Cosmopolitanism Is As Much As Challenge as A Solution to the Problems or A Globalized World

“Let us take a crash course in diplomacy. I speak not of actual diplomats? mind you? though they could stand to learn as much as the fellow next door. We're talking here about a diplomacy for a new age? the—dare I use that tired cliché?—age of globalization. This diplomacy is essentially a set of principles for how to act and interact humanely in a world of six-and-a-half billion strangers? almost all of who will disagree with you about all sorts of hair-raising issues if given half the chance. This is serious stuff. I'm talking about the little disagreements that make the wheels of global society wobble and fall off and basically prove the essential discordance of life. Never mind world peace. If those pro-life Mormons in downtown San Jose can't even stand the sight of the lesbian Green Party couple in the flat upstairs? how can we ever expect peace and understanding to develop between people from entirely different countries and cultures?

This is precisely the conundrum that Princeton philosophy professor Kwame Anthony Appiah tackles in his latest book? Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. The issues raised are apt? the conflicts undeniable; Appiah challenges his readers to break down traditional boundaries of communication in order to achieve the kind of international understanding that the Greek Cynics first wrote about millennia earlier. In a global era? Appiah argues? all human beings are primarily fellow citizens of the world? not the terrorists or fundamentalists more commonly featured in today's newspapers. A future era of international understanding is certainly a worthy goal? yet the feasibility of Appiah's idealism is less clear. Racial? cultural? religious? and a million other disputes have always? and probably always will? plague mankind. What new solution could this philosopher possibly offer for us?

In a word: cosmopolitism.

Cosmopolitism is? quite literally? a set of moral standards for living in a global world. Appiah admits straight off that these standards will be difficult to meet? and perhaps even hard to comprehend. If mutual understanding between conflicting parties were easy to achieve? people wouldn't have such a hard time achieving it. Appiah believes that his philosophy of cosmopolitanism? if adopted? would usher in an age of greater understanding between all people? neighbors and international strangers alike. But Appiah is no preacher of free love and universal tolerance. That ...