I have previously thought of interdependence as a symbiotic relationship between communities and individuals within those communities. However, based on our recent conversation about the topic, I now think of interdependence as more similar to an extended family that all live under one roof in a collectivistic society. In such a household, each family member is related to each other in a different way. The ways they are related each other prompt different types of treatment and often, each family member also has a specific duty. All family members work together to ensure the function of the household and care of family members, however, depending on what the treatment and duties, some family members may be ‘better off’ or have better jobs/responsibilities than others. Overall, in such a system, anything that one family member does impacts all other family members to a certain degree. In a more global context, different communities would stand in the place of individual family members and everything that one community does affects all other communities.
My different relationships to things, people, communities and environments makes me a product of interdependence. Whether or not I am aware of it, all these things are working together to impact my personal experiences which in turn impact who I am as a person. For example, my relationships with my family members impact how I view myself within the family while my relationship with school impacts how I see myself as a person. Together, these two views, along with others such as my understanding of my cultural heritage, the area in which I grew up, etc., impacts who I am overall. In this way, who I am or how I perceive myself is dependent on my relationships with the different factors in the environment I grew up in and I, in turn, have likely impacted the same factors that have impacted me.
A human family indeed! Complete with the rich heritage of tradition, as well as dysfunction and embarassing secrets…
In today’s (Wed, June 3rd) reading Appiah will underline the importance of understanding culture ( and language) as changeable and entirely dynamic and in that view, resistant to easy categorization of ‘authentic’ or ‘real’. Your metaphor of the family works well in this light too, human relations in a family are deep, we behave in an almost unconscious, knowing way in our families where, as you say, we develop social norms.
So what happens when we break out of the family? All the new rules and ways are subject to scrutiny, a cross-cultural moment when values may clash, and like in families, Appiah defines ‘cosmopolitanism’ as a place where …”it does not require we come to an agreement”!