All things Appiah... What Cosmopolitanism is.

I just got back from the beach, where I finished reading Kwame Anthony Appiah's Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (Issues of Our Time). I may have just finished reading it, but I may never finish thinking about it. This is the first of many posts prompted by my reading.

"...cosmopolitanism is, in a slogan, universality with differences..." p. 

"Then, as I said at the start, we cosmopolitans believe in universal truth, too, though we are less certain that we have it already. It is not skepticism about the very idea of truth that guides us; it is realism about how hard the truth is to find. One truth we hold to, however, is that every human being has obligations to every other. Everybody matters: that is our central idea. And it sharply limits the scope of our tolerance."

We are in an never-ending search for what works and what is true. We can discover the universals while still relishing in our differences.  Appiah identifies a specific group of non-cosmopolitans as the "Not everybody matters" crowd. From that idea metastasized the Nazi exterminations and the Rwandan massacres. Doesn't the "my country first, right or wrong" notion err in that direction? Doesn't the "clash of civilizations" theory create a slippery slope towards this kind of evil?

Cosmopolitanism is at least a path, or a direction, toward a better way of life. Universality with differences is a good way to start thinking about it.