Cosmopolitanism and national cultures do interact and coexist. The Japanese, for example, have engaged in deliberate, aggressive and selective cultural borrowing, followed by a Japanization or adaptation of foreign ideas and practices. Interaction and borrowing between civilizations and cultures have always taken place without eroding territorial integrity. The Chinese absorption of Buddhism from India has hardly challenged the Chinese cultural or territorial identity. Nor has the vibrancy of diasporic communities, in merging host and homeland cultural practices, proven to be a threat to the host culture.
Culture is dynamic by definition.
It is through acculturation and interaction that cultures continue to grow and adapt. Cultural adaptation and the ability to change is perhaps the greatest constant in allowing culture to thrive. The state may have less control over ideas and opportunities than it did in the past because information is becoming increasingly mobile. However, apart from an elite group of highly skilled professionals, undocumented migrant workers, desperately poor refugees and other displaced persons, the bulk of the world s population is not actively challenging territorial boundaries. Increasingly, the poor of the South are unwelcome in the North.