Cosmopolitanism in the Modern Social Imaginary

Craig Calhoun Cosmopolitanism in the modern social imaginary

Article (Published version) (Refereed)

Original citation: Calhoun, Craig (2008) Cosmopolitanism in the modern social imaginary. Daedalus, 137 (3). pp. 105-114. ISSN 0011-5266 DOI: 10.1162/daed.2008.137.3.105

This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/42642/ Available in LSE Research Online: November 2012

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Cosmopolitanism in the modern social imaginary

One day in the early 1980s, I was rid- to see who else might be passing through ing in the backseat of an old Land Rover the seemingly empty desert. My curiosi- through the desert southwest of Khar- ty was mild–I had been in the Sudan toum. There was no road, but the land- only a month or two and didn’t think I’d scape, mostly flat, was marked by the know anyone–until I realized that in occasional saint’s tomb distinctive to fact I did know the face looking back at Sudanese Islam. My companions and I me through the window of the other hadn’t seen another vehicle for a couple Land Rover. It was my friend Vaughan, of hours when one appeared as a tiny dot an Oxford classmate from years earlier. on the horizon. It was headed our way, We both shouted and our cars stopped. and as is typical both cars slowed down The reunion was a pleasure. It seemed very old-school, and we laughed about Craig Calhoun is President of the Social Science how many Oxford classmates of differ- Research Council and University Professor of the ent generations had run into each oth- Social Sciences at New York University. Among er in the Sudan over the last 150 years. his publications are “Lessons of Empire” (2005), More than a few, I’m sure, each taking “Understanding September 11” (2002), “Han- pleasure in his or her cosmopolitanism nah Arendt and the Meaning of Politics” (1997), (and more than a few in colonialism, “Nationalism” (1997), “Critical Social Theory: too). Culture, History, and the Challenge of Differ- Vaughan and I caught up on families ence” (1995), and the prize-winning study of the and careers and work on multiple conti- Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 “Neither nents. Being citizens of the world was Gods Nor Emperors: Students and the Struggle going well for both of us. Vaughan was for Democracy in China” (1994). He has served an attorney by the time of our reconnec- as editor in chief of the Oxford “Dictionary of tion, working for Chevron, which was the Social Sciences” and, from 1977 to 1996, developing oil ½elds near Bentiu in the taught at the University of North Carolina at Southern Sudan. A university professor Chapel Hill, eventually serving as Dean of the supported by the Kellogg Foundation, I Graduate School and Founding Director of the had come to Sudan on the heels of trav- University Center for International Studies. eling through China and was teaching at the University of Khartoum while my © 2008 by the American Academy of Arts wife Pam worked for the U.S. State De- & Sciences partment’s Of½ce of Refugee Affairs.

