Cosmopolitanism In Kwame Anthony Appiah's Open City

Closely associated with the process of globalisation is the notion of ‘World cities’. World cities are those such as London, New York and Tokyo where urban function has moved beyond the national scale to become a part of the international and global system. They are centres of culture, economics, employment, tourism, transport and communications and have been referred to as the command centres of the World’s borderless economy.

Humankind would be a better place if we were all just citizens of the world. In Martha Nussbaum’s “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism” she argues whether children should be taught in education to be patriotic or cosmopolitan. Nussbaum’s definition of cosmopolitanism is a person whose primary allegiance is to the community of human beings in the entire world. Nussbaum begins her argument by raising questions about education and how students ought to be taught that hunger in third world countries are problems of global problems and not the countries problem. She says “We should regard out deliberations as, first and foremost, deliberations about human problems of people in particular concrete situations, not problems growing out of a national

According to MacIntyre (2007), the basic features of civic humanism are derived from the rise of the large-scale state and decline of the polis. This process has had immense consequences for the conceptual relation between morals and politics. The setting of the moral life is altered to become assessments of men often ruled from far off, living isolated lives in politically powerless communities. (MacIntyre, 2007. 96). It becomes imperative to encourage fellow citizens using words for them to perform actions that are

In her book Nomadic Identities: The Performance of Citizenship, May Joseph explores the issues of migrancy and displacement among modern peoples. She contends that citizenship “is not organic but must be acquired

Through the lenses of preservationists, culture is authentic, carries traditions that keep historical ancestry alive, and is threatened by “cultural imperialism”. From a cosmopolitan perspective, culture is the freedom of choice, made up of multiple values and ideas that allow individuals to reinvigorate its uniqueness in an ever changing society. In “The Case for Contamination”, published by the New York Times Magazine, Kwame Anthony Appiah addresses the concern regarding the diminishment of cultural identity in poor countries by introducing the idea of cosmopolitanism: being free from cultural preordains and engaging in a pluralist society. Appiah endorses globalization and explains that resisting cultural interconnection will perhaps trap people in a stagnating society and avert it from achieving a pluralistic environment. He claims that cosmopolitanism enables individuals to adopt foreign culture based on how they see fit within their cultural context, and without “structuring the consciousness” and detaching people from traditional beliefs.

Appiah defines Cosmopolitanism as being conscious that every citizen that belongs to a community among other communities. The writer wanted to remind the reader the value being of conscious that we are part of a bigger community. Appiah main idea in his work was to start having conversations that discuss cultures, beliefs and values to expand our knowledge about other cultures and not having the excuse of marking another culture’s belief right or wrong. He argues that by using Cosmopolitanism we can create a more united community.

Plato’s Republic proposes numerous, intriguing theories ranging from political idealism to his contemporary view of ethics. It is because of Plato’s emerging interpretations that philosophers still refer to Plato’s definitions of moral philosophy as a standard, universally. Plato’s most argued concept could be said to be the analogy between city and soul in Book IV, and I will discuss how this could possibly due to key flaws in his assumptions, as well as failure to be specific in his definitions. In spite of this, Plato’s exposition on ethics is still relevant for scholars and academics to study, due to his interpretive view of morality and justice.

In these ways, while Julius has many connections as a half-Nigerian, half-German American immigrant, Julius doesn’t really own or have a real loyalty to any of these ties. Moreover, we see what a strain this is on Julius’s sense of identity. A dream he has perhaps best demonstrates this condition he finds himself in – Julius is running around Lagos with a sister (which he doesn’t have) and awakes to that familiarly bewildering condition of waking up in a hotel in a new city:

