Cosmopolitanism, Globalization and Cultural Identity Flashcards
What is cosmopolitanism?
Cosmopolis: a city inhabited by people from many different backgrounds, nations. Antithesis to Greek idea of polis: inhabited by people of the same kind, background.
Cosmopolitanism: an attitude of mind > refusing to be defined by one’s local origins Diogenes the Cynic (412-323 BC): ‘I am a citizen of the world’:
Excerpt from dialogue with Diogenes:
‘my good fellow, where do you come from?’
Diogenes: Everywhere.
How do you mean?
Diogenes: ‘I am a citizen of the world’ (kosmopolite)
What are the 3 dimensions in terms of cosmopolitanism, according to Zlatko Skrbiš and Ian Woodward ?
(Cosmopolitanism Uses of the Idea, Sage 2013, p.2)
Cultural dimension. ‘what most cosmopolitans share is a disposition of openness to the world around them’.
Political dimension. Cosmopolitan commitment … encourages us to appreciate and recognise difference, embed our politics in universal principles and commit ourselves to the dethronement of one’s unique cultural identity’.
Ethical dimension. ‘an inclusive ethical core that emphasises worldliness, hospitality and communitarianism’.
How can cultural dimension be sub-divided?
The cultural dimension can be further sub-divided:
1) ‘Embracing of, expression through, or a consequence of, various sorts of mobilities (Beck, 2006; Hannerz, 1990; Urry, 2000).
2) Cultural symbolic competencies that allow one to move within a range of cultural lifeworlds. … an individual’s ability to know, command and enact a variety of cultural knowledges and repertoires.
3) The inclusive valuing of other cultural forms whose origin is outside one’s home culture.
(Zlatko Skrbiš and Ian Woodward: Cosmopolitanism. Uses of the Idea, Sage 2013, p.15).
What is the Utopian view of cosmopolitinism, according to Kant?
Utopian view 1: Enlightenment vision of ‘cosmopolitanism’ (Kant)
The idea that the more we adopt a ‘cosmopolitan’ outlook (transcend our narrow local constraints), the more we will be able to avoid national conflicts, wars etc: ‘perpetual peace’.
Describe the Utopian view of Enlightenment vision of cosmoplitanism, according to Kant.
Kant essay: ‘Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim’ (1784)
Reconciliation of human predisposition to socialize (get along with others) with that to individualize (isolate e.g. into antagonistic nations).
Necessity of establishing a ‘lawful external relation between states’ to harmonize dispositions and avoid wars.
Need to regard human history as moving towards establishing state of harmony between nations (e.g. EU, UN as ‘cosmopolitan’ bodies etc.)
Describe the Utopian view of cosmopolitanism, according to Marx.
Compare to the Enlightenment view.
(Communist Manifesto) The future communist society in which nations and ‘local’ attachments have disappeared:
‘In the place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency we have intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations. (...)
National one-sidedness become more and more impossible…’ (Marx/Engels: The Communist Manifesto, 1848)
Enlightenment view tends to dismiss nationalism and underestimate the culturally binding power of national identity.
Describe the Utopian view of cosmopolitanism, according to McLuhan.
Utopian view 3. ‘Techno-utopianism’
McLuhan: The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962):
‘The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village’
‘Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrinian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as in an infantile piece of science fiction…. So unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence.’
The idea means that our connectedness (via the internet etc.) means that cultural differences, cultural misunderstandings are somehow overcome (Microsoft view of the world).
Objection: Significant parts of the world > have no/little access to technology: The Digital Divide.
Describe the Dystopian view of global culture in terms of the American capitalist monoculture.
Causal factor: political economic power of transnational corporations > distribution of commercialized media products > global consumerism.
Counter-argument: ‘indigenisation’ of global cultural products > intermixing of meanings > not a monoculture but cultural hybridity.
Describe the Dystopian view of global culture in terms of commoditisation of culture and place.
‘McWorld’ : the global complex of airports, shopping complexes, entertainment complexes which are the same throughout the world (The Globalization of Nothing – George Ritzer)
Baudrillard: ‘there is nowhere to go but the shops’
What does cosmopolitanism mean in a globalised world?
Is it possible to distinguish between ‘cosmopolitans’ and ‘locals’?
Possibilities:
1) Expanded horizons of enriched and diversified cultural experience (e.g. travel, media).
2) core set of universal values (e.g. ‘human rights’) which take precedent over ‘local values’: whose universalism (post-colonial view)?
3) the cultivation of a specific cultural disposition: a ‘cosmopolitan mentality’: how defined?
4) The ‘cosmopolitan class’, e.g. elite of global business persons/frequent travellers: cosmopolitanism = ability to ‘manage’ culture on a need to know basis.
What are the critical examinations of definitions?
Critical examination of definitions:
1) Cosmopolitanism as a cultural disposition (Hannerz: Transnational Connections)
Cosmopolitan = Person who is not limited to the concerns of the immediate locality - recognises global involvement. Searches for different cultural experiences.
‘Locals’= those whose cultural perspective remains attached/restricted to particular locality (choice or necessity?)
2) Cosmopolitans as a class/an elite.
Are ‘cosmopolitans’ in some sense ‘better’ or ‘more privileged’ than ‘locals’? i.e. do they form an elite?
assumption : ‘locals’ are restricted in their horizons, parochial or ‘provincial’ through their lack of access to travel, technology etc.
What are the possible categories of ‘cosmopolitans’ on Hannerz’s definition?
1) Tourists?: majority of tourists do not engage with the culture of the locality they visit: ‘Spain is home plus sunshine’.
2) Exiles/migrants?: mostly forced to leave homeland > may be ‘protected’ against new culture by ‘insular’ communities.
3) Transnational corporate employees?: The ideal of the ‘corporate person’: no attachment to place, just the company = not cosmopolitan but ‘Metropolitan locals’ (Hannerz)?
4) Expatriates: have chosen to live in a foreign country, but do they have a positive attitude to ‘otherness’ (danger of colonial mentality?
5) ‘Sojourner’ (e.g. student, employee on foreign assignment): what period of residence abroad is necessary to adopt a positive attitude – overcome ‘culture shock’ and adaptation?
Are ‘locals’ restricted in horizons due to lack of resources (Bauman) or is it a question of attitude (Hannerz)?
‘(The) shrinking of space abolishes the flow of time; the inhabitants of the first world live in a perpetual present, (…) are constantly busy and perpetually ‘short of time’. (…) People marooned in the opposite world are (…) crushed under the burden of abundant (…) time they have nothing to fill with. In their time, ‘nothing ever happens’ (Bauman, Globalization and the New Poor, 1998)
What is corporate cosmipolitanism?
The corporation see itself/be seen as a ‘cosmopolitan’ world citizen
Defines itself in terms of universal aspirations: operates beyond national boundaries.
The global corporation seen by some (and projected as such by the corporation) as embodiment of a cosmopolitan utopia:
What is the embodiment of a cosmopolitan utopia?
1) A ‘universal’ value system: there is no ‘headquarters’.
2) A shared system of values of managers, regardless of origin.
3) A ‘Universal’ ecumenical language: English + managerial jargon.
4) Everyone is equal as a customer: no-one is ‘foreign’.