Dædalus Summer 2008 105 Craig She would go on to a career in the Unit- imagine that their experience of global Calhoun ed Nations. Vaughan’s wife Mary be- mobility and connection is available to on cosmopoli- came a photographer and founded a sup- all, if only everyone would “be” cosmo- tanism port group for expatriates. politan. We need continually to remind Our little group exempli½ed much of ourselves of the extent to which felt cos- the cosmopolitanism that was sweep- mopolitanism depends on privilege. As ing up a wide variety of young profes- Anthony Appiah suggests, “Celebrations sionals and activists in a global network of the ‘cosmopolitan’ can suggest an of relief work, diplomacy, corporate in- unpleasant posture of superiority to- vestments, journalism, and advocacy. wards the putative provincial.”1 In oth- “Small world!” at least one of us ex- er words, the genuinely attractive eth- claimed tritely. Indeed it is for those ical orientation toward a common hu- equipped to navigate as we were. I’m man community of fate can be under- sure it didn’t seem small in the same mined by an unattractive self-congratu- way for the Eritrean refugees seeking lation and lack of self-critical awareness shelter in Sudan from ½ghting to the of privilege. east or, in some cases, being resettled in Europe or America. Cosmopolitanism is in fashion. The Eritreans who settled in the United trend started in the 1990s, after the end States also found old friends, sometimes of the cold war and amid intensifying former comrades in arms and often dis- globalization. Cosmopolitan is now tant relatives: they, too, inhabited a a compliment for the suave in a way it global world. In fact the Eritreans suc- hadn’t been since the 1920s or at least cessful in navigating the maze of inter- the 1960s, when in cold war spirit spies national organizations and national gov- epitomized the cosmopolitan. The Cos- ernments to reach Europe or the United mopolitan is a popular drink, a vodka- States were generally the more cosmo- based cocktail, flavored with orange and politan among the migrants. They knew cranberry, made famous as the favorite of far-flung events and appreciated cul- drink of the girls on tv’s Sex and the tural difference; they were more educat- City.2 Those self-styled girls didn’t show ed than their fellow nationals; they had much interest in the political philosophy more experience with cities and complex organizations. But they were less 1 Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism (New prone than the Western aid workers York: Norton, 2006), xiii. they met to think of globalization as a matter of nations fading into a border- 2 One of the several bartenders with claims to less world. The refugees made connec- have invented the Cosmopolitan, Toby Ceccini tions across long distances, but they rec- of the Odeon in New York’s Tribeca, entitled ognized these as particular, speci½c con- his autobiography Cosmopolitan: A Bartender’s Story (New York: Broadway, 2004)–and the nections and didn’t confuse them for pun is intentional. Tribeca is the New York unambiguous tokens of a universalistic neighborhood most identi½ed with the 1990s type: global connections. boom, but the boom was, in general, identi- Common approaches to the idea of ½ed with the Silicon Valley–apt then that the cosmopolitanism encourage people like blogging consensus gives San Francisco the strongest claim on inventing the drink of the Vaughan and me to confuse the privi- decade. But only in New York did the relevant leged speci½city of our mobility for uni- bartender write his autobiography. It was that versality. It is easy for the privileged to sort of decade.

106 Dædalus Summer 2008 of globalization or Kantian ethics; they patory institutions adequate to contem- Cosmopoli- were cultural descendants of Helen Gur- porary global integration, especially out- tanism in the modern ley Brown, who reinvented Cosmopolitan side the nation-state framework. Some- social imag- magazine in the 1960s. times it is claimed for an ethical orienta- inary Now, as then, cosmopolitanism lives tion of individuals–each should think a double life as a pop cultural evocation and act with strong concern for all hu- of openness to a larger world and a more manity–at yet other times it is claimed systematic and academic claim about for a stylistic capacity to incorporate the moral signi½cance of transcending diverse influences or for a psychological the local, even achieving the universal. capacity to feel at ease amid difference Both have flourished, especially in good and appreciate diversity. Used sometimes and amid optimism about global- times for all projects that reach beyond ization. (Cosmo, as the magazine came the local (with some slippage depending to be called, was founded in 1886, riding on whether the local means the village or the wave of a stock market boom not the nation-state), it is used other times unlike those of the 1920s and the 1990s.) for strongly holistic visions of global Cosmopolitanism, though, is not totality, like the notion of a community merely a matter of cocktails or market of risk imposed by potential for nuclear ebbs and flows. It’s what we praise in or environmental disaster. Cosmopoli- those who read novelists from every tan can also describe cities or whole continent, or in the audiences and per- countries. New York or London, con- formers of world music; it’s the aspira- temporary Delhi or historical Alexandria tion of advocates for global justice and gain their vitality and character not from the claim of managers of multinational the similarities of their residents but businesses. Campaigners on behalf of from the concrete ways in which they migrants urge cosmopolitan legal re- have learned to interact across lines of forms out of both concern for immi- ethnic, religious, national, linguistic, and grants and belief that openness to peo- other identities. ple from other cultures enriches their Britain was a center of the 1990s boom countries. Cosmopolitan is the ½rst cat- in talk of cosmopolitanism. This was a egory in the advertisements posted by period of renewal in the cultural and ½- would-be husbands seeking brides (and nancial life of British cities, with yup- vice versa) in the Sunday Times of India.3 pies, art galleries, and startling improve- These different usages reinforce the ment in restaurants, and reference to fashion for the concept but muddy its “cosmopolitan Britain” became stan- meaning. Cosmopolitan can be claimed dard speech–as in “cosmopolitan Brit- for a political project: building partici- ain has emerged as one of the word’s most diverse and innovative food and drink markets.”4 These references 3 While cosmopolitan is the ½rst category list- evoked sophisticated, metropolitan cul- ed, the ads go on for many pages, organized also (for the less explicitly cosmopolitan) by caste, community, language, religion, profes- 4 U.K. Ministry for Trade and Investment, sion, and previous marital status. International online at http://www.investoverseas.org/ educational credentials are noted throughout, United_Kingdom/UK_Sectors/Food_and_ but only in the cosmopolitan section are alli- Drink.htm. Examples can readily be multiplied ances invited speci½cally in terms like “Cul- from almost any market imaginable: “With a tured, Cosmopolitan, Westernized” or “Smart, more cosmopolitan Britain driven by ‘lifestyle’ Westernized, Cosmopolitan working for mnc.” and ‘design’ home and garden television pro-

