Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism, which is becoming an important notion for the understanding of taste and the circulation of commodities, has according to most social theorists its origins in Greek philosophy. The concept refers to ways of knowing the world and the forms of belonging this knowledge generates. The term is comprised of kòsmos (our socially constructed world) and polìtis (the citizen of a pòlis or ancient Greek city-state, the civic organization that exerted influence on European politics). The term resonates with Aristotle's conception of the human as zõon politikòn, a being that exists in relation to others in a polity. It has been suggested that Aristotelian texts are in fact Arab readings of Aristotle subsequently reimported in the West to revive its intellectual traditions. The Stoic teachings, according to which both the polis and the cosmopolis preserve the common good, acted as stepping-stones to early Christian understandings of the cosmopolitan as the “citizen” of God's Kingdom. Christian exclusivism is evident in Augustine's Neoplatonic cosmopolitanism that presupposes the love of God, in contrast to the love of the self that nonbelievers maintain. In short, Christian teachings erased non-European (non-Christian) contributions to European civilization at large.

Modern European theorizations of cosmopolitanism are attributed to Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, who produced the first abstraction of the cosmopolitan subject. But Kant's kosmopolìtis missed the exclusivist Hellenistic understandings of citizenship and polity. The “world citizen” of the Hellenic orator Socrates, to whom the concept is often attributed, was supposed to speak Greek, think Greek, and act as a Greek (Panegyricus, par. 50) in the context of the Alexandrian empire. Those [Page 370]who did not conform to Socratian expectations were nonhumans (barbarians). Feminist theorists critiqued Kant's cosmopolitan subject as a predominately male political (and sociocultural) actor in Europe and beyond. Mindful of the Christian legacy, critical political perspectives used the term to debate the role of the nation-state (the particular) in global geopolitics, emphasizing the significance of a cosmopolitan outlook for the future of global citizenship, justice, and democracy.

In more recent years, the concept's relation to the institutional structures of the nation-state began to wane. Cultural theorists examine how our learning habits and practices shape our multiple identities as consumers and producers or how pedagogical experience is used to situate citizens in the world at large and vis-à-vis other viewing (including non-European) positions. The post-Kantian philosophical trajectory of the concept suggests that any “cosmopolitan” respect for human diversity that promotes solidarity on a global scale cannot be achieved solely through formalized agreement (as in Kant's interstate legal agreement to maintain global peace, or Jean-Jacques Rousseau's “social contract” to achieve social togetherness), because it also demands the development of moral sensitivity for specific cultural contexts. The coexistence of the specific (culture, nation, tribe, etc.) with the universal highlights both the inescapable tensions within cosmopolitanism as a condition of being, and its creative-productive nature as a state of becoming part of a human whole.

Particular readings of Kantian philosophy render the concept relevant to the sociology of globalization, production, and consumption. Literal meanings of kòsmos (from kosmõ, meaning “to make beautiful”) introduce an aesthetic-cultural dimension to the concept. Pedagogy, aesthetics, and politics converge to suggest a method of knowing through visual enactment and bodily performance. This model of cosmopolitan aesthetics, which finds application in creative industries (e.g., film industries such as Bollywood and Hollywood, mega-events such as the Olympic Games and expos), selectively borrows from the Kantian sensus communis, the moral universe of human solidarity, and the literal meaning of kosmopolítis as the subject that inhabits the space of the aesthetic. Theorists, such as Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, Scott Lash, and John Urry, talk about “aesthetic reflexivity” as constitutive of contemporary knowledge economies to refer to a contemplative form of learning that transforms human beings into agents who monitor the social world rather than accepting a predetermined place in it. Formalized aesthetics (from aésthesis or sense) is the philosophical principles of art, but its banal understanding refers to ideas of beauty that we acquire through sensory experience.

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