Culture and the New International Order

Given the extraordinary circumstances confronting us in a world profoundly unsettled by the advances of globalisation in all walks of life, and by the reactions provoked by this process, it may perhaps not be inappropriate to reflect upon how the growing interdependence among nations will affect cultural life. This interdependence is derived from the internationalisation of communications, the economy, ideas and technologies. A certain degree of perplexity and a number of prejudices surround this question. It may be worthwhile to dispel them. However, first of all it is essential to have a clear idea of what it is we are talking about when we utter the word 'culture'. For an anthropologist, this word, with its agrarian overtones, merely indicates a network of practices, ways, customs and beliefs comprising what is most representative of a particular people. This includes the language used by the inhabitants to communicate with each other, their food and the sports they play, and also their habits, gods, demons and every kind of ghost and spirit. But this conception of 'culture' is so vast that, because of its very all-inclusiveness, it turns out to be imprecise. Its boundaries are simply too vague. It may be more convenient to condense this notion of 'culture', restricting it exclusively to that spiritual dimension of human life where knowledge and beliefs ideas and myths merge into each other. This offers us a perspective that allows us to comprehend the world in a particular way, to take our place in it with a minimal degree of confidence and security, and to be able to relate to things and to our fellow human beings in a precise way. The further back we go in time, the fewer are the common denominators shared by cultures and the greater the specific characteristics that separate them and set them at odds. For this reason, in Antiquity, in that archipelago of self-absorbed, isolated islands that was the world, mistrust, hatred and war