Kwame Anthony Appiah Summary

1165 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Technology's affect on culture

Kwame Anthony Appiah is a contemporary philosopher born in London. Although raised in the “Western” world, he comes from Ghanaian descent, making his life rich in culture. He presents a compelling argument in his piece “The Case for Contamination”. Appiah argues that we are living in a globalized world, and that while characteristics and ideas in society are changing, it does not necessarily mean that there is a loss of culture. His “case for contamination” preaches the notion that sometimes change is good, and that in order for us to thrive as a society, change is need and should be welcomed with grateful attitude.
Appiah starts of his piece of describing a traditional Ghanaian ceremony that Appiah states the world is unfamiliar with (unless of course, you are from Ghana). He describes the rich scenery that surrounds him and the buzzing of people as they await for the king. However, he notes that the scenario has changed: as the people wait for their king, they are talking on their cellphones, they are texting, and they are participating in millennial practices. He goes on to explain …show more content…

When I attended Sunday mass with my grandmother, the priest spoke of good versus evil...and then he spoke about bluetooth. He literally spent fifteen minutes talking about the bluetooth device in his car and used it in an analogy to preach his good versus evil sermon. Why? Because he knew that in order to get his message across, he had to deliver it in a way that the younger generation would understand, and although he used modern methods to get his message across, he still delivered the central idea that he wanted. This is what Appiah is arguing: in order to grow as a civilization we must accept change, but change does not mean that culture will be

Show More
Related

  • Making Conversation And The Primacy Of Practice By Kwame Anthony Appiah

    1274 Words  | 3 Pages

    There has been many discussions about how people try to fit in society, whether it is for music, interests in subjects, or even trying to fit in a specific culture. Groups and individuals seems to have a distinction among each other when it comes down to fitting in society and how they differ and have tensions among each other to conform to social norms. In “Making Conversation” and “The Primacy of Practice” by Kwame Anthony Appiah discusses how all cultures have similarities and differences but sometimes those differences are so different that they can not connect to another nation. Manuel Munoz in “Leave Your Name at the Border” argues how immigrants in a city are forced to act more societal and how it typically affects the diversity in

    Read More

  • Kwame Alexander The Crossover Essay

    1283 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Crossover by Kwame Alexander is about two twin basketball phenoms named Jordan (JB) and Josh Bell (Filthy/narrator), they will have their emotions tested by problems ranging between relationships and a loss in the family.

    Read More

  • The Case for Contamination by Kwame Anthony Appiah

    1113 Words  | 3 Pages

    Think of the term ‘globalization’. Your first thought may be of people from all corners of the Earth exchanging ideas, views, products, and so much more. Appiah introduces his article by describing a scene of a traditional Wednesday festival in the town of Kumasi. He allows the reader to visualize the traditions held by those in attendance, but begins his case by providing details of men on their cellphones and holding conversations on contemporary topics such as H.I.V/AIDS. When Appiah speaks of “contamination,” he highlights the way one culture is influenced by another accepting an exchange of ideas. In his article he asks, “why do people in these places sometimes feel that their identities are threatened?” (Appiah). This question raises a topic that is central to the unification of peoples’ ideals and cultures...

    Read More

  • Tradition and Ancestry in Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo

    2229 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the Western industrialized world, time is seen as a progression of events, the present building on the past as civilization becomes more "advanced." However, in the African conception of time, "the human being goes backward ...he is oriented toward the world of the ancestors, toward those who no longer belong to the world of the living" (Zahan 45). Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo problematizes the relationship between past and present. Rejecting both the ideas of "progress" and of strict adherence to tradition, he advocates instead improvisation--responding and adapting to immediacy without uprooting one's connections to the past.

    Read More

  • Appiah And Toure Summary

    553 Words  | 2 Pages

    Appiah and Toure’ both views are somewhat connected. In their work they mention things about the irony of how many races are today and also include postmodernism. In the work of Appiah he talks about how once people are given racial labels they are somewhat stuck to believe that they should act according to the labels they are given. According to Appiah “Once the racial label is applied to people, ideas about what it refers to, ideas that may be much less consensual than the application of the label, come to have their social effects. But they have not only social effects, but psychological ones as well; and they shape the ways people conceive of themselves and their projects. In particular, the label can operate to shape what I want to call ‘identification’: the process through which an individual intentionally shapes her projects including her plans for her own life and her conception of the good-by reference to available labels, available identities.”(44) Toure’ believes that people can break away from their labels and become something better, and that’s where black irony comes from.

    Read More

  • The Discussion Of Cultural Colonialism And Cultural Imperialism

    1307 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Cultural identity is not something that is easy to manipulate by acting on the mass media, nor does it seem to be much influenced by media culture. It survives and flourishes in many a form, and the general expansion of television, music and other media have added some widely (internationally) shared cultural elements without evidently diminishing the uniqueness of cultural experience in different nations, regional and localities of Europe” (McQuail, 2000, p. 237) Cultural imperialism thesis has also lead to many cultural protectionism policies, designed “to defend indigenous cultures against their corruption, pollution or destruction by foreign elements” (Morley,2006, p.36). Problems arise when trying to understand what is meant by foreign (and to who) and also when trying to examine and define the purity, originality and indigenousness of one’s culture that needs to be defended. Cultural imperialism tends to assume that the most countries from the global South had indigenous, pure and authentic cultures before the Western influence came along via transnational corporations. One could argue that this view tends to be a romanticized perspective of the Third World which disregards the complex relations between countries and their former colonial powers while also ignoring the fact that most cultures are hybrids. There is a problem with the inaccurate presumption that the phenomenon of cultural mixing is recent, when actually all cultures have, to certain extent, absorbed elements from another cultures through history. Therefore, the complexity of intercultural flows must be acknowledged, along with the ambivalence of their meaning when being brought into new

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of The Flight From Conversation

    967 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sherry Turkle’s article in The New York Times “The Flight From Conversation”, she disputes that we need to put down the technology and rehabilitate our ability to converse with other human beings because we are replacing deep relationships with actual people for casual encounters on technology. Turkle tries to convince young and middle age individuals who are so enthralled by the technology that they are losing the ability to communicate in a public setting. Sherry Turkle unsuccessfully persuades her audience to put down the technology and engage with others in public through her strong logos appeal that overpowers her weak logos and doesn’t reliably represent herself and her research.

