with ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become." This analysis will discuss consumption and cosmopolitanism in relation to the evolution of the global tribe.

Terms like globalization and multiculturalism no longer adequately define the realm that has become the global tribe in modern society. Appiah (xiii) argues that while the meaning of cosmopolitan is often disputed, it is a view that sees all the cultures and inhabitants of the earth "as so many branches of a single family, and the universe a

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Category: Literature - U