ABSTRACT
This chapter explores contemporary expressions of openness by firstly outlining the structural and systemic conditions which make it such a relevant contemporary concept. It focuses on the enabling dimensions of contemporary openness, associated with various types of mobility and an ever-expanding global fluidity. The chapter analyses the dimensions of openness as they are observable in outlooks, practices and values of individuals. Two significant socio-cultural trends – historically unprecedented in terms of intensity and scope – contextualize and provide a structural, systemic basis for the current relevance of openness as a way of conceptualizing cosmopolitanization processes. Openness as a cultural outlook and practice is context and object dependent. People become not simply more or less open and cosmopolitan, but they reservedly deploy their cosmopolitan openness, thus allowing the reader to reconcile the frequently occurring gaps between people’s philosophical commitment to cosmopolitan openness and often parochial practices.
