Cosmopolitanism Vs Patriotism Essay

While finding cosmopolitanism and patriotism in the same country is rare, it’s entirely possible. The two aren’t mutually exclusive and can in fact compliment each other. The best example of this is Sweden. Sweden is cosmopolitan in its efforts to support and aid other drastically different groups. While it doesn’t boast America’s version of patriotism, it still lends itself to the definition as Swedes very much enjoy and support their country. Sweden also encourages other communities’ national identities by supporting decolonization efforts and local movements for more rights, thereby combining cosmopolitanism and patriotism in its actions.

Cosmopolitanism comes from Greek literally meaning “citizen of the world.” The ideology is a simple

one: “in making choices in both political and economic matters we should most seriously consider the right of other human beings to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” (Nussbaum 13-14). This includes supporting local human rights in any given community over one’s own and looking at all humans as inherently equal, despite cultural differences. However, as Nussbaum illustrates, this doesn’t involve ignoring clear human rights violations. The difficult distinction to make in creating a cosmopolitan society is which of one’s local rights should be universal, such as the ability to live free of torture, and which are only appropriate locally, like an American’s right to own a gun. Sweden makes these distinctions carefully and acts with caution in encouraging other nations to support certain rights to avoid conflict. Patriotism is a feeling of national pride and the valuing of a national identity. In The United States, it often includes a sense of superiority to other nations, which strictly contrasts cosmopolitanism. However, this isn’t the norm. Patriotism is the idea of being proud of one’s country and a sense of belonging to it, not attempting to impose one’s beliefs across the whole world. Cosmopolitanism and patriotism can compliment each other because asserting cosmopolitan beliefs encourages each community to develop and practice its own culture and identity and therefore encourages others to embrace patriotism.
The Swedish government aids many other countries and peoples in its cosmopolitan efforts. Starting in the 1959, Sweden held strong support for African independence movements, first being Algeria. Soon, it began financially assisting local efforts of self-authorship, such as the South African opposition to apartheid, and organizing African students studying in Sweden into committees focused on lobbying. Sweden also has employed a foreign policy of non-alignment since the end of World War II, formally expressing the previously unwritten policy which has kept them out of conflict since 1814 (Sellström 45, 60, 70, 215). This role allows them certain diplomatic privileges such as being the only Western country with relations with North Korea for 26 years. Other countries had been too hostile towards the blatant violations of human rights present there, but because of Sweden’s opposition to war, North Korean officials are open to their presence and receive humanitarian aid from them to help avoid famine. Through this, Swedish diplomats can encourage human rights and symbolically represent the voiceless citizens without threatening the country’s sovereignty. Currently six other countries have opened relationships with North Korea, illustrating, however slow, the success in their methods of “gradual integration of the country into the international community,” (“Pyongyang”). While the Swedish government and citizens played active roles in movements like these, they’re supporting the norms first brought up by local citizens, however quietly in the case of North Korea, rather than forcibly imposing their own norms and in that way are cosmopolitan. In no way does their intervention replace self-granted rights, nor does it work quite as well, “but a project not perfectible in every way can still be viable,” (Gregg 110). By this Gregg means that even if something doesn’t attain permanent, perfect, universal human rights, it still can be worth doing. Even a few more people having access to human rights is better than none and therefore worthwhile because it “still would have redeemed some part of its promise,” (Gregg 110). Citizens in South Africa and in North Korea were, and are, struggling with a movement too big for their resources, but with support it becomes more manageable for them to assert themselves.
Patriotic is an adjective less associated with Sweden, however if we ignore the American connotations of superiority and tunnel-vision to ignore all other countries, it definitely applies.

In efforts to make themselves appear more cosmopolitan and avoid being labeled xenophobic, many Swedes don’t publicly display their national pride, but on certain occasions it comes through, for example on National Day, previously Flag Day, and in international competitions to support athletes, performers, and scholars from Sweden. Despite only displaying it periodically, they always have pride for what their country stands for, especially its humanitarianism (Duxbury, Tidholm and Lilja). None of this conflicts with Swedish cosmopolitan efforts. Citizens are able to celebrate their national identity, promote the national identities of others, and at the same time support human rights in all communities, whatever those locally accepted rights may be. Nussbaum argues that patriotism is “an idealized image of a nation [as] a surrogate parent who will do one’s thinking for one,” (Nussbaum 15). She believes a culture of patriotism allows citizens to reject their moral duties to uphold human rights and instead merely follow whatever their country does. This view is simplistic, patronizing, and pessimistic. Human beings are for the most part too complex to be satisfied with such a one-way relationship. Being proud of one’s country doesn’t blind one to the humanity of those in other

countries.