Appiah was interviewed (http://wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/01022006) on Brian Lehrer's public radio call-in show Monday.
I heard it when it aired, & I thought later, when I read your posts, that Appiah addressed some of the criticisms raised by your mother & in some of the replies. One of the main things I thought of while listening was smaller generalizations, like when kente cloth, which Appiah mentioned, became a symbol in the US of all things African, even though it came from 1 particular region of Africa. He also, as I think you included in 1 of your quotes from his column, spoke about how kente cloth itself wasn't "purely" African.
You spelled "cultural purism" perfectly in your earlier post. As for the other word, I think you've serendipitously combined "hegemony" & "homogeneity"--& thrown in "whole hog" for good measure! Makes a lot of sense, since those who exercise hegemony tend to see things as homogeneous & then to enforce that view on the people under their hegemony. And that's why the dominant group doesn't even see the homogenizing effects of their rule--they take it for granted that this is how things are & should be.
I'm 1 of the few who still don't have a cell phone. I don't think it matters that much where they originated. Globalization doesn't have to come from just 1 source; spheres (heh) of influence can overlap & affect each other. There's even some homogenization going the other way--I've heard that a major reason so many US movies are "action" movies is to increase foreign distribution, because less translation is required ('cause of the less dialogue, & violence needs no translation).
In Serenity, I don't think Joss was promoting meddling. Maybe he was ascribing too much to 1 side, defining it as meddling when the Alliance did it but not when Mal's crew did. But the Alliance was trying to control behavior. The crew wasn't. They might have been imposing knowledge, but those who heard it could turn off the news if they wanted to, or go into denial about it. How they reacted to the info was up to them. They were free to make up their own minds about it & decide what they wanted to do (or not) about it. Before Mal et al. put the info out there, they didn't even know there was something to know or not know about. So is the only choice to have those in charge meddle or those opposing them? Are the only possible responses to meddling either to sit & take it or to do your own meddling? Those sound just as black-&-white as the viewpoints you're trying to avoid. And I don't think the only other options fall along a grayscale tightrope between them. Maybe that tightrope is only a line painted on the floor, & you could walk in other directions w/all sorts of color combinations. I wonder, is it that homogeneous hegemony that makes us tend to see such limited possibilities? If we're always looking through the same lens, walking the same line, it's hard to lift our eyes & look around at what else is out there.
On a few other things you mentioned: Yes, "My LJ" is new. The LJ people listed it among a lot of new features in a message that...you've probably seen by now ("State of the Goat 2006"). I haven't checked it out myself. Seems like a lot of people assumed it was there all along. I only realized it was new because I'm not logged in permanently, & they added a link to "My LJ" to the login page.
I agree w/you & oyceter about how we fall back into old patterns w/the people we grew up with. They probably do the same w/us; I wonder what they're like when we aren't there? Come to think of it, this links back to what you said about the urge to classify people. We tend to see people as we "knew them when," & it's very hard to change our view of them. So we react to them as if they were still how they used to be even though they aren't anymore, & they do the same, & the way we react is probably the way we acted w/them back then, even if it's not the way we usually act now w/other people. And there's sort of a feedback effect as each person's actions & words influence the other's.
Finally, as your mom says, we all want a perfect world. But I think everyone's idea of perfect is different, so....
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I heard it when it aired, & I thought later, when I read your posts, that Appiah addressed some of the criticisms raised by your mother & in some of the replies. One of the main things I thought of while listening was smaller generalizations, like when kente cloth, which Appiah mentioned, became a symbol in the US of all things African, even though it came from 1 particular region of Africa. He also, as I think you included in 1 of your quotes from his column, spoke about how kente cloth itself wasn't "purely" African.
You spelled "cultural purism" perfectly in your earlier post. As for the other word, I think you've serendipitously combined "hegemony" & "homogeneity"--& thrown in "whole hog" for good measure! Makes a lot of sense, since those who exercise hegemony tend to see things as homogeneous & then to enforce that view on the people under their hegemony. And that's why the dominant group doesn't even see the homogenizing effects of their rule--they take it for granted that this is how things are & should be.
I'm 1 of the few who still don't have a cell phone. I don't think it matters that much where they originated. Globalization doesn't have to come from just 1 source; spheres (heh) of influence can overlap & affect each other. There's even some homogenization going the other way--I've heard that a major reason so many US movies are "action" movies is to increase foreign distribution, because less translation is required ('cause of the less dialogue, & violence needs no translation).
In Serenity, I don't think Joss was promoting meddling. Maybe he was ascribing too much to 1 side, defining it as meddling when the Alliance did it but not when Mal's crew did. But the Alliance was trying to control behavior. The crew wasn't. They might have been imposing knowledge, but those who heard it could turn off the news if they wanted to, or go into denial about it. How they reacted to the info was up to them. They were free to make up their own minds about it & decide what they wanted to do (or not) about it. Before Mal et al. put the info out there, they didn't even know there was something to know or not know about. So is the only choice to have those in charge meddle or those opposing them? Are the only possible responses to meddling either to sit & take it or to do your own meddling? Those sound just as black-&-white as the viewpoints you're trying to avoid. And I don't think the only other options fall along a grayscale tightrope between them. Maybe that tightrope is only a line painted on the floor, & you could walk in other directions w/all sorts of color combinations. I wonder, is it that homogeneous hegemony that makes us tend to see such limited possibilities? If we're always looking through the same lens, walking the same line, it's hard to lift our eyes & look around at what else is out there.
On a few other things you mentioned: Yes, "My LJ" is new. The LJ people listed it among a lot of new features in a message that...you've probably seen by now ("State of the Goat 2006"). I haven't checked it out myself. Seems like a lot of people assumed it was there all along. I only realized it was new because I'm not logged in permanently, & they added a link to "My LJ" to the login page.
I agree w/you & oyceter about how we fall back into old patterns w/the people we grew up with. They probably do the same w/us; I wonder what they're like when we aren't there? Come to think of it, this links back to what you said about the urge to classify people. We tend to see people as we "knew them when," & it's very hard to change our view of them. So we react to them as if they were still how they used to be even though they aren't anymore, & they do the same, & the way we react is probably the way we acted w/them back then, even if it's not the way we usually act now w/other people. And there's sort of a feedback effect as each person's actions & words influence the other's.
Finally, as your mom says, we all want a perfect world. But I think everyone's idea of perfect is different, so....