Dædalus Summer 2008 107 Craig ture versus the non-cosmopolitan hin- What is vital to this new identity is its in- Calhoun terlands, multicultural Britain versus ternational feel. This is indicative of ba’s on cosmopoli- monocultural English, Scottish, or desire to be a global player. Also, accord- tanism Welsh national identity. More so, Brit- ing to ba, it shows Britain’s own multicul- ish cosmopolitanism evoked a positive tural mix. However, the emphasis is on orientation toward European integra- presenting the positive aspects of differ- tion and engagement with the rest of ent cultures and how British Airways tru- the world. lse (the London School of ly supports its operations, including its Economics and Political Science for many joint ventures, in different coun- those without this cosmopolitan knowl- tries. All this leads to a positive image for edge) was academic headquarters for the 60 percent of ba customers who are this, with a range of intellectual ex- not British.5 changes and conferences, new master’s But the message is not just for foreign- programs focusing on ½elds like human ers. As British Airways’s branding con- rights and management, a clutch ngo sultants point out, “The United King- of international celebrity professors, dom is not keen on being seen as the and, not coincidentally, fee-paying stu- country of outmoded traditions and dents from all over the world. be- lse old castles. The new surface shows a came, in a sense, the ½rst really Euro- youthful, cosmopolitan Britain, con½- pean university. dently looking to the future.”6 Indeed, Britain was especially well-placed to this example of commercial cosmopol- embrace this cosmopolitanism because itanism comes on the heels of the late- English was increasingly the world lan- 1990s rebranding of Britain itself as guage, because it had joined the Euro- “Cool Britannia.” New Labour was in pean Union without losing its special power, but hints of the mod ’60s and relationship with the United States, be- the once mighty empire were not acci- cause it was a major ½nancial center, dental. Britain was by no means unique; and because its former empire gave it nation-branding flourished around the unusually strong connections around world with nearly every nation claiming the world. Britain remains a center of to be cosmopolitan but with distinctive cosmopolitan discourse. Consider Brit- arts and culture and delightful local ish Airways’s rebranding as “a global, scenery.7 caring company, more modern, more In both popular culture and political open, more cosmopolitan, but proud to science, cosmopolitanism often ½gures be based in Britain”:

5 Bob Ayling (Chief Executive Of½cer, Brit- ish Airways), in British Airways News, June 10, grammes . . . ” (http://hiddenwires.co.uk/ 1997; see also http://www.euran.com/BC resourcesarticles2004/articles20040503- /art&BritishAirways.htm (accessed April 7, 05.html). In Britain, as elsewhere, though, 2007). the years after 2001 marked a change. “Sud- denly the celebration of postnational, cosmo- 6 See http://www.jyanet.com/cap/0614fe1 politan Britain has been eclipsed by the re- .htm (accessed January 15, 2007). turn of ‘security and identity’ issues,” as David Goodheart put it in 2006 (http://www. 7 See Melissa Aronczyk, “Nations, New and foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story Improved: Branding National Identity,” in C. _id=3445). Calhoun and R. Sennett, eds., Practicing Culture (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2007).

