Cosmopolitanism

“Cosmopolitanism isn’t hard work; repudiating it is.”

In this concise sentence, Appiah suggests that, in our world, it is more difficult to choose not to interact with those outside of own community than it is to pragmatically do so. He brings up the example of a group that intentionally separates from others, the Amish in the United States, and says that cosmopolitans will respect their right to do so. However, it has always been difficult in human history for a group to cut itself off, and it is even more difficult now.

“Depending on the circumstance, conversations across boundaries can be delightful, or just vexing: what they mainly are, though, is inevitable.”

Following Appiah’s introduction of his model of conversation, he emphasizes that on a planet with a booming population, interaction with those who are different from us will be difficult to avoid. Although he sometimes uses “conversation” as a metaphor, here he intentionally presents an image of conversation with diverse partners as a literal, personal interaction, something that can cause emotions like annoyance or delight.

“So perhaps, when it comes to morality, there is no singular truth. In that case, there’s no one shattered mirror; there are lots of mirrors, lots of moral truths, and we can at best agree to differ. Recall the words of Burton’s Haji Abdu: ‘There is no Good, there is no Bad; These be the whims of mortal will.’ Was he right?”

Appiah highlights the central metaphor of Chapter 1: the broken mirror, which he borrows from a purported translation of Arabic poetry by Sir Richard Burton (which, Appiah suggests, was more likely written by Burton himself). Appiah links the mirror to the notion of truth. He asks whether it might be the case that rather than having one truth that has been fractured, human societies always had their own versions of the truth that will not ever really be coordinated. This is, Appiah thinks, what Burton believed, but he asks rhetorically whether we must be satisfied with this understanding of right and wrong.

“For if relativism about ethics and morality were true, then, at the end of many discussions, we would have to end up saying, ‘From where I stand, I am right. From where you stand, you are right.’ And there would be nothing further to say. From our different perspectives, we would be living effectively in different worlds. And without a shared world, what is there to discuss?”

Appiah sums up his problem with relativism from a cosmopolitan perspective. He describes a hypothetical discussion that goes nowhere, with an imagined interlocutor who, recognizing that each party has a unique and equally valid truth, cannot think of anything else to say. Relativism does not offer any shared space for conversation to take place.

“What it’s reasonable for you to think, faced with a particular experience, depends on what ideas you already have.”

Appiah explains why even explanations that might seem irrational to outsiders (such as belief in witchcraft to the Asante) are rational to those who hold them. For the individual who holds an “irrational” belief, the facts will appear to support that belief as much as they do a “rational” one. This is one of the limits of the positivist confidence in facts and belief, Appiah argues.

“In the end, though, with facts as with values, nothing guarantees that we will be able to persuade everyone else of our view: this a constraint that cosmopolitans, like everyone else, must accept.”

Appiah, arguing against the positivist viewpoint, points out that when we have to persuade others of our beliefs based on the facts on the ground, we do not necessarily reach consensus. Two parties can look at the same facts, develop different theories, and fail to convince one another. For Appiah, this is important because it shows that facts are not somehow more worthy of conversation than values. It is possible to have conversation about both, and it is possible for that conversation not to reach agreement.

“You don’t need to leave home to have disagreements about questions of value.”

As he introduces Chapter 4, Appiah points out that moral disagreement is common not only across cultural boundaries but also within cultures. To illustrate this point, he uses several examples, including one of a crowd watching the film Million Dollar Baby and having diverse moral reactions to the film’s storyline. Appiah wants to establish that conflict about values is normal and human, not something to be feared.

“The idea behind the Golden Rule is that we should take other people’s interests seriously, take them into account. It suggests that we learn about other people’s situations, and then use our imaginations to walk a while in their moccasins. These are aims we cosmopolitans endorse. It’s just that we can’t claim that the way is easy.”

Appiah sums up his generally negative take on the Golden Rule, which he cites as the “most obvious candidate for a global ethical idea” (60), with roots in several world religions. The concept that you should do to others what you wish would be done to you (the positive form of the Golden Rule), or avoid doing to others what you would not wish done to you (the negative form), requires imagining another person’s point of view and considering what they might want or not want. However, it does not take into account complications like the other person holding drastically different wants than your own, even wants you find offensive. These are serious limitations in engaging with others.

“Americans share a willingness to be governed by the system set out in the U.S. Constitution. But that does not require anyone to agree to any particular claims or values.”

Appiah illustrates one of the central claims of Chapter 5: that people do not have to agree, entirely, on values or reasons to reach agreements on practices. In other words, so long as Americans agree that there should be certain rights protected in the Bill of Rights (Appiah uses the example of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion), then it does not matter as much why the rights should be protected. Three different Americans might have different reasons for supporting freedom of religion, but these reasons do not matter so long as they can agree on the practice.

“Conversation doesn’t have to lead to consensus about anything, especially not values; it’s enough that it helps people get used to one another.”

