Letters

Leonardo, Vol. 12, pp. 262-264. Pergamon Press Ltd. 1979. Printed in Great Britain. LETTERS Readers’comments are welcomed on texts published in Leonardo. The Editors reserve the right to shorten letters. Letters should be written in English or in French MIRROR-IMAGE CONFUSION (con!.) David R. Topper in his letter [Leonardo12,174 (1979)Jhas raised the interesting question of the confusion of vertical mirror images (e.g. 6 and 9) and its possiblerelation to the confusion of lateral mirror images (e.g. b and d). Vertical mirror images do tend tobeconfusedby animals, adults andchildren, aswediscuss elsewhere [I], but much less so than lateral mirror images. We have suggested [l] that vertical mirror images are treated as similar for the same reason as lateral mirror images: when vertical mirror images occur in the natural world, they too are usually aspects of the same object. (After all, an animal upside down is equivalent to the same animal right sideup.) However, it may be that lateral mirror image equivalence is primary, and vertical equivalence is derived from it through generalization, sincelateral mirror imagesare morecommon (e.g.astwo sidesof a bilaterally symmetrical organism or two viewsof a silhouette). Reference 1. M. H. Bornstein and C. G. Gross, Perceptual Similarity of Mirror Images in Infancy, Cognition 6, 89 (1978). C. G. Gross and M. Bornstein Dept. o f Psychology Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08540, U.S.A. ON THE MEANING OF THE TERM ‘COSMOPOLITAN’ I am delighted that you have thought to publish the paper by Jan L. Broeckx, On Teaching Aesthetics in Secondary Schools and Education for International Understanding [Leonardo 12, 60 (1979)]. It is filled with insights regarding education, the nurturing of aesthetic qualities and appreciation and international understanding. It is a refreshing change from the loose thinking and writing on these subjects (although the Unesco Recommendation on the teaching of peace and international understanding remains a major contribution to straightforward thinking). Broeckx is right to insist that the present reaction against domination in political and economic affairs be broadened to include a stand against ‘the imposition on mankind of the aesthetics of powerful nations’ (and joins the Chinese in the u s e of the term ‘hegemony’). In this regard, he speaks out against standardization and recommends an international understanding that is ‘cosmopolitan ’. Good. I understand what he means. But this recalls to my mind the amusing but time-consuming debate at a Unesco General Conference over the meaning of the term ‘cosmopolitan ’. The U.S.S.R. wanted to appropriate the term for the branding of Western (primarily U.S.A.) consumerism as an imperialistic threat to spread its standardized products, including television programs and cinema, all over the world. As so often happens at international conferences,language differences (and propagandistic motives) contributed to a steriledebate over origins and meanings of words. Thus, Broeckx’s point merits clarification. I accept that standardization contradicts creativity. But he raises questions when he says that ‘international understanding must be cosmopolitan ’ and then states: ‘The ultimate goal of international understanding for me is the provision of conditions of life through which each human group can learn to understand and appreciate other human groups, not because o f what they have in common, [italicssupplied]but because of what each of them may contribute to specifichuman expressivityand sensitivity’(p. 61). The latter part of this sentence is beautiful and needs to be remembered. But I suggest either that one drops the term ‘cosmopolitan’ or that one defines it tightly as a global attitude that is found or is at home everywherein the world. I doubt that one will find ‘international understanding’ in all places on this planet; certainly the approaches to such understanding will differ, that is, they will not be cosmopolitan or ‘common to the whole world’. One can, however, work for and hope to find a common global spirit of, as Broeckx puts it in his concluding appeal, ‘teaching the person to sympathize with the emotions and expressions of all humans who share with us a wonder of life and of the riches of this Earth’. John E. Fobes 729 Gimghoul Road Chapel Hill, NC 27514, U.S.A. I wish to thank John...