108 Dædalus Summer 2008 as an attitude, a style, a personal com- forgotten. Complicating matters further, Cosmopoli- mitment; this is not necessarily politi- positive and negative estimations of cos- tanism in the modern cal or even ethical. Contrast the signif- mopolitanism often coexist. For exam- social imag- icance of the phrases “citizen of the ple, there is no upper class in the world inary world” and “man of the world.” The more dedicated to cosmopolitan shop- latter is as likely to be about expanded ping than that of Russia. But it is not just tolerance for ethical lapses–or simply ignorant rural Russian masses with min- about more fashionable clothes. Cos- imal access to the new megamalls that mopolitanism does signal a direct con- participate in xenophobic nationalism. nection between the individual and the State elites and well-connected million- world as a whole.8 But if this is some- aires press anti-cosmopolitan policies. times given ethical emphasis, equally of- Even oligarchs who drive Bentleys and ten cosmopolitanism imagines a world have homes in the south of France are that is simply an object of consumption, complicit, though they may also become there for individuals’ pleasure. “The objects of nationalist attack. goal of cosmopolitanism is self-expres- Consumerism versus ethics, or the co- sion and self-realization,” writes Kim- existence of stylistic cosmopolitanism berly Yuracko. “Cosmopolitanism pre- with political nationalism, isn’t the is- sents individuals with a wide range of sue. It is the tendency to substitute eth- options; they choose the one that will ics or style for deeper senses of politics. bring them the most pleasure and grat- Cosmopolitan typically suggests an atti- i½cation.”9 tude or virtue that can be assumed with- More commonly, being cosmopoli- out change in basic political or econom- tan is glossed as being a “citizen of the ic structures, which are external to the world.” Contemporary usage gives this individual. Much of the appeal comes almost unambiguously positive valence from the notion that cosmopolitanism –who wouldn’t want to be a citizen of (a version of ethical goodness) can be the world?–but the idea can be terrify- achieved without such deeper change– ing if what world citizenship means is a key problem in an otherwise attractive exclusion from citizenship and rights in concept. particular states: past demonizations of Cosmopolitanism should not be sim- “rootless cosmopolitans” shouldn’t be ply a free-floating cultural taste, personal attitude, or ethical choice; it must be a 8 In this, as in other ways, cosmopolitanism matter of institutions. What seems like echoes rather than transcends nationalism, free individual choice is often made pos- emphasizing direct connection rather than sible by capital–social and cultural, as institutional mediation; see Calhoun, Nation- well as economic. Take Singapore’s pres- alism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota ident, who spoke of that island’s “cos- Press, 1997). There are exceptions, including efforts to understand cosmopolitanism from mopolitans” and “heartlanders.” After within various scales of relationships across the speech, a local blogger posted mock lines of difference rather than categorical sim- advice on how to be a cosmopolitan: ilarity on a global scale. See Sheldon Pollock, “Many Heartlanders think that to be- “Cosmopolitan and Vernacular in History,” come a Cosmo, you need a lot of money. Public Culture 12 (3) (2000): 591–625. Nothing could be further from the truth. 9 Kimberly Yuracko, Perfectionism and Contem- Being a Cosmo is essentially a state of porary Feminist Values (Bloomington: Indiana mind, and has nothing to do with that University Press, 2003), 91. overdraft that keeps you awake at

