Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
Multiculturalism across political borders as we know it today is basically an offshoot of the British Empire and the Pax Americana hegemony that succeeded it.
I doubt that something of that reciprocal nature is ever the original intent of cultural imperialism (main goal = civilize the savages that are worth saving) but eventually if you're close enough to people for your culture to rub off on them, their culture will also rub off on you.
At this point I don't think that emerging superpowers like India or China are really interested in that type of stuff. Maybe I am wrong, though.
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Perhaps a lasting impact of Anglo-American continued dominance (including use of English as global lingua franca, Anglospheric social norms as world standards), even after the British Empire or even American dominance as largest economic power declines or if American exceptionalism is no longer the rule, is kind of like how long after the Roman Empire ceased to exist, and the Pax Romana ended, Roman influence shapes and defines much of western culture including Europe and Europe's offshoots in the New World -- law, political system, culture, religion, architecture etc. including of course how a good portion of the western world speaks Latin-derived Romance languages.
Multiculturalism is definitely not all one sided but still highly asymmetric as you said -- the colonizers' cultures interact with the colonized peoples, but the "high culture" is still the colonizers. It seems like there's definitely the colonized peoples' influence rubbing off in places like food (I mean that's what multiculturalism stereotypically evokes for people in places like Toronto, after all, hot and spicy food festivals and whatnot), music etc. (African-influence in African diaspora music genres like jazz, blues, reggae, hip hop), but language, political systems, the culture people are educated in etc. is far less influenced by the colonized. For example, Latin American culture might be a mix of native and Spanish/Portuguese influences, but the latter is stronger, Afro-Caribbean culture might be a mix of western and African culture, but it's clear which one historically dominated and continues to hold dominance.
Regarding India and China, most people only talk about their rise in terms of them being no longer poor, economically/militarily/geopolitically in low standing vis-à-vis the west etc. They're rising as powers but there's not much talk over whether their "soft power" can stand a chance in winning over westerners' preferences (the way western soft power, from western attire to western fast food, has won over them and other places). Well historically, I suppose these big civilizations, China and India did spread out and influence their neighbours, which is why Japan, Korea and Vietnam have (or used to have) Chinese-derived architecture, scripts and use chopsticks etc., or how India's linguistic influence (eg. Sanskrit) and its religions, Hinduism, Buddhism etc. did manage to spread to other parts of Asia. But obviously nothing like the globe-spanning empires of Britain, or France or Spain and the influence that they and Britain's in particular managed to capture.