The Beginning

For the first time in my life, I worked hard on for a political candidate... and it was all good.

Here's hoping Barack Hussein Obama, President-elect of the United States, will be the first one president world I want him to be. I wish him all the best.

Now that all the work and hullabaloo is over, I promise to get back to blogging.

Financial crisis may lead to financial integration

Bretton Woods was an momentous step in human integration that 99% of the world's population knows nothing about. That was 60 years ago. It's time in our increasingly integrated world to take another step. I don't know if there is a specific "engine of history". It's been argued that religion, culture, and our human nature are candidates, but I know that economics is important in driving history. What European leaders are contemplating (read the Economist article here) should be the guide for the world. They meet with Bush today, and it is likely that the current administration will balk. But the day will come, hopefully sooner than later.

Culture wars in Gaza

Let Islamist's govern. I've heard that idea before. Islamists are more appealing as opponents to regimes than leaders of regimes. The bloom quickly is off the rose once the Islamist leadership can't run an economy while more worried about head scarves. Of course, I wonder when the United States will tire of it's nutty Republican Party. Perhaps that proves the idea wrong. 

Here's the link to Matt Yglesias' take, Culture War in Garza, and here is the link to the original NYT article, Watching 'Friends' In Gaza: A Culture Clash. 

Nationalism, Clash of Civilizations, and One World

One problem with Huntinton's Clash of Civilizations is the divisions within the so called civilizations. Matt Yglesias comments on an article about Asian nationalisms.  Read Yglesias' short take here in, Nationalism in Asia, or, read the original in the Washington Post, So Far, It Just Isn't Looking Like Asia's Century.

Ditto Matthew Yglesias

Another defense of Obama's cosmopolitanism. Read here. 

"Cosmopolitan" as a pejorative

Giuliani, the New Yorker's New Yorker, derides Obama's cosmopolitanism.

Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic won't forget it (read here). Neither will I.

Appiah on Bloggingheads

Wow, Appiah is on bloggingheads.com. Let's hope we see more of him.

Watch it here. http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/13246?in=00:29:38&out=00:35:18.6

"This Isn't the Return of History"

Fareed Zakaria believes Russia's bullying in Georgia is a strategic blunder, not a return to the bad old days. 

Economic growth is producing new centers of influence. And that's leading to greater national pride, confidence and assertiveness. But there are also powerful new countervailing forces—yes, of globalization and integration—that are working to mitigate nationalism and unilateralism.

Read it here in, This Isn't the Return of History

Joe Biden, Universalist

Is Biden a cosmopolitan? He's definitely a universalist according to this quote from the Bork hearings. Read this from Oliver Willis.

Reality filtered.

While she gave a nod toward Pakistan's barely rekindled democracy, Condoleezza Rice was throwing some bon mots of support to Musharraf today. This administration sees everything through the filter of the imagined existential threat of Islamic extremism. Never mind human rights or democratization, damn it, Musharaf was on our side against the terrorists. You know, the ones hiding out in the badlands of his NW Pakistan. 

I have always thought that Pakistan was by far more potentially dangerous than Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan. But why are we always afraid of the messiness of heading toward liberalism? Let's throw some real weight, transparently, in support of that. 

How about a little more praise for democracy in this instance, and a little less for the opportunistic authoritarian?

I believe democracy is a universal value. This administration has poured tons of ink into speeches and declarations in support of democracy. How about some real action? Keep moving forward, inch by inch.

How tolerant?

Appiah, in Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (Issues of Our Time), talks about universality with differences. In his view, there can be universals along with local differences. How far does that go? Are there some practices and behaviors that it is acceptable to be intolerant of? Honor killing? Too much fossil fuel consumption? This also gets into individual rights, but I'll deal with that separately. Are there universal values? Appiah says that it's more important to agree on the "what" of values, and less on the "why". I think that's an acceptable stage in the evolution of common values. Here's an interesting passage on tolerance.

Some relativists confuse two different senses in which judgments can be subjective. The view that moral judgments express desires means that they are, in one sense, subjective. Which judgments you will agree to depends on what desires you have, which is a feature of you. But, in this sense, factual judgments are subjective also. Which ones you will accept depends on what beliefs you have, which is similarly a feature of you. From the fact that beliefs are subjective in this way, therefore, it does not follow that they are subjective in the sense that you are entitled to make any judgments you like. Indeed, to go from the first claim to the second is to make one of the moves from "is" to "ought" that furrowed Hume's brow. It's to commit the naturalistic fallacy. So even on the Positivist view there is no route from the subjectivity of value judgments to a defense of toleration. Toleration is just another value.

Not every cultural practice is acceptable in light of human rights. Tolerating all differences on cultural grounds is not cosmopolitanism. This gets into centuries-old, deep philosophical controversies, but I'll keep working on it. It intersects individual rights which I'll get into later. 

"Universal" health care

Our increasingly integrated world is witness to the (not always) free flow of ideas, goods, people, and now health care. Increased transparency, disparity in costs, and the compelling need of health care makes this development inevitable. One of the concerns about free trade of goods and services has been falling wages in advanced industrial countries. At the same time, however, wages should rise in developing countries. It's going to take awhile to balance the world economic system out. I think one of the important roles left to the nation-state is to make this transition occur smoothly. Furthermore, will better medical service reach the rest of  the populace in medical tourist locations, like Thailand or India? On net, I think this is a positive development. It's definitely in the One World direction. Optimistically, this may push reform on both sides; rich countries will have to reform their costly systems, and people in developing countries will demand better health delivery when they see what top flight care looks like. I might be too pollyanna-ish. Of course, what if giant first world health care providers start buying up foreign providers? We'll see.