Dædalus Summer 2008 109 Craig night.”10 He continues with advice on Sikhs who drive taxis in Toronto and Calhoun wine and watches, cars and condos. But, on New York, Mexicans who migrate to cosmopoli- as he says, “Travel is the true measure of Spain and the United States. These mi- tanism a Cosmo. ‘Been there, done that’ is their grants are certainly sources of multicul- motto.” Sadly, his readership is “those of tural diversity and global connections. us who haven’t been, primarily because They may be cosmopolitans in the sense we haven’t a bean.” of having loyalties that cross borders, but they do not exemplify the abstract The class consciousness of frequent universalism of much cosmopolitan the- travelers involves not only privilege, but ory. Migrant experience seldom reflects the illusion that our experience of diver- the privilege of, say, Anthony Appiah’s sity and mobility reveals the world as a account of how ties he made in his fa- whole.11 I have met my friend driving ther’s royal compound and later private through the Sudanese desert. I have schools remain active through friends friends around the world. I have traveled and relatives who have moved to sever- on every continent. I feel at home in al countries. For that reason, it seldom cities (and hotels and airports) I have supports a synoptic view of the world as never before visited. I drive a foreign car a whole as distinct from multiple partic- and happily eat food from widely vary- ular connections. Cosmopolitan theo- ing cuisines. I care about distant victims ries need to be supplemented by empha- of disasters and injustices. The world sis on the material conditions and so- seems small. Yet none of this makes the cial institutions that make this sort of world a whole or reveals it to anyone in cosmopolitan inhabitation of the world that wholeness. possible–and much more likely for The dominant strands of cosmopoli- some than others. tan theorizing draw heavily on the expe- Webs of speci½c connections position rience of frequent travelers like Vaughan us in the world, from friendship and kin- and me, moving freely across borders ship through national states or religions and, sometimes, creating expatriate to markets and global institutions. These communities where businesspeople, aca- make possible meetings like mine in the demics, and aid workers of several na- desert, even though it is more typical to tionalities mix in once-imperial cities. equate cosmopolitanism with either a The theories do at times make reference personal style or with universalistic eth- to less privileged border-crossers: Boli- ical commitments. Navigating beyond vian musicians who play on street cor- one’s state is largely the product of par- ners around Europe, Filipina housekeep- ticular networks of ties, material resour- ers who serve locals and expatriates alike ces like credit cards, and the support in Southeast Asia and the Persian Gulf, provided to individuals by states, such as the issuing of passports. It is not by a relationship to any encompassing in- 10 Mahesh Krishnaswamy, http://mahesh. stitution that de½nes belonging to the sulekha.com/blog/post/2000/06/how-to-be- world as a whole. Though there are cosmopolitan.htm. growing institutions and private agree- ments for global governance–for po- 11 Craig Calhoun, “The Class Consciousness of licing, regulation of the Internet, arbi- Frequent Travelers: Toward a Critique of Actu- ally Existing Cosmopolitanism,” South Atlantic tration of contract disputes–most of Quarterly 101 (4) (2003): 869–897. these do not offer “citizens” opportuni-

