<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title> </head> <body> Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid0IXC00I7FX2VHB@jhuml3.jhu.edu"> <pre wrap="">Good observation, but it makes me wonder what is the cause and what is the effect. Is it that people moved to suburbia because they rejected cosmopolitanism, or they rejected cosmopolitanism because they moved to suburbia? I am inclined to think it is the latter. Aside my obvious preference for a materialistic model of behavior (the being determines consciousness thing), the flight to suburbia occurred at a high point of cosmopolitanism in the popular culture (cf. _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ which is explicit embracement of cosmopolitanism and a rejection of the home-grown folksiness). </pre> </blockquote> But wait the only thing they embraced about cosmoplitanism was the enhanced consumption patterns. But cosmopolitanism is more than just about getting Brie at your local supermarket chain; it's precisely about enjoying a diversity of cultures; it's about wanting to understand and learn from people who are different from you; it's about being interested in how diverse cultures evolve when differences are tolerated rather than repressed or excluded. <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid0IXC00I7FX2VHB@jhuml3.jhu.edu"> <pre wrap=""> In fact, social realism was a truly international style - itself a knock-off of the US architecture of the 1920s and a major Russian cultural export to its sphere of political influence (cf. this beauty <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.pkin.pl/">http://www.pkin.pl/</a> in the middle of what before WW2 used to be Warsaw's Jewish district). Furthermore, internationalism has always been emphasized in the Soviet media and "mass-culture" - foreign coverage was the central feature of evening news, representatives of friendly Third World countries frequently appeared on television, streets and institutions were named after foreign leaders and luminaries (cf. Patrice Lumumba street where my grandparents lived or the JH Pestalozzi High School where I got my secondary education).</pre> </blockquote> Yes, yes. And it was not an issue of consumption. <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid0IXC00I7FX2VHB@jhuml3.jhu.edu"> <pre wrap=""> In fact the US media are remarkably insular in their scope of coverage and intellectual perspective vis a vis the "communist" media I know from the other side of the iron curtain. </pre> </blockquote> Very true. Joanna </body> </html>