One Hundred Per Cent American Culture And Internationalism

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In this paper, drawing intensively from Clifford’s Traveling Cultures, Linton’s One Hundred Per Cent American, Derek Walcott’s Pantomime, and Miner’s Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, I will argue that, in the technologically advanced twenty-first century, while the international is indeed already on our plate and in our pocket, for it to be in our brains in the real sense – that is, for it to break free from the stranglehold of clichés and fixed ideas – we have to actively engage with it and continually update our understanding of it. We have to understand, like Clifford, that culture is a “work in progress”, which mutates, evolves, grows and recedes as geographical boundaries are blurred, as cultures travel and react with each other and new practices and thoughts emerge. But without a conscious appreciation and acknowledgement of it, we might as well be trapped in our small world-views. So, the ‘One Hundred Per Cent’ American described in such a tongue-in-cheek way by Ralph Linton – who is constantly using products from around the world but is oblivious of the fact – is in no way the better for it because in his mind he is insularly, untouchably, American. Internationalism, is in danger of being reduced to a word that benignly and indistinguishably replicates itself in every large city of the world (same malls, same food-chains; same designer brands). Its sole purpose is to make the unfamiliar, familiar; to classify with easy and a somewhat facile understanding, the motivations and beliefs of all ethnicities and cultures around us. To understand and appreciate multiculturalism we have to alter our way of viewing and generalizing about the world. And to question the very basis on which we weigh and judge alien cultures.

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...n the strength of exciting new cuisines; in Latin American, Asian and African countries it has done this first through colonization and the spread of the English language and then through economic hegemony and cultural domination. Technology and an exponential increase in tourism between all countries has further levelled the world. The world is flat like never before; the danger is that flat could mean dull, homogenized and monochrome. “Multi- cultural” must not be reduced to mean some more stalls in a food court. The differences in culture, among people must be acknowledged as real, fluid, evolving and ever-shifting; this difference can best be understood in world literature and film. Internationalism should not just be about bonding on what’s similar, but appreciating what’s not. The world in a grain of sand must not become the same world stamped on every grain.