MARIANNA PAPASTEPHANOU

COSMOPOLITANISM

With or Without Patriotism?

INTRODUCTION As a subject of theoretical debate and a subject of teaching, citizenship presupposes a constellation of political concepts and conceptions that require philosophical clarification and renegotiation. Citizenship may concern the approximation of an ideal political situation through reflective membership in various specifications and in common humanity. From this, the normative reach of the term can be extended to the ideal person/member of many collectivities up to the human community as a whole. Thus, it can direct political education towards the cultivation of virtues that enhance multiple identities and that contribute to efforts toward the best possible political situation1 worldwide. If citizenship touches upon identities and self- images in their political significance for the whole world, then the cosmopolitan, the patriotic and the globalised self must first be approached with regard to their conceptual content and their similarities and differences. To substantiate the ‘why’ of a corresponding political education, one has to establish the benign character of what is supposed to be educationally cultivated and this further means that one should consider the nuances that separate the ideals to which one aspires from their debased and undesirable counterparts. This need for conceptual work becomes all the more pressing now that the political exploitation, the facile use and the confounding fashionable ubiquity of terms such as patriotism, cosmopolitanism and globalisation make their meaning and their relation extremely familiar but at the same time extremely unclear to students and teachers alike. For example: should we teach cosmopolitanism? If yes, does this imply that the cultivation of patriotism should be more limited or is perhaps ill-fitting in a cosmopolitan curriculum? Another ‘yes’ here would rely on the assumption that patriotism and cosmopolitanism are either antagonistic or even mutually exclusive ideals. A ‘no’ answer, one that makes patriotic teaching either necessary or, at least, permissible in a cosmopolitan curriculum, demands some explanation of the implicit assumption that cosmopolitanism and patriotism are compatible or even complementary. Both possibilities enjoy wide support in recent political and philosophical sources but the ultimate and deepest response to them depends on what the meaning of the juxtaposed terms might allow or preclude. Efforts to debate these terms within the philosophy of education discipline have surely contributed, amongst other things, to greater clarification, but what is still

M.A. Peters, A. Britton and H. Blee (Eds.), Global Citizenship Education: Philosophy, Theory and Pedagogy, 169–185. © 2008 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved. MARIANNA PAPASTEPHANOU missing is the attempt to discuss the terms together and comprehensively in their definitional ground rather than separately and with regard to some of their nodal points. True, the importance of debating whether we must teach patriotism with or without obligations (White, 2001) and whether liberal patriotism is sensitive to cosmopolitan concerns (Callan, 1999) and the discussion of the tension between cosmopolitan universal rights and cosmopolitan respect for particularity (Todd, 2007) cannot be overestimated. However, debating our understanding of cosmopolitanism and patriotism ought logically to take place prior to exploring their relationship. In simpler terms, before quantifying the amount of patriotism and cosmopolitanism ‘permitted’ in teaching, we must ask: what is patriotism? What is cosmopolitanism? Because this Chapter argues primarily for the need to redefine and recon- ceptualise these terms, the argument will focus on (a) the relationship of patriotism and cosmopolitanism as it has evolved and currently stands, and on (b) educational/philosophical positions regarding that relationship. For the aim is to substantiate the need to revisit the terms involved in citizenship education and to reconsider their relationship by showing how this is dependent on conceptions of the relevant terms.

THE RELATION OF PATRIOTISM AND COSMOPOLITANISM To show why it is necessary to turn to definitions, the Chapter will first discuss how the relationship of the terms depends on our understanding of them and why, therefore, it cannot precede our effort to reconstruct their content. For instance, if one takes patriotism to be a form of chauvinism or takes cosmopolitanism to entail hostility to all particular attachments, the relationship of the two becomes one of incompatibility (Kleingeld, 2000, p. 317). The more the particular communal element is emphasised in patriotism and the generalisable in cosmopolitanism, the more the binary opposition ‘cosmopolitanism versus patriotism’ becomes consolidated. Many theorists take it for granted that the local and the global are irreconcilable and perhaps incommensurable dimensions of being, so that the development of strong patriotic feelings entails the lack of care for remote cultures. Likewise, the commitment to ideals of global solidarity and reconciliation appears to some as a cold and unattractive expression of lack of interest for one's specific community.2 The binary of ‘nationalism versus unreflective universalism’ has also accompanied polemics all along, manifesting the flip side, the border that not only separates each ideal from its own fall but also brings it in a dangerous proximity to it. For some adherents to cosmopolitanism, patriotism ‘encourages unbridled and virulent chauvinism’ and is held ‘responsible for many of the most ghastly disasters in human history’. In the less appalling cases, ‘patriotism usually appeals to the tradition and heritage of one or some dominant cultural groups, marginalizing and excluding minority groups belonging to the same nation’ (Yonah, 1999, p. 379). For proponents of patriotism, cosmopolitanism reflects the imperialist, idealist and rationalist prejudices of an elitist group of intellectuals (Lu,

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