This is one of Appiah’s important statements on conversation. He does not want us to think of conversation as sitting down and convincing another party of our case with our well-reasoned arguments. According to Appiah, this is not how human beings change their minds. He sees conversation as a habit of “imaginative engagement” with someone else, perhaps across cultural boundaries, and asserts that engagement is worthwhile no matter what (85). It is good for everyone to engage with one another even if we do not always come to agreement.

“People in Ghana, people everywhere, buy and sell, read the papers, watch movies, sleep, go to church or mosque, laugh, marry, make love, commit adultery, go to funerals, die. Most of the time, once someone has translated the language you don’t know, or explained some little unfamiliar symbol or custom, you’ll have no more (and, of course, no less) trouble understanding why they do what they do than you do making sense of your neighbors back home.”

Using his own country of origin as an example (and following a description of attending a ceremony there), Appiah explains that even for people who are not from Ghana, a significant percentage of life there is essentially recognizable and understandable because it is just “humanly familiar” (94). He highlights that there are parts of human existence that are not so culturally particular that we cannot recognize them outside our own circles. There are some traits and tendencies that are universal in the sense that they are normal everywhere. These sorts of experiences are the “points of entry to cross cultural conversations” (97).

“But the great lesson of anthropology is that when the stranger is no longer imaginary, but real and present, sharing a human social life, you may like or dislike him, you may agree or disagree; but, if it is what you both want, you can make sense of each other in the end.”

At the end of Chapter 6, Appiah responds to the concern that human beings cannot care about abstract strangers the way they care about members of their own in-group. However, Appiah asserts that any “stranger” can share an identity with you, once you have learned what that identity is. By engaging in conversation with the stranger in real life, you create a connection with them that allows them to be comprehensible to you.

“What makes a cultural expression authentic, though? Are we to stop the importation of baseball caps into Vietnam, so that the Zao will continue with their colorful red headdresses? Why not ask the Zao? Shouldn’t the choice be theirs?”

In Chapter 7, Appiah expresses his problems with the “cultural preservation” argument. Those who worry about cultural preservation (and often cultural imperialism) claim that Western culture has been imposed globally, so that in places like Ghana, “authentic” cultural practices have been lost in favor of blue jeans and Coca-Cola. In this series of rhetorical questions, Appiah probes assumptions about what makes culture authentic and who gets to determine what culture is, using Vietnam as one example. He elaborates on this argument throughout Chapter 7 as he discusses his “contamination” ideal.

“Cultural purity is an oxymoron.”

In this pithy sentence, Appiah uses the concept of the oxymoron to make his point about contamination. He implies there is no such thing as a culture that can remain “pure” from contamination. Culture, by definition, gets mixed up and hybridized. Appiah thinks trying to keep cultures pure and unspoiled is misguided and futile, and he thinks cultures are stronger when they interact with others.

“When Nigerians claim a Nok sculpture as part of their patrimony, they are claiming for a nation whose boundaries are less than a century old, the works of a civilization more than two millennia ago, created by a people that no longer exists, and whose descendants we know nothing about. We don’t know whether Nok sculptures were commissioned by kings or commoners; we don’t know whether the people who made them and the people who paid for them thought of them as belonging to the kingdom, to a man, to a lineage, to the gods. One thing we know for sure, however, is that they didn’t make them for Nigeria.”

Appiah uses the example of Nok sculpture to illustrate some of the problems with the concept of cultural patrimony, the subject of his critique in Chapter 8. The doctrine of cultural patrimony is designed to keep outsiders from looting artifacts, and in sum, it states that art and historical objects belong to their culture of origin. Appiah argues that applying cultural patrimony to ancient cultures, like the Nok civilization, does not make sense. The Nok sculptures were created in what is now Nigeria but have little connection to Nigeria the modern state. We don’t know what the creators of the Nok art intended, but we know they didn’t know anything about modern Nigeria. Claiming Nigerian “ownership” over them seems strange and inappropriate.

“Talk of cultural patrimony ends up embracing the sort of hyper-stringent doctrine of property rights (property fundamentalism, Lawrence Lessig calls it) that we normally associate with international capital: the Disney Corporation, which would like to own Mickey Mouse in perpetuity. It’s just that the corporations that the patrimonialists favor are cultural groups.”

Continuing his critique of cultural patrimony, Appiah suggests that assuming a culture can “own” an aspect of culture, whether that be an artistic style, song, story, or image, is an extreme view of intellectual property. He compares this view of intellectual property to the one associated with international capital. A corporation like Disney would support intellectual property being stringently guarded because that would allow it to own the shape of Mickey Mouse’s ears forever, rather than allowing that shape to be part of culture at large. Appiah says that supporters of cultural patrimony would prefer cultural and ethnic groups be the owners of intellectual property in that rigid way.

