Commentary to: Redefining Sudden Contact.
This article was published in 2006, in a journal called Culture and Psychology. It was written by Caitlin Mahoney and Tiberiu Galis, both scholars at Clark University . This article is an argument to a prior article called: “Catastrophic Evolution, Culture and Diversity Management Policy,” written by Fathali M. Moghaddam, scholar from Georgetown University, in 2006 as well .
First of all, we need to delineate the concept stated by Professor Moghaddam in his prior paper. He argues that when in both the human and non-human environments when a specie (or kind of people) is suddenly exposed to absolutely different species. A common consequence is something called catastrophic evolution which is a rapid and often fatal decline in the numbers of a particular life form that does not have pre-adaptiveness and post-contact adaptation speed. Being more specific to the human scenario Moghadan states that: “Globalization leads to sudden contact, and that sudden contact, in turn, dictates selective extinction,” referring specifically to cultural interaction among people.
Mahoney and Galis argue that because of globalization that sudden contact (as defined by Moghaddam) is unlikely to occur in present day interactions. What the two scholars from Clark University are suggesting is to refine the definition made by Moghaddam. This refined definition states that: “sudden contact might prove a useful way of describing the interaction and re-negotiation between and within groups and individuals.”
The positive argument with regard sudden contact is based upon the fact that the phenomena is more likely to happen in the personal level of meaning making as is theorized by Valsiner. It is also consider that sudden contact becomes a dynamic interaction among individuals and cultures as long as it does not involves intentional annihilation of the individual as a physical being based on cultural attributes, as it happens in wars and discriminations based ethnicity (genocide).
Moghaddan suggests that through sudden contact with have a decline in the cultural diversity because the strongest will prevail among the weakest, as Darwin stated in his theory of Natural Evolution. On the other hand, the writers of this article suggest that the exact nature of globalization makes sudden contact an enhancer of diversity because it is true that some cultural characteristics may disappear, but at the same time some others will come out to replace them. This happens due to the fact that in a personal level people tend to identify with the culture of other individuals with whom these people interact.
We need to understand that cultures in general identify themselves as whole in relation with other cultures. Therefore, in order to have an “us” this culture has to have some conception of “not us.” As far Mahoney and Galis argue this is the biggest failure of Professor Moghaddan. Sudden contact should not be studied or analyzed in terms of interaction between cultural groups. They argue that sudden contact is more a cognitively process that occurs in the personal level. In which the concept of I-positions get into action. I-positions are formed by relationships and contrasts within the meaning making of an individual. In this manner we can establish that sudden contact is not the encounter of two different cultures, but it is a description of how our brains operate everyday when we encounter new ideas.
Sudden contact and catastrophic evolution are concepts that assume culture as a static identity among a group of people. In contrast, the scholars from Clark University see culture as fluid and ever-evolving. Meaning making is auto-regulated in the sense that each person acts in accord with the roles ascribed by society, these alter and prescribe our possible I-positions, and this in turn will alter society. This concept means that our cultural ascriptions (religion, language, and cultural groups) will be altered in the personal level through the interaction with people from other cultures, but not destroyed as catastrophic evolution suggests.
As a conclusion, sudden contact in light of one-to-one interactions is a positive phenomenon. As opposed to the theory that says that it will produce a catastrophic evolution. Sudden contact will not cause a decline in the cultural diversity in a society instead it will enhance it because it will enrich our knowledge of the world. An instance of this fact is the USA where we have the biggest diversity in the world, and still we have not seem the destruction of any cultural group whatsoever (except in the case of Native Americans that were intentionally annihilated). However, we can see among the people of this country a generalized panic because they feel threaten by people coming here with their cultures what they don’t see (and they won’t), is that in 50 years from now society will evolved in such a manner that even though some old cultural characteristic will be deleted others healthier and stronger will be here to replace them, thus there is not going to be a decline in diversity, but a transformation which cannot be stopped no matter how much we protest.

i just wrote this paper for my psychology class.
The last paragraph it's my personal opinion.
My opinion is don't be scared by the influx of new cultures, it's unavoidable and at the end it will bring more benefits.
Now I'm going to my class of civil litigation.
See you later guys.