Appiah Cosmopolitanism

Reckoning With Research Draft 4 “Goodbye, See you tomorrow!” These common phrases can now be heard across the world. Advances in communication technologies allow people to talk and see each other from opposite sides of the world. Free chat services, such as Skype, allow families to contact their loved ones, and CEOs can now contact their firms in other countries. The increase in global communication allows businesses to expand their reach. With the world more connected than ever before, Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah from NYU’s department of philosophy has championed a principle he calls cosmopolitanism as the best way for a multicultural world to interact. He calls for all to become global citizens and adopt a cosmopolitan lifestyle in order

While Appiah seeks a more connected world in which all people become apart of the global community and learn from the different cultures around the world, the real life conversations that take place might not always work in the favor of cosmopolitanism. Many people seek the kind of multicultural background championed by Appiah. The desire to obtain Appiah’s global citizenship leads many people to travel and migrate to new places. As the conversations between different cultures occur, people should learn more about their own and others’ positions in the world community. Although the bridging of global gaps seems wonderful, people struggle with fostering the correct attitude and partaking in meaningful conversations. PhD in anthropology candidate Emily Hertzman observed the negative effects of Indonesian international migrations. While aspirations of international prosperity guide these enthusiastic Indonesian people to study and work abroad, they return with negative views of others: “non-citizen foreign ‘others’ who are limited in their engagements within the host society fuels these characterizations, which are inherently comparative, reflecting how migrants come to imagine themselves in relation to others” (Hertzman 160). As outsiders in different countries, these immigrants find themselves in a position different from the

Examining the current political behavior of different nations and the place that the cosmopolitan ideals have globally, Craig Calhoun identifies a negative result that current world politics lead to: “multiculturalism have in the eyes of many liberals been excessive and become sources of domestic divisions and illiberal appeals to special rights for different groups” (Calhoun 6). The great diversity championed by Appiah also creates difficulties to carry out his call for a global world. The call for multiculturalism leads to many targeted policies. A government creating laws that target certain groups place a certain stigma on those groups thus separating them from the rest of the community. This separation solidifies already existing gaps between cultures and people. Despite the issues that differences create when they exist among different groups, people keep their roots strongly in their communities and cultures. People immediately born into a group and grow up seeing existing differences among separate communities. Seeing patterns and differences is human nature making the required multicultural interactions very difficult. Calhoun identifies the individual’s role in cosmopolitanism: “the ideas of individuals abstract enough to be able to choose all their “identifications” is deeply misleading. Versions of this idea, however, widespread in liberal