Cosmopolitanism - A response paper

Appiah (2006) notion of cosmopolitanism is the challenge to “take minds and hearts formed over the long millennia of living in local troops and equip them with ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become” (p. xiii). The notion combines two inter-related aspects. One is “the idea that we have obligations to others, obligations that stretch beyond those to whom we are related by the ties of kith and kin, or even the more formal ties of shared citizenship” (p. xv). The other is that “we take seriously the value not just of human life but of particular human lives, which means taking an interest in the practices and beliefs that lend them significance” (p. xv).??

To implement these ideas, I believe in current times in the United States we need to have an authentic culture of participatory democracy as explained by Wolin in his book Democracy Incorporated. Wolin (2008) explains that the current form of democracy in the United States does not promote a truly democratic culture. His analysis of Athenian democracy of how they promoted democracy and later their hunger to expand their empire is similar to the United States foreign policies to continue to have a strong footprint in as many countries as possible which goes against the essence of cosmopolitanism. In Ancient Athens, the practice of a demos, free male citizens of all backgrounds who were politically engaged and had kratia, power, eventually became corrupted through the transformation to an imperial identity by ruthlessly conquering other territories (Wolin, 2008). Unfortunately, if this continues in the United States, I do not think that a genuine form of cosmopolitanism as defined by Appiah can be implemented, especially amongst those American residents who have never experienced other cultures.?

For cosmopolitanism to flourish, it is important that we have the leaders who can truly embrace ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global society. Brown (2003) explains that the success of a nation is only dependent on the level of consciousness of the leader and not the political system. He explains that there are four level of consciousness. Egocentric (societies looking for themselves), ethnocentric (people with common vision support each other based on religion, culture, skin color),? worldcentric (people who consider about everyone in the world, including their and other countries), and cosmocentric (people who think about all sentient being across the entire universe, thinking multiple generations down. Therefore, voters should only focus on the leader, not the political system. The leader’s level of consciousness will create a political system will create a culture of participatory democracy that will promote cosmopolitanism.?

References:?

Appiah, A. (2006).?Cosmopolitanism: ethics in a world of strangers.?New York, W.W. Norton & Co.

Brown, B. C. (2006, April 3). An Overview of Developmental Stages of Consciousness. Retrieved from Integral Without Borders: https://integralwithoutborders.net/sites/default/files/resources/Overview%20of%20Developmental%20Levels.pdf??

Wolin, S. S. (2008). Democracy Incorporated: Managed democracy and the specter of inverted totalitarianism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.?