Cosmopolitanism

The United Kingdom just left the European Union and the United States adopted the First Foreign Policy in order to emphasize nationalism and non-interventionism. European countries are, since then, becoming very hostile to refugees from all over the world that immigrated to their land. A wave of nationalism is gaining momentum these recent years in the developed countries of the world. And, this wave, it is as if it was a shield against a new ideology that is rising promptly right now, an ideology inspired by Greek philosopher Diogene of Sinopek’s ideas and in contrast with those patriotic currents: cosmopolitanism.

Now, many may think that this nationalistic wave that confronts itself to this new rising mentality is in reality a fear of losing their identity and which would explain the amount of xenophobia that have been happening in the past few years. However, let’s first define this notion of cosmopolitanism before making any suppositions, because cosmopolitanism is defined as the idea that all of humanity could (and should) belong to a single community.

Various psychologists and scientists have been analyzing this growing ideology such as Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah who thought of a way to introduce it in education by teaching children to be global citizens instead of teaching them nationalism. In fact, according to him, cosmopolitanism education would encourage people to deal with various existing global issues, such as climate change. They would feel concerned about the problems that are happening all around the world, and would not remain closed to it only because their country has a good socio economic situation. They could become more sensitive to the cases of the refugees in their country, for example, because a lot of them are victims of xenophobia, so it is very hard for them to integrate. Thus, individuals should be encouraged to see themselves as humans with a broader mindset, independent of their race or their religion.

However, the reason this ideology is so controversial nowadays, is that a lot of people believe that each nation should have freedom to decide its own way of dealing with global issues and cosmopolitanism may restrict this freedom. Nonetheless, identifying as a citizen of a world doesn’t mean that you cannot have national pride and still love your country with its traditions and cultures, it is quite the contrary. Plus, teaching students about how to be a global citizen will have no impact on the decisions made by the ones in power: it would simply contribute to developing the international sensitivity of the next generations. And, maybe, this would influence the next generation to make more responsible decisions.

That being said, it is important to know that involving cosmopolitanism in education has never been tested before. So regarding it, the one thousand dollars question about it is if it would really make a difference or if it is just an unrealistic utopia. Probably, it just has to be tested to know. On that note, here is a quote of Oliver Markus Malloy to conclude with this idea:

“If you like war, be a nationalist. If you like peace, be a citizen of the world.”

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