110 Dædalus Summer 2008 ties either to participate politically or to lence among all human beings describes Cosmopoli- tanism in make claims in the ways that different only an abstract whole, not the more the modern states do. complicated and heterogeneous world in social imag- When cosmopolitans are described as which human beings differ for cultural inary “citizens of the world” this is clearly not and other reasons, claim identities, and directly analogous to citizenship of a forge solidarities and enmities. There is state–and in fact may be a more inferi- nothing wrong with employing a logic of or or less protected type of citizenship. universal equivalence, such as that of Not all states offer very much chance for Kantian ethics or human rights ideals, in participation or response to claims, but order to grasp the inequalities and other most do offer some. They offer a struc- injustices of the world. But this is one- ture in which individuals are recognized sided and needs to be complemented by to belong and gain certain entitlements. a cosmopolitanism oriented to the con- Citizens may ½ght to extend their rights nections that link people to each other in and improve their states. Many individ- several scales of solidarity and social and uals are denied full rights, and not all are cultural organization. recognized and empowered as citizens From the perspective of abstract –precisely the exception that proves the equivalence, essential similarities are value of the rule: to be stateless is not a the main ground for cosmopolitanism, happy circumstance. and differences tend to appear as poten- If cosmopolitans are citizens of the tial problems: members of one religion world, we have not only to ask what tolerate adherents to others–hardly a kind of polity this world is (if it is any) source of cosmopolitan unity; nations but what makes this cosmos whole. Di- are often understood as only self-inter- vine creation would be a possible an- ested sectional loyalties; and strong cul- swer; the world is whole by virtue of its tural loyalties often appear as prejudices. single maker. Likewise, we could derive Embracing global fashions and oppor- unity from the notion of the tao existing tunities is good; however, it would be before the differentiation of the world a mistake to imagine that embracing lo- as we know it. Or we could follow “deep cal or national cultures and solidarities ecology” in focusing on nature itself as instead was somehow a personal failing. creator not creation, as sacred and be- For thick or strong cultural loyalties yond the human. not only join people to each other and None of these is what most self-de- enable both individual and collective clared cosmopolitans mean when they life but also, along with creativity, offer use the term. Most mean something like variety to the world. The development the abstract equivalence, or at least of nations (and the social institutions equal value, of human beings consider- that organize national societies, includ- ed as individual tokens of a global type: ing, but not limited to, governmental humanity. This understanding under- ones) is also a cosmopolitan achieve- writes most philosophical accounts of ment. Nations knit together smaller ethical universalism and is the basis –explicit or implicit–for much cosmo- see Seyla Benhabib, Another Cosmopolitanism 12 politanism. But categorical equiva- (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) and Martha Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice: Disabili- ty, Nationality, Species Membership (Cambridge, 12 For important and forceful recent state- Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006). ments of cosmopolitanism as universalism,

Dædalus Summer 2008 111 Craig regions and provinces, however imper- capacities for mutual understanding. Calhoun fectly. And though religions divide hu- These capacities are always in some de- on cosmopoli- man beings, religions also offer some gree speci½c to the cultural and histori- tanism of the largest-scale and most influential cal circumstances in which they are forms of transnational, cosmopolitan forged; they are not simply universal. solidarity. We should not confuse the experience It, too, would be a mistake to under- of roaming the world and appreciating stand the wholeness of the world as al- its constitutive differences with grasp- ready complete, based on the abstract ing it as a whole. This seems a more ro- equivalence of human beings rather than bust way to ground cosmopolitan think- as an always incomplete but richly open ing than the universalism of abstract building of more and hopefully better categorical equivalence. social connections. Connections allow Today, markets may be the most wide- us to ground cosmopolitanism, instead spread of all historically made connec- of in the categorical equivalence of hu- tions. Markets do not precisely coalesce man beings, in our relationships to each into a single global totality–the market other. Another answer lies in history and –except in ideology. They, too, link im- the lateral connections human beings perfectly and incompletely, just more create with each other–that is, the con- extensively and intensively than ever nections among people and places (and before. Even if certain aspects of mar- animals and plants and flowing waters) kets approach complete abstract cate- are not those of divine creation or of fate gorical equivalence–the reduction of but, rather, products of human action in qualitative differences among goods to history. In this view, humans are joined mere monetary prices–markets are his- not just by abstract equivalence but by torical connections. And insofar as we the interpersonal relationships and the are concerned with how human beings social institutions–from language to around the world might be joined in a states to religions–that we have creat- cosmopolitan whole, we need to break ed. The capacity for such creation is ba- with the ideology of an abstract market sic to humanity.13 and see global markets–even those in We are connected, but incompletely. arcane derivatives and those managed We have responsibilities because of our in part by computerized trading pro- connections, because we are affected by grams–as relationships among actors: and affect others, not only because of people, places, institutions (including abstract similarities. At the level of both states). individuals and culture more broadly, we We cosmopolitans, meeting in our are transformed by the historical pro- various ostensibly empty deserts, may cesses of interaction; these give us sometimes link our sense of immediate inhabitation of the world–our oyster! 13 See Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition –with a misleading notion of its univer- (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958). sal accessibility. Moving among differ- Arendt’s account of the creative capacity at the ent places, cosmopolitans feel that they heart of being human is inspired largely by an- inhabit the world as a whole. But what, cient Greek thought. Christians and Jews may if anything, makes the world whole? In also draw similar ideas from the biblical book asking this question, we confront the of Genesis, where creative potential is part of what humans derive from being created in the limits of universalism and are forced to image of God. take seriously the people whose lives are

