Appiah Cosmopolitanism

With comparatively new innovations like the internet, global news, and social media, the world in the over the past few decades is larger and more connected than it had ever been before. Humans have access to other cultures and cultural practices in a way that was almost unimaginable to civilizations of the past. Cultures have a chance to commingle and influence each other; economies in an increasingly global market become interdependent on stock and international trade with each other. Countries recently escaping the banner of colonialism both begin to assert their independence and yet still remain forever altered by the culture that was once occupier. The internet and popular culture emerge. Not only do the media have access to different

For Appiah, cosmopolitanism goes beyond mere globalization—“a term that once referred to a marketing strategy, and then came to designate a macroeconomic thesis, and now can seem to encompass everything and nothing” (Appiah xiii)—and even multiculturalism—“another shape shifter, which so often designates the disease which it purports to cure” (Appiah xiii)—representing a grudging coexistence and maintained separation between different cultures. Beyond these insufficient terms and concepts, Appiah proposes cosmopolitanism which was coined by the “Cynics of the 4th century BC” and means “citizen of the universe” (Appiah xiv). As cosmopolitanism is mainly an act undertaken by individuals, a cosmopolitan is someone who places their membership to humanity over the loyalty to any particular nation or

One is the idea that we have obligation to others, obligations that stretch beyond those to whom we are related by ties of kith and kind, or even the more formal ties of a shared citizenship. The other is that we take seriously the value not just of human life, but of particular human lives, which means taking an interest in the practices and beliefs that lend them significance (Appiah xv).

The first tenant of cosmopolitanism, which he calls a “strand,” is the basic principle that, whenever possible, one human being should reduce the suffering of another. Suffering is an experience that binds humans together and is part of a shared human experience. Based on both a principle of reciprocity and out of respect for human dignity which all people posses as a result of shared humanity, cosmopolitans should seek to lift the lives they encounter out of