In Kwame Appiah’s introductory chapter, Critical Thinking, he delves into the topic of cosmopolitanism, and its necessity within our modern world. Appiah claims that while complete cosmopolitanism may not be obtainable or optimal, partial cosmopolitanism is the ideal model for us to follow. He supports this claim by highlighting that the modern world is expanding rapidly in its population leading to a critical need for conversations to be established amongst ourselves. As a civilization who is divided by borders, social and cultural constructs we have little to no room for the fundamental ethical bonds that we possessed thousands of years ago. Furthermore, not only is our exponentially growing population the issue, but also our blatant

As Antonio and his son Bruno undertake a desperate search through Rome, De Sica charts a geography of poverty. We see alleyways, overflowing soup kitchen, and brothel neighborhood, and everywhere hordes unemployed men whose frustration gives the film an urgent energy. In a way, it could be said that Rome and its various neighborhood serve as pseudo-characters in the film. Beginning from the

However, as Linklater writes, “contemporary economic and political conditions require support for forms of cosmopolitanism that erode the powers of the state” (2002, pp.142). Thus, in recent years the pursuit of humanitarian intervention as a way to protect and promote human rights has rendered the concept of sovereignty as being conditional upon a state’s willingness to protect those within

Appiah was raised by his father, leader of the independence movement of the Gold Coast, and his mother, an English woman. He goes on to speak on his experiences living in Kumasi, the capital of Ghana’s Ashante region and the many faces he would meet on his walks down the city. He cites specific people at times, as if these memories were some of his fondest. While in Ghana, Appiah experiences a broad cultural understanding by being utterly enveloped and consumed by cultural integration and unity. It is without doubt that he would propose and praise the ideas of cosmopolitanism when he essentially grew up in a cosmopolitanism society. He goes on to state, “I never thought to wonder as a child, why these people traveled so far to live and work

In the final message my father left for me and my sisters, he wrote: 'Remember you are citizens of the world.' But as a leader of the independence movement in what was then the Gold Cost, he never saw a conflict between local particularities and a universal morality – between being part of the place you were and a part of the broader human community. (xvi)

Italo Calvino’s extraordinary story, Invisible Cities is a literary accomplishment. Invisible Cities contains of an impressive display of discussions between Marco Polo, the legendary Venetian explorer, and Kublai Khan, the famous Conqueror. The two settled in Kublai Khan’s garden and Marco Polo details, or for all one knows invents, depictions of several wonderful cities. Considering these cities are not ever actually seen, yet only recounted, they are unnoticeable to the emperor. In consideration of the fact that they might not actually exist, they may be truly obscure to all but the reader, who is captivated by the dazzling, foreboding input of Marco Polo. “If I tell you that the city toward which my journey tends is discontinuous in space and time now scattered, now more condensed, you must not believe the search for it can stop. Perhaps while we speak, it is rising, scattered, within the confines of your empire…” (164). The main topic is Marco Polo and the cities he has traveled, or one city in several structures. These expeditions involve cities of memory, trading cities, cities of desire, thin cities, continuous cities and of the sky. The outcome is an intensely intriguing achievement of literature that urges surpassing the borders of the fictional book. Between these enlightening depictions of unfamiliar settings, Calvino allows his readers to indulge in the discussion between two men, one in the middle of his career, the other in

Cosmopolitan fiction, the most prominent strand of contemporary global Anglophone literature, gives us images of the “solution” to the violent history of colonization in a new era of a post-national cosmopolitan global culture brought about by “globalization”. In this purportedly new global era of a “hybrid” mixing of national cultures, the very idea of a “national identity” is deemed irrelevant in what Thomas Friedman calls “a flat world.” Some noteworthy cosmopolitan ideas can be seen in Bharati Mukherji’s “Orbiting,” in that the short story can be read as advocating a cosmopolitan world view. This, however, directly clashes with the ideas of globalization presented in Mario Vargas Llosa’s “The Culture of Liberty,” and Kanishka Chowdhury’s Globalization and the ideologies of Postnationalism and Hybridity.” Accordingly, Rana Dasgupta’s “The House of the Frankfurt Mapmaker” and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Moshin Hamid, critically challenge the cosmopolitan outlook as questionable fiction.