NOTES ON A MULTICULTURALISM TALK

Arjun Appadurai, world renowned anthropologist, deals with the cultural dimensions of globalization in works such as "Modernity at Large" and "Fear of Small Numbers."

LINK TO THE KULTURHAUS in Berlin


TOO CLOSE & TOO FAR

-Yesterday's strangers are today's neighbor; the geography of daily life has changed.

We are becoming all at once too far and too close to each other in this increasingly global age;

TOO FAR

Increasing isolation (the growth of urban areas magnifies this) (NOT JUST THE INVIDIVIDUAL, GROUPS ARE ISOLATING THEMSELVES, but on the basis of what I ask)

TOO CLOSE

Today's global cultural flows have a curious inner-contradiction; the old barriers of ethnicity, nationalism, religion and other ****FUNDAMENTAL**** issues are impeding/slowing the development of common ground cultural flows (internet, art, jobs, etc.)

MULTICULTURALISM IS OUTDATED

Too 'soft' politically
Too weak intellectually

Multiculturalism has had recent value, historically; a benign (safe, soft) lens by which to discuss cross-border traffic in the neo-liberal economic framework (big market, aka western europe and THE US OF A)

MASS ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS (TERRORISM)
NATURAL DISASTERS
ECONOMIC DOWNTURN

All these things are tied in to the political, social and humanitarian issues that MULTICULTURALISM has never had a real answer for, in general offering nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders.

CONVIVIALITY

Living together in a way that is enriching in certain ways, while leaving certain key choices to the invididual. (UTOPIA?!?!) In the world we seek diversity is
encouraged,
sustained
and enhanced

DIALOGUE

Risks: No one can enter a dialogue without risk

The other party may not understand you; we try to be as inter-subjective (understand as much as possible the other side of the story) as possible, but there are always limitations and things that get lost in translation.

the other party may understand you all too well; one's ulterior motives, what your REAL preferences are (what makes you not them), prevent you from placing emphasis on the us.

A PROBLEM

Let's take a look at the series of binary oppositions (Christian and Muslim world, et. al) that rule our lives (itself in a binary opposition with death; the 1 0 boy-o! because1 + 0 = 1, this is the only math that I really fundamentally believe in):

-Religion
-Language
-Hometown

GLOBALISM FURTHER PLACES EMPHASIS ON SOCIETY's INTERNAL DIVISIONS

There are basic things that differentitate the me from you, things that are set in stone like the ten commandments; WE CAN't FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE AS HUMAN BEINGS, we are limited, fractured creatures. SO, THEN WHAT TO DISCUSS?!?!?!

-With CONVIVIALITY as a general end-goal for which the means of DIALOGUE are employed; we go about the act of compromise for the ever greater good (Feeling good, feeling great!)

BUT!

DIALOGUE MUST OCCUR WITH BOTH THE OTHER AND THE SELF (A duality of the invidividual HIGHER ORDER THINKING [let's take drugs!])

So, there must be a constant renewal of the self

Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations (ATTACHED); is a theory that the world is becoming more and more divided through a series of binary oppositions (IT WAS ALWAYS LIKE THIS, but with an increasingly connected world, there become more and more areas of polarization (HATE AND LOVE, this usually leads to violence, we're violent creatures; so, how do we fight through our anger, our embarrassment, our disappointment in ourselves; I PERSONALLY think it is through something beautiful that can allow you to leave the self temporarily. I can only achieve this through playing music, maybe by writing notes, these notes are pretty fucking good, huh? Must've been a good talk; I hope you don't need a translator to read this effectively.

WHAT ARE THE INTERNAL DEBATES?

THE RISKS OF DIALOGUE REAR THEIR UGLY HEADS

Selectivity; we don't share all our humanity all of the time.

URBAN POVERTY

60% of the world will be living in cities by some date that I didn't write down (speculation, doesn't mean toooo much to this boy-o)

THIS MEANS MORE AND MORE URBAN POOR AKA SLUMDWELLERS

COSMPOLITANISM FROM BELOW

-A compulsory (involuntary [produced without being provoked by an other]) kind of cosmopolitan culture comes from these slums ( you're seeing the transmission already from AMERICA's URBAN POOR to other's music and style (AKA BASEBALL HATS in Kreuzberg)

-Multi-lingual; poor people in places like India where there is extremely high linguistic diversity are finding common ground through the market, maybe.

1/2 of the World's Ubran population will be in these kinds of slums.

THEY accomplish this new shared global cosmopolitanism through the internet, the visibility of stars in movies, sports, etc.; it is without any of the economic benefits that allow traditional cosmopolitanism to develop, aka people like me who grow up because they come in to a little bit of money.

This means local more and more becomes global; a butterfly flapping it's wings in venezuela won't cause a tornado in West Texas, but this is all conected at something deeper I tell myself...

THE URBAN POOR ARE FASCINATING!

They are performing great experiments in dialogue (demonstrating the risks!)

WRAPPING UP

CHANGING IDEAS OF CITIZENSHIP

Building our society on conviviality and dialogue rather than territoriality.

A HARD ROAD TO HOPE

IF WE ARE TWO DISTINCT 'I's

ME You
I I

The common ground is what we're standing on (It's about the environment, dude. THERE IS A NEW CRISIS LOOMING IN THE INTERNET[what if it gets overpolluted and everyday people can't even use it properly, we gotta find a way to be more efficient with our usage of space; AM I A FUCKING HYPOCRITE, or AM I JUST ON MY WAY; I have hope...)

OUTKAST GHETTO MUSIK IS THE VIDEO VERSION OF THIS NOTES IF YOU'RE BORED

I miss YOU! Time is short, but LOVE IS BIG.


LOVE,

al

LISTEN TO THE TEN YEAR's AFTER SONG "GONNA RUN" it's been a personal favorite of mine for about 4 years now.