Your piece is a virtually flawless introduction to social issues brought on by globalization and technology and the philosophical commentary on them, and a springboard for well-framed further discussion of the issues and commentary, as well as going to the next level of issues and their commentary. It’s great seeing Dewey, Heidegger and McLuhan included in one paragraph. I admire the way you put a clear view of the fallout of colonial/post-colonial history on the table without re-litigating it, letting the facts speak for themselves.

Living somewhat deep in Silicon Valley, I see globalization and technology producing effects Appiah envisions. First- and second-generation Asians have played the Silicon Valley game and won. There is social harmony (like in sports) because everyone is playing the same game, and everyone admires honest achievement—they don’t let other issues come between them.

In that context, I helped support programs for these Asians’ kids to learn, experience and celebrate their parents’ or grandparents’ cultural arts the way, if I were living abroad, I might want my kids to sing “take me out to the ballgame” during the 7th-inning stretch, hear the “Star-Spangled Banner” at a fireworks show, or to perform in a first-Thanksgiving reenactment play for homesick grandparents. I think people are wrong to fear being “assimilated” by the Borg of the globalization/technology “elite” when this is the cosmopolitanism it can produce. Unless we are to turn back the clock, these cosmopolitan principles have a lot to offer in the world we live in now.