The Case For Contamination
Brenda Lainez REL 2011
September 26, 2012 Assignment #1
The Case of Contamination The author, Kwame Anthony Appiah, starts the essay, The Case of Contamination, by describing the veranda of a palace in Ghana. His description paints a vivid picture of a place full of custom, color and tradition. However, he presents a contrast by describing that some of the people were dressed in western suits, sporting cell phones and having business meetings. This place is a mixture of tradition and innovation subsisting in one place. The author presents the arguments of globalization of the standpoint of cosmopolitans, the preservationist and the neo-fundamentalist stating also how religion plays a role in each. “Cosmopolitans take cultural difference seriously, because they take the choices individual people make seriously” (Appiah, 2). This has allowed for globalizations of many villages, the introduction of western civilization. The author presented an example of chocolate. Because of the globalization of chocolate, the villages of where the cocoa beans grow have been introduced to many things. Many in which have made their live better. They may have electricity and radios to keep with current events. Missionaries have come to those villages to introduce the inhabitants to Christianity. The people have adopted Christianity but have mixed it with their own rites. But because of globalization, Pentecostal missionaries have also arrived and have condemned the villagers of mixing their own rites with Christianity. Some like it and change, but others oppose. They feel threaten by the change. Everyone chooses what he or she wants and discards what he or she doesn’t. The author quoted John Stuart Mill, “But different persons also require different conditions for their spiritual development; and can no more exist healthily in the same moral, than all the variety of plants can exist in the same physical, atmosphere and climate. The same things which are helps to one
September 26, 2012 Assignment #1
The Case of Contamination The author, Kwame Anthony Appiah, starts the essay, The Case of Contamination, by describing the veranda of a palace in Ghana. His description paints a vivid picture of a place full of custom, color and tradition. However, he presents a contrast by describing that some of the people were dressed in western suits, sporting cell phones and having business meetings. This place is a mixture of tradition and innovation subsisting in one place. The author presents the arguments of globalization of the standpoint of cosmopolitans, the preservationist and the neo-fundamentalist stating also how religion plays a role in each. “Cosmopolitans take cultural difference seriously, because they take the choices individual people make seriously” (Appiah, 2). This has allowed for globalizations of many villages, the introduction of western civilization. The author presented an example of chocolate. Because of the globalization of chocolate, the villages of where the cocoa beans grow have been introduced to many things. Many in which have made their live better. They may have electricity and radios to keep with current events. Missionaries have come to those villages to introduce the inhabitants to Christianity. The people have adopted Christianity but have mixed it with their own rites. But because of globalization, Pentecostal missionaries have also arrived and have condemned the villagers of mixing their own rites with Christianity. Some like it and change, but others oppose. They feel threaten by the change. Everyone chooses what he or she wants and discards what he or she doesn’t. The author quoted John Stuart Mill, “But different persons also require different conditions for their spiritual development; and can no more exist healthily in the same moral, than all the variety of plants can exist in the same physical, atmosphere and climate. The same things which are helps to one