Branching Out Beneath The Canopy

In "The Cosmopolitan Canopy," Elijah Anderson expresses the importance of communicating in a way that modifies or supports ones' "folk ethnography."

"In these circumstances, people carry on their business but also engage in folk ethnography and formulate or find evidence for their folk theories about others with whom they share the public space"(21).

Folk ethnography entails "particularistic" and "localized ideologies" that are specific to each person or ethnic group(30). For instance, a person who is American might not bow out of respect when speaking to a business associate.

This observing of the behaviors of different people and forming an opinion about how they do things leads to "testing or substantiating stereotypes or prejudices, or, rarely, acknowledging something fundamentally new about the other," as well as an understanding of "how people are" and "how things work"(25, 22).

This is why the Cosmopolitan Canopy, a place in which people are interactively curious about one another is important in keeping the world going 'round.

I agree that the Cosmopolitan Canopy is important. Not only do we formulate the most efficient ways to live our lives by observing others, challenging ourselves socially under the great green leaves of the "Canopy" helps us to feel empathy and to understand how best to help others live their lives efficiently and effectively. None of us knows the truth about everything, so learning about the many existent diverse ways of living can keep us on the path to accomplishing our own goals, as well as the track of being healthily curious enough to enjoy the world we live in.