L'imposizione di un'unica percezione della cultura è un pericolo, così come la necessità della libera interazione tra culture nazionali e culture "altre" nell'Europa del 21esimo secolo.
Questo articolo cerca di tracciare il quadro teorico delle questioni riguardanti le contaminazioni culturali dichiarando che c'è una sola risposta possibile alla domanda "culture or barbarity?"

European societies have not yet discovered ways to resist effectively to the new real “Leviathan” which is called “social globalisation”. In the name of globalisation, a whole construction of cultural values, connected to existing democratic rights concerning education, culture, even human relations, is being demolished all over Europe.

The perceive of this problem, met with increasing difficulties in controlling in the strictly national framework marks out a matter of great ideological tension. The national state protected in a neurotic way its “cultural boundaries” and special way of living -mainly against American cultural imperialism-, but now days these same boundaries are questionable due to the globalisation of mass media. The individual feels threatened because of the heavy images and information bombardment and its consequent inability to influence them.

Public universal spheres without cyber roots are thus being formed through mass electronic communication -for example, information exchange through Internet-, resulting in the marginalisation of national cultures in the universal village, which have no substantial influence on the modern way of living. Therefore the public conscience is not cosmopolitan but is subjected to an irreversible fragmentation.
The individual, having a humanistic perceive about life, is threatened by the conscience fragmentation caused by global systems and networks, as well as by their autonomous function, which cannot be influenced.

This dangerous development causes ideological reactions. On the one hand there is the retrogressive reaction of those who persist in the idea of the national state without recognising its ability to practice a desperate cultural control and its attempt to maintain its own way of living. On the other hand there is the hasty reaction of those who accept the complete retreat occurring in the native cultural model, in the national culture, in favour of self-regulatory model as a new behaviour model.
Therefore, we can trace the perspective of societies without ideology and national identity, which tend to release increasingly the citizens from the social solidarity moral, leaving them to untegulatory development of networks and systems, which flow without boundaries.

The absence of supranational, multicultural references, able to inspire a humanistic way of perceive and change of the world, is considered as a lack. We gradually become conscious of our real union in a “restricted community” without the chance to escape.

The ideal of a universal social balance, i.e. the inspired approach perspective of the social - cultural levels in the framework of a new cultural transnationalism and solidarity, is considered to be the only way-out.

Certain basic trackable characteristics, which mark out the importance of the cross-national cultural exchanges and define the indispensable, in advance demanded conditions presenting them with balance and equivalence are the following:

· The nation states have to accept -forming a new mentality and conscience for their citizens- the existence of different cultural origins and traditions in their interior, which must not be suppressed in the name of a uniform perceive about culture.

· The process of this new perceive formation requires all the necessary measures in the interior which encourage and effectively support the cultural diversities, offering them the same changes and the right of a free access to all official institutions (e.g. education), as well as removing the exclusion from the fields of the social - cultural life and action (e.g. tradition).

· Especially the economically developed countries should reject the supposed racial and cultural superiority feeling. They should also comprehend and assimilate the special characteristics of the minorities, which are marginalised due to social or economical reasons (e.g. fear for strangers, social and cultural racism, etc).

· The attempt of the states, as well as the social and political collectivities, to form a new cultural transnationalism and solidarity perceive creates automatically the need of a new way to use the technological media and systems, which is characterised by social control.

The use of knowledge and information by a sovereign elite, which does not take care of each political and cultural expediency, constitutes a historical retrogression, leading the mankind to a cultural Darwinism of obscure future and development.

The information and knowledge “breaking” and their free diffusion prove to be an imperative necessity.

The society we dream of can either be multiculturalistic and open-minded or be led to a new type of obscurantism. This is a bet that must be won.

Kostas Gasparinatos è un membro di MB+S Europe. La sua biografia può essere trovata nel sito www.mbseurope.org. Il suo indirizzo di email è: gaspar@mbseurope.org

Kostas Gasparinatos is MB+S Europe partner. His CV can be found at www.mbseurope.org. His email address is gaspar@mbseurope.org