112 Dædalus Summer 2008 constituted and constrained by their Within a year of my meeting in the Cosmopoli- ties to particular settings. Vaughan and desert, the briefly latent civil war be- tanism in the modern Mary and Pam and I were but weakly tween Northern and Southern Sudan social imag- connected to the Sudan. The Sudan was would again become a devastating open inary the backdrop to our story; it provided conflict. The Chevron oil ½elds would the terrain of difference that marked become part of the stakes of the strug- us as cosmopolitan. But we didn’t have gle, and Chevron would be replaced by to be there, and the Sudan wasn’t real- other multinationals, with China even- ly about us. tually becoming the main customer for Certainly, thinking in terms of the ab- Sudanese oil. And the oil trade wasn’t stract equivalence of human beings is the only multinational enterprise shap- helpful–in theories of justice and hu- ing events in Sudan. Global Islam was man rights, for example. But cosmopol- already important, and in the next twen- itanism shouldn’t be equated with such ty years Sudan would undergo a revolu- universalism. Cosmopolitanism be- tion, a radicalization of Islamic politics, comes richer and stronger if approach- and then a split between military and ed in terms of connections rather than religious leaders. Osama bin-Laden (or in addition to) equivalence. And would ½nd Khartoum a hospitable base cosmopolitans who think in terms of for a while, leading the United States connections–and their incomplete- to ½re missiles to destroy a factory pos- ness and partiality–are less likely to sibly linked to international terrorism. turn a blind eye to the material inequal- Not least, even as war died down in the ities that shape the ways in which dif- South, the Western Sudanese province ferent people can belong to speci½c of Darfur would become nearly synony- groups while still inhabiting the world mous with the failure of global good in- as a whole. tentions faced with nasty government The Catholic Church has confronted and deeply complex local politics. this issue in relating the universality of In this same intervening period, as the Christian faith to the need for working Soviet Union collapsed and capitalist and living through particular groups. It globalization intensi½ed, international developed the notions of modalities (lo- civil society became ever more promi- cality-based groups like parishes) and nent. From religious charity to human sodalities (task-based groups like mis- rights campaigns to regulating the Inter- sionary organizations) to mediate the net, a range of organizations and net- universal faith. This way of thinking works worked across national bound- about Christian ministry offers a re- aries. Versions of cosmopolitanism be- minder of more general importance: came a natural self-understanding of the organizations, networks, and path- this work. This was not without ideolog- ways by which we transcend locality are ical distortions. Business leaders attend- still particular, speci½c–to people, di- ing the World Economic Forum at Da- mensions of human life, ways of bring- vos and social movement activists at- ing some human beings closer rather tending the World Social Forum in Porto than others. Accordingly we need to pay Allegre tended each to think they were more attention to speci½c connections the real cosmopolitans. And both tended –political and economic, as well as cul- to describe global civil society as more tural–among people that offer both sol- autonomous from states than it really idarity and encourage division. was.

Dædalus Summer 2008 113 Craig Precisely because the world is so in- Calhoun tensively connected today, cosmopoli- on cosmopolitanism has become a crucial theme in tanism politics and social science, not only ethics. But in an important way, these different discourses are all embedded in a larger cultural cosmopolitanism that is, among other things, a sort of class consciousness of frequent travelers. Each of us, we might say, has a duty to consider the implications of our ac- tions for everyone. But thinking in terms of a set or category of human individuals misses part of what makes cosmopolitanism a compelling concern today: the extraordinary growth of connections among human beings and variously organized social groups–relationships mediated by markets and media, migra- tions and infectious diseases, but none- theless social relationships.

114 Dædalus Summer 2008