    Read More

  • Cultural Differences In Things Fall Apart By Chinua Achebe

    960 Words  | 2 Pages

    Culture makes us who we are. Each individual has their own culture from their experiences in life and is developed from societal influences. The various cultures around the world influence us in different ways which we experience at least once in our lifetime. There are occasions, especially in history, where cultures clash with one another. For instance, the English colonization in Africa changed their culture. Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart, portrayed this change in the Igbo people’s society, especially through the character Okonkwo in the village of Umuofia; the introduction of Western ideas challenged him. In the novel Things Fall Apart, the author Chinua Achebe introduces to us Okonkwo whose character’s response to the

    Read More

  • The Illusion of Racial Identity

    3988 Words  | 8 Pages

    (7) Anthony Kwame Appiah, In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosphy of Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)

    Read More

  • Culture, Cultures, And Symbolism In Sub-Saharan Africa

    1235 Words  | 3 Pages

    In sub-Saharan Africa, thousands of languages, cultures, and geographical regions helped influence our African society. The ways in which we produce our artwork, spiritual ideals, and ritual performances are organic and raw. From the tropical regions of Congo and Ghana, to the arid regions of Mali; I pass through the global gateway into a domain where the Western world lost its roots and artistic imagination and grandeur. Africa appeals most to me for its ability to create a realm where the living, dead, and artistic ideals come into a single unit of tranquil philosophy.

    Read More

  • Kwame Anthony Appiah's Whose Culture Is It Anyway?

    905 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kwame Anthony Appiah argued that objects of cultural are of potential value to all human beings, holding an opinion of a universal ownership of cultural objects and the on-going appropriations underwritten by such claims. However, his support for pan-human ownership of cultural artifacts and cosmopolitanism are questionable. I sustain a “property” perspective on cultural artifacts and believe that the cosmopolitanism should be based on peace and development of humanity.

    Read More

  • Cultural Purity and the Refute of the Inevitable Momentum

    2714 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the introduction to “The Pure Products Go Crazy,” James Clifford offers a poem by William Carlos Williams about a housekeeper of his named Elsie. This girl is of mixed blood, with a divided common ancestry, and no real collective roots to trace. Williams begins to make the observation that this is the direction that the world is moving in, as Clifford puts it—“an inevitable momentum.” Clifford believes in that, “in an interconnected world, one is always to varying degrees, ‘inauthentic.’” In making this statement, Clifford is perhaps only partially accurate. In the western hemisphere, where Williams was located, perhaps it can be said directly that the influence of modern society has attributed to the lack of general ancestry, as one culture after another has blended with the next. Perhaps it can be said as well that, as Clifford puts it, “there seem no distant places left on the planet where the presence of ‘modern’ products, media, and power cannot be felt” (Clifford, 14). The intention of this paper is to contend first that there is essentially such a thing as “pure” culture, and contrary to Clifford’s belief, that there are “pure” unblended cultures that remain (while not altogether untouched by foreign influence), natural within themselves. It will be argued as well that the influence of modern society does not necessarily lead to a loss of cultural soundness itself, but rather that a presence of certain cultural practices within the respective cultures has attributed to the lasting “purity” of certain cultures. In this case, we will be discussing the cultures that exist in Haiti and Bali.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Anthropological Theorists Of Geertz

    1011 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this research I will discuss the anthropological theorists of Clifford Geertz and of Julian Steward in regards to their ideas of culture, the environment and specifics related to each theorist ideas such as meaning and behavior. A brief overview of their respective backgrounds will be given to frame the discussion and add context to Geertz and Stewards perspectives .Furthermore, this paper will connect the ways other theorists have influenced Geertz and Steward in shaping their own understanding of culture and theories related to culture. And ultimately compare and contrast the two perspectives to each other.

    Read More

  • Igbo Culture In Achebe's Things Fall Apart

    791 Words  | 2 Pages

    The constant change within the society is inevitable in every culture, ranging from traditional sense of social values to the law and condition of the land that people needs to obey by as time when on. And these changes within the culture can have significant impact on the perspective of the whole community and the mindset of an individual. We can see this in Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” as the old Igbo culture clashing with the Missionaries’s ideals from the western world that leads to the dividing of the two culture and create this social barrier between them as one culture would often contradict with the other. This changes unfold to the reader through the eyes of the main character of the story, Okonkwo.

    Read More

  • The Effects of Globalization on Music

    1786 Words  | 4 Pages

    Globalization is becoming one of the most controversial topics in today’s world. We see people arguing over the loss of a nation’s cultural identity, the terror of westernization, and the reign of cultural imperialism. Through topics such as these we explore the possibilities or the existence of hybridization of cultures and values, and what some feel is the exploitation of their heritage. One important aspect that is not explored is that such influences can also be more than just a burden and an overstepping of bounds. These factors can create an educational environment as well as a reaffirmation of one’s own culture.

    Read More

More about Kwame Anthony Appiah Summary

Open Document