From the Economist, Operating profit.

"But costs have long been much higher in America than in poor countries, so this alone does not explain the new exodus. Two other factors are now at work. One is that the quality at the best hospitals in Asia and Latin America is now at least as good as it is at many hospitals in rich countries. The second, more worrying, factor is that America’s already imperfect insurance safety net is fraying."

Human contact and universal generosity

Does this apply to glad-handers and close talkers? Anyway, we should probably be more generous with our pats on the back.

From the Economist, A touch of generosity

"PEOPLE touch each other a lot, even strangers. We shake hands, slap backs, kiss and caress. Such behaviour can increase co-operation, which is good from an evolutionary point of view. It has even been shown that waitresses who touch patrons tend to be tipped more generously."

The human universals of exultation and defeat

It's true. You don't think about it, you instinctually jump up and thrust your fists skyward. It just happens.

From the Economist, Victory is mine.

"WHETHER you are a gorilla, a four-year-old child, a politician or an Olympic athlete, the signs of victory are obvious for all to see: the chest inflates, the head is thrown back and the victor displays a strutting and confident air. Shame at being defeated is equally recognisable: the head bows, and sometimes the shoulders slump and the chest narrows too..."

Olympic cosmopolites #2

How about the women's gymnastics winners? The American gold medalist, Nastia Liukin, was born in Moscow to Russian gold-medalist and coach, Valeri Liukin, and now resides in Parker, Texas. American silver medalist, Shawn Johnson, is coached by Liang Chow of China, (now an American citizen). Very cosmopolitan. 

Olympic cosmopolites

A friend pointed out that it is not uncommon for athletes to change citizenship in order to compete in the Olympics. The practice is also common in international soccer, basketball, and other sports. While I doubt that these actions were taken for cosmopolitan reasons, isn't the effect the same, nonetheless? 

Sport is interesting when looked at through the lens of cosmopolitanism. Counted positively are both the Olympic virtue of the world's athletes peacefully coming together in a celebration of excellence, and  the participation of athletes of one nation playing for teams in the national league of another nation (the Argentines Messi and Ginobli loved by their respective Barcelona an San Antonio fans, for example). Counted negatively are the riots and violence between fans of different international competitors, most notably in soccer (though these negative passions arise within nations between rival clubs as well.)

I don't think it matters why athletes move around the world to compete in sports for different club teams and even nations. I think the fact that they do helps the cause of cosmopolitanism.

"trustees for humanity"

We are all descendants of the great makers and discoverers. We are human. However...

What makes a cultural artifact property of a particular group? Past cultures, or their ruins, end up inside the borders of modern states, and then become part of that state's "heritage". Odd. The modern Egyptian state wants to copyright the images of the ancient ruins within its borders. Odd. The Mayan civilization rose and fell before the idea of a Mexican mestizo culture or a Mexican state was even a possibility, yet the Mayan is now the Mexican. Odd. In the United States it seems nearly every modern American claims 1/8 Cherokee blood, or some such, and we revere the ideal of some imagined Native American past, though we ran roughshod over nearly aspect of Native American life and continue to disrespect individual Native Americans and whole tribes. Odd. 

There is no mechanism for a "trusteeship for humanity". There are international treaties, and UNESCO, but really, there's no reliable international structure. It's something we can look forward to and look into in an increasingly cosmopolitan world. Again, I direct you to Appiah's chapter, Whose Culture Is It, Anyway" for a fuller discussion of the issues.

Are we set in cultural stone?

In reading Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, I am reminded that we moved across the planet filling it up, one group moving on settling new territory separating from the old group, creating new cultures, new languages, new ways to live as humans. One humanity branching out from the same trunk. When we try to preserve culture, as Appiah describes in the chapter, Whose Culture Is It, Anyway?, what is it that we are trying to preserve? Are cultures set in stone? Cultures evolve. Many things commonplace in a culture today were unthinkable in that culture a few generations ago. 

Cultural tectonic plates are moving against each other as never before, often creating earthquakes in reaction to the friction. One reaction has been to cling to the practices and mores of the known in the worst Burkean tradition. Often it's more than clinging to the known, it's reverting to some imagined past, or a fundamentalist view. 

Why do so many try to set cultures in stone when they are ever changing? We seem to have an innate tendency to put people into cultural, racial, and religious boxes forgetting that we are all humans.

I have no clan.

Perhaps what makes me a cosmopolite is that I have no clan. I had never thought of this explicitly before, though I had thought of all the pieces that make up the idea. I don't have a hometown to which I have an allegiance. I've lived in many towns and I aspire to live in many countries. I have family, but they are here and there and don't tie me to one particular place. I enjoy my country, I'm proud of many things and not so proud of others, and on net think it has been a positive force in the human project. I was asked once what was so special about my country, what made it better and I knew the answer. I believe it is the constitution, which I think, overall, is a masterpiece of arranging human interests. But this constitution and its underlying concepts and framework could work anywhere. It has universal qualities. I don't think the people here are all that different than most.

So, I have no clan. I am a member of the human race. I'm still working on what that means in my life.

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.