The Case for Contamination – New York Times
By Kwame Anthony Appiah

I call your attention to an opinion piece that appears in the Jan. 1, 2006 issue of The New York Times. In it, Appiah, a philosopher teaching at Princeton University, looks at culture, traditions, and “cultural imperialism” in a very useful way.

He writes that cultures are–and have always been–fluid to one extent or another. Whether it was Alexander the Great whose military ventures changed forever the cultures of Egypt and northern India or the spread of Christianity and Islam into regions already occupied by existing cultures, change is the only constant in the world.

He discusses the balance between tolerance and intolerance in societies, noting that absolutism in either direction is prone to trouble. Taking his own culture–one of several found in Ghana–as a starting point, Appiah describes how people take what they want from foreign messages… and that’s not necessarily the same as what the crafters of the message intended. People, he says, aren’t just blank slates open to revision by external factors.

He makes an error of fact in saying that homosexuality is a capital crime in Saudi Arabia, however. Neither homosexuality nor homosexual acts are, per se, capital crimes. Homosexual rape, however, as heterosexual rape, is a capital crime. That is, rape is the capital crime, no matter whom is being raped or who is doing the raping.

The most interesting part of this article, I think, is his view that cultural preservationists–as well as those who seek universal rights–have a lot of work left to do, more arguments to be made:

To say what, in principle, distinguishes the cosmopolitan from competing universalisms, we plainly need to go beyond talk of truth and tolerance. One distinctively cosmopolitan commitment is to pluralism. Cosmopolitans think that there are many values worth living by and that you cannot live by all of them. So we hope and expect that different people and different societies will embody different values. Another aspect of cosmopolitanism is what philosophers call fallibilism – the sense that our knowledge is imperfect, provisional, subject to revision in the face of new evidence.

The neofundamentalist conception of a global ummah, by contrast, admits of local variations – but only in matters that don’t matter. These counter-cosmopolitans, like many Christian fundamentalists, do think that there is one right way for all human beings to live; that all the differences must be in the details. If what concerns you is global homogeneity, then this utopia, not the world that capitalism is producing, is the one you should worry about. Still, the universalisms in the name of religion are hardly the only ones that invert the cosmopolitan creed. In the name of universal humanity, you can be the kind of Marxist, like Mao or Pol Pot, who wants to eradicate all religion, just as easily as you can be the Grand Inquisitor supervising an auto-da-fé. All of these men want everyone on their side, so we can share with them the vision in their mirror. “Indeed, I’m a trustworthy adviser to you,” Osama bin Laden said in a 2002 “message to the American people.” “I invite you to the happiness of this world and the hereafter and to escape your dry, miserable, materialistic life that is without soul. I invite you to Islam, that calls to follow of the path of Allah alone Who has no partners, the path which calls for justice and forbids oppression and crimes.” Join us, the counter-cosmopolitans say, and we will all be sisters and brothers. But each of them plans to trample on our differences – to trample us to death, if necessary – if we will not join them. Their motto might as well be the sardonic German saying Und willst du nicht mein Bruder sein, So schlag’ ich Dir den Schädel ein. (If you don’t want to be my brother, then I’ll smash your skull in.)

That liberal pluralists are hostile to certain authoritarian ways of life – that they’re intolerant of radical intolerance – is sometimes seen as kind of self-refutation. That’s a mistake: you can care about individual freedom and still understand that the contours of that freedom will vary considerably from place to place. But we might as well admit that a concern for individual freedom isn’t something that will appeal to every individual. In politics, including cultural politics, there are winners and losers – which is worth remembering when we think about international human rights treaties. When we seek to embody our concern for strangers in human rights law, and when we urge our government to enforce it, we are seeking to change the world of law in every nation on the planet. We have declared slavery a violation of international law. And, in so doing, we have committed ourselves, at a minimum, to the desirability of its eradication everywhere. This is no longer controversial in the capitals of the world. No one defends enslavement. But international treaties define slavery in ways that arguably include debt bondage, and debt bondage is a significant economic institution in parts of South Asia. I hold no brief for debt bondage. Still, we shouldn’t be surprised if people whose incomes and style of life depend upon it are angry.

It’s the same with the international movements to promote women’s equality. We know that many Islamists are deeply disturbed by the way Western men and women behave. We permit women to swim almost naked with strange men, which is our business, but it is hard to keep the news of these acts of immodesty from Muslim women and children or to protect Muslim men from the temptations they inevitably create. As the Internet extends its reach, it will get even harder, and their children, especially their girls, will be tempted to ask for these freedoms, too. Worse, they say, we are now trying to force our conception of how women and men should behave upon them. We speak of women’s rights. We make treaties enshrining these rights. And then we want their governments to enforce them.

Like many people in every nation, I support those treaties; I believe that women, like men, should have the vote, should be entitled to work outside their homes, should be protected from the physical abuse of men, including their fathers, brothers and husbands. But I also know that the changes these freedoms would bring will change the balance of power between men and women in everyday life. How do I know this? Because I have lived most of my adult life in the West as it has gone through just such a transition, and I know that the process is not yet complete.

Definitely take a look at the article, but hurry before it falls behind The Times‘ pay-wall in a week or so.