“My people—human beings—made the Great Wall of China, the Chrysler Building, the Sistine Chapel: these things were made by creatures like me, through the exercise of skill and imagination. I do not have those skills, and my imagination spins different dreams. Nevertheless, that potential is also in me. The connection through a local identity is as imaginary as the connection through humanity. The Nigerian’s link to the Benin bronze, like mine, is a connection made in the imagination; but to say this isn’t to pronounce either of them unreal. They are among the realest connections that we have.”

Appiah makes his case that all humanity has some claim on great works of art regardless of their culture of origin. We can identify with the skill and imagination that it took to create a work—whether or not we possess that exact skill or form of imagination ourselves—because we recognize it as a human capacity. He admits that this identification is imaginary in the sense that it happens in our minds. But, he says, it is equally imaginary when someone identifies with a work for reasons of local identity, and he provides the example of a Nigerian and Benin bronze. He also says that despite having this imaginary quality, this kind of connection with art is “among the realest connections that we have” (135).

“Join us, the counter-cosmopolitans say, and we will all be sisters and brothers. But each of them plans to trample on our differences—to trample us to death, if necessary—if we will not join them.”

In this mock line of dialogue, Appiah characterizes the ideology of a form of counter-cosmopolitanism. He seeks to demonstrate that counter-cosmopolitans can share an interest in universalism—e.g., “we will all be sisters and brothers”—with cosmopolitans. For example, he points out that neofundmentalist religious groups are interested in sharing their faith globally, with everyone equally. Yet he also points out a key difference with cosmopolitanism: an unwillingness to respect difference and an insistence on uniformity (145).

“If cosmopolitanism is, in a slogan, universality plus difference, there is the possibility of another kind of enemy, one who rejects universality altogether. ‘Not everybody matters’ would be their slogan. The fact is, though, that, whatever may have been the case in the past, most people who say it now don’t really believe it.” 

Appiah provides a succinct formula for cosmopolitanism: “universality plus difference.” In discussing counter-cosmopolitanism, Appiah focuses primarily on groups that reject the “difference” half of the formula. In this quote, he acknowledges that there are groups that reject the “universality” half instead, that argue only one group or type of people matters. He provides the example of white supremacists or Nazis as a type of this sort of counter-cosmopolitan. However, Appiah believes that even those espousing the worst of this ideology are still compelled to provide reasons why they believe it; he asserts that feeling the need to justify their belief is a way of universalism sneaking in the back door, even if their reasons are poor (151-52).

“People have needs—health, food, shelter, education—that must be met if they are to lead decent lives. There are certain options that they ought to have: to seek sexual satisfaction with consenting partners; to have children if they wish to; to move from place to place; to express and share ideas; to help manage their societies; to exercise their imaginations. (These are options. People should also be free not to exercise them) And there are certain obstacles to a good life that ought not to be imposed upon them: needless pain, unwarranted contempt, the mutilation of their bodies.”

Appiah sums up what he takes to be basic human rights. Significantly, Appiah means more than simply having one’s basic needs met or protection from particular kinds of persecution. He categorizes his human entitlements as needs (that which we need to survive and live decently, like food and education), options (that which we could pursue if we want to, like writing our ideas down, being a leader, or having children), and obstacles to be avoided (that which could keep us from a good life).

“Accepting the nation-state means accepting that we have special responsibility for the life and justice of our own; but we still have to play our part in ensuring that all states respect the rights and meet the needs of their citizens.”

To ensure that people’s basic needs are met, Appiah believes we should rely on nation-states rather than a world government. He explains how looking to nation-states as responsible agents requires us to attend to local and international obligations. National governments must respond to their own citizens, but they also have to respond to a world community. This is an example of the partial cosmopolitanism Appiah claims for himself in the Introduction.

“[O]ur obligation is not to carry the whole burden alone. Each of us should do our fair share, but we cannot be required to do more.”

Appiah responds to Peter Unger’s argument, building off the work of Peter Singer, that the only good response to global poverty is for relatively affluent people to donate most of their wealth and possessions to organizations like UNICEF or OXFAM. Appiah believes that Unger’s argument does not take this constraint into account: We do not have to do it all ourselves. You do not have to take every self-sacrificing option, even if it would make the world a better place; you only need to do your “fair share.” Appiah admits that determining what your “fair share” entails is often easier said than done (164).

“Whatever my basic obligations are to the poor far away, they cannot be enough, I believe, to trump my concerns for my family, my friends, my country; nor can an argument that every life matters require me to be indifferent to the fact that one of those lives is mine.”

Appiah lists another constraint on our obligation to others: We have a bias toward ourselves and the people closest to us, and we cannot be asked to have the same feelings toward these lives as toward strangers. Appiah is making a psychological claim here. He does not think it is realistic to ask human beings to endure suffering for their family members, neighbors, or themselves, not even to prevent greater suffering for people they have never met.