Page 171 - CULTURE IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE

JAMES LULL

idea of cosmopolitanism also enters scientific discussions with considerable
metaphysical baggage. The cosmopolitan person should have a ‘global sense of
moral development’, according to Tomlinson, which can be realized through
positive actions such as exercising universal human rights in speci fic cases, or in
the co-operative solving of common environmental problems (Tomlinson
1999: 204, 69). Concluding his insightful and hopeful analysis of contemporary
globalization and culture, Tomlinson (1999) argues that there is room for uni-
versal themes and humanistically motivated behavior in the construction of
cosmopolitan cultural politics at the local level. Complex global connectivity,
he says, makes such progress possible.
However, as Tomlinson himself cautions, ‘there is no guarantee that the lift-
ing of general cultural horizons, the honing of semiotic skills, and the develop-
ment of hermeneutic sensibilities [such as that which comprises superculture
construction] will be followed by any necessary sense of responsibility for the
global totality’ (Tomlinson 1999: 202; insert mine). There are few social guaran-
tees of any kind in the Communication Age. While culture retains a vital
communal significance, and while contemporary communities can indeed
inspire positive social acts and help people develop shared understandings and
identities, the cultural networks and communities being formed today in many
respects are based mainly on convenience and pleasure. They re flect and pro-
mote individual wants and needs rather than a unified collective identity or
sense of well-being, such as more traditional manifestations of culture that are
anchored in territory and ethnicity are expected to do.
Indeed, as many commentators from academia and the popular media have
concluded, individualism and hedonism, not social responsibility and sacri fice,
seem to be the order of the day. If cosmopolitanism is at work, it appears to be
less an ecumenical cosmopolitanism associated with morality and global
responsibility, and more an ‘aesthetic cosmopolitanism’ (Lash and Urry
1994: 253), representing the desire of people to explore new cultural vistas for
personal reasons.
This does not mean, however, that the consumerism and aesthetic cosmo-
politanism of personal globalization should necessarily be confused or con-
flated with blind self-interest. Other caveats also apply. It must be clearly
understood, for instance, that not all the cultural choices people make have
positive consequences. The superculture is not just a global shopping cart
brimming with exotic cultural goodies; it can also represent a myriad of com-
promises influenced by the often harsh realities of socioeconomic location.
Moreover, the general transition of culture and cultural identity away from the
relatively collective and proximate toward the more individualized and medi-
ated does not suggest by any means that other cultural imaginings do not exist
or matter. For instance, people who struggle together for freedom, independ-
ence, or sheer recognition as collectivities often experience culture in powerful,
immediate, and proximate ways – at least in certain respects and at certain times
– that override all other cultural sensibilities and orientations, including the

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