Thomas Shelton Blog 5

Thomas Shelton

Mark Shirk

GVPT200

December 4, 2013

               On paper cosmopolitanism is a great way to reduce the amount of wars and military disputes across the globe because it calls for every human being to treat every other person in the world as equals regardless of their political affiliations, culture, country of residence, etc.  However in reality the implementation of this ideology is essentially impossible because it requires the cooperation of every single person on earth or else the system will fail.

               If the world was a cosmopolitan society then we would all share the same morals and values and therefore would be less likely to get in a conflict with one another. Every single conflict in the history of mankind was caused by a difference in beliefs; Huguenot vs. Catholics, Tutsis vs. Hutus, Nazis vs. Everyone else and the list goes on forever. Without reasons to feel superior to one another there would not be a lesser people, everybody would be everyone’s top priority. While this sounds like the solution for world peace, realistically this ideology is internally flawed and my next points prove why.

               Cosmopolitanism relies directly on the universal acceptance of this ideology because the people who refuse to accept with will act based on their own morals and their actions will cause the fall in cosmopolitanism. The main threat to cosmopolitanism is patriotism because patriotism is based on a bias towards a certain group of people who share a similar history, culture, financial standing, ethnicity, etc. The similarities shared by these people allow them identify with one another better and therefore they mentally put this group of people in a higher standing then those who are different. Usually these groups form because of a common moral code and since they see themselves and their community as superior they hold themselves and others to this moral code.  In order to overcome patriotism, cosmopolitanism would have to be universally accepted at the same time globally. It could not be an ever increasing effort until it reaches global acceptance because those who do not follow cosmopolitanism will act on their own beliefs and the lack of equality will cause those in favor of cosmopolitanism to abandon their efforts to form their own groups.

 Now this is where the problems arises in cosmopolitanism, if we do not have these groups because everyone is considered equal how will we decide what is right or wrong and who has the authority to make this decision. If somebody is given the authority to make this decision it already breaks the idea of everyone being equal because a certain individual or group of individuals is given priority. Also the idea of every person agreeing on everything is impossible, even with only two people there will be things they disagree on because they each have their own identity, to agree on everything would strip them of their ability to differentiate themselves from one another. What would identify me as Thomas if I held the exact same beliefs, values, morals, etc., as another person? Why even have a name to identify myself at that point. It is in human nature to create an identity for yourself and in doing you must agree with someone on a certain topic but disagree on another. Your identity is a conglomerate of beliefs both similar and different to your community, cosmopolitanism calls for an impossible absolute agreement with your community which goes directly against human nature.

Ignoring the fact that we no longer have no soul, what other problems arise in our community and state upon accepting cosmopolitanism? One major problem is the partitioning of labor, we face the same problems as we did earlier selecting universal beliefs in that how do we decide who gets to be the janitor and who gets to be race car driver. There is no way to equally divide the jobs we currently have and if there was how would be go about paying them? This system faces the same problems as absolute communism does where even if you work harder you only get as much as your neighbor. There is no way to combat this problem it is physically impossible to create a world where everybody sees themselves as equal to one another because in the end somebody will always be getting the short end of the stick.

If humans were capable of living in a 1984-esque “utopia” then cosmopolitanism is the solution for every problem we have ever encountered. Sadly human nature will not allow us to do so because of the necessity of a personal identity and the impossibility of every person in the world accepting this ideology simultaneously.