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Book Review

Oseloka Obaze*

Saturday, 4 March 2006

Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers

Kwame Anthony Appiah

(ISBN 0-393-06155-8; W.W. Norton & Co. New York, NY; 2006; pp196; Price $23.95)

Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers is predicated on the principles of the existence of different people bound by a simple nexus of common values and humanity. The book is the flip side of two earlier works of the same genre; Chinweizu’s The West and the Rest of Us: White Predators, Black Slavers and the African Elite (1975) and Samuel P. Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996). While these other books stressed the separatist inclination of men that often result in policies and their correlation to existing dichotomies and even xenophobia, Appiah takes a philosophical bent, which basically argues against assumed imperatives that lead to the clashing of ideologies, cultures and civilizations.

In carefully opting to write under the binding rubric of Cosmopolitanism, rather than multilateralism or globalization, Appiah essentially argues that even in our unquestionably variegated world of clashing ideas and norms, there is a great verisimilitude that transcends imaginary or real boundaries that we seem more inclined to prefer and promote. He postulates that the ethos of differentiating societies notwithstanding, there are more binding similarities in a united world. The prime thrust of his argument is that many people of cosmopolitan temperament are not necessarily from the elite spectrum of their societies or for that matter, of the world. He is of the view that in a world full of strangers, Cosmopolitanism is a universal trait of humankind. This is basically an ancient philosophy, but one which may still be in dire need of a contemporary validation.

A conjunction of circumstances makes the appearance of Appiah’s book on the literary and political stage propitious. When he commenced writing the book, it is doubtful that he ever envisioned, talk less of predicting the furor, hostility and tensions between Islam and the West sparked by controversial Danish caricatures of Prophet Muhammad. Also, no one and certainly not Appiah, would have believed when Samuel Huntington wrote The Clash of Civilizations, several years back, that 9/11 would happen and that Huntington’s prescient forecast of conflict among civilizations, which Appiah’s work seems intent at debunking, even if that is not the primary goal, would materialize so soon in the 21 Century.

True to his calling as a philosopher and professor, Appiah’s vehement defense of Cosmopolitanism is well-argued, convincing and eminently commonsensical. But in joining the fray of the debate that is not new and which, indeed, goes back to the times of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Appiah it seems, is bent on prodding his reader to consider “that this neglected and attractive tradition of thought deserves serious attention as a habitable middle ground between liberalism and relativism”. He may be overly ambitious in his thinking. He certainly does not expect easy converts to ideas that some deem flighty, and therefore, inclined to consign dismissively to the realm of hardcore labels such as liberalism and idealism. Cosmopolitanism, no doubt, has some theoretical relevance to its distant and near cousins –conservatism and liberalism. But is seems that Appiah is comfortable in gunning for the middle ground by espousing the ties-that-bind with his cosmopolitan theory. As far as relevancy goes, he comes convincingly close to adducing that it is intellectuals that promote dichotomy in societies.

Anyone familiar with the Ashanti culture in Ghana and who might have indeed visited the Don’t Mind Your Wife Chop Bar in Accra, Ghana, the Leisure Castle Bar in Abuja, or the Sand-Sand Pepper Soup Joint in Lagos, Nigeria, will know too well that you need not be wealthy, elitist and urbanite to be cosmopolitan. Neither do you have to live in an egalitarian society to be one. In these three eateries, it is the culinary delights, the ambience and conviviality that attract and bind the customers. But there are also other shared values, beyond the food and liquor. Social standing seems to evaporate and in each instance and one can feel the pulse of the nation and philosophies that drives politics, just by sitting and listening in. It is in places like these that generals, politicians and executives close ranks to bond with the locals and Strangers, each shedding the cloak and might of their office or their inscrutability. It is in such watering holes, that the divide between affluent urban cosmopolitans and blue collar and rural cosmopolitans blur.

Following the rubric and tread of Appiah’s argument, it readily becomes evident that certain traits found in elitist cosmopolitans on the English countryside, the French Riviera, or the Makatini District in the Philippines could also be applied to the rural denizens of Moshi, Tanzania, Concord, Nebraska, and Cloudcroft, New Mexico, a remotely elevated and tiny hamlet with a population of 750. And just as strangers straddled Kumasi in the 1950s, so do they straddle every small iconic town in rural France, Mali or India. In these places, rural as they are, Cosmopolitanism is a way of life hinged on good grace, good neighborliness, shared values, and respect for rule of law, order and authority as a way of everyday living. But more importantly, life is grounded on solid philosophy, mores, and norms, and on doing good. There are no natural divisions, just mind sets. It is not surprising, therefore, that Appiah espoused earlier the hope, in the end, “to have made it harder to think of the world as divided between the West and the Rest; between locals and moderns; between the bloodless ethics of profit and the bloody ethic of identity; between “us” and “them”. (p.xxi)

Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers is moralistic. It is not bashful about its main goal, which is to compel a rethink of how we view our world, and the long held notion of the “the rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate”. It is therefore a manifesto of sorts, in which Appiah undertakes the onerous task of urging the reader to reevaluate the notion that the world is one great divide between the rich and the poor. Not that these elements do not exists, but that the binding element of Cosmopolitanism is far more ennobling, universal and integrative. This is not a treatise, nor by any means beyond reality, in eulogizing the divisiveness of idiosyncratic behaviors, values, and norms. But by the same thinking, it cannot be overlooked that Cosmopolitanism is stark by its definition, general understanding, and populist acceptance. Therefore, any attempt like Appiah’s aimed at applying Cosmopolitanism as a label fitting for rural settings of the disenfranchised, might be viewed with derision and at best, as a futile self-serving attempt to couple two worlds that cannot be bridged.

Appiah’s choice of Cosmopolitanism as the premise of his treatise is not totally out of line. He notes that original Cosmopolitanism rejected conventional views, but by the same token, he argued quite rightly, that it was Cosmopolitanism that underwrote the major achievements of the age of enlightenment. Hence, he is of the view that Cosmopolitanism considered any way -- ancient or modern, dated or contemporary – is not merely an “exalted attainment”. Those who make such cursory assumptions merely need to pick up Appiah’s book.

Appiah is unapologetic in stressing that while we can be different, and society has its foibles that shape our values, we can also learn. In his view, prejudices do not arise from ignorance and neither does intimacy breed amity. You can be genuinely engaged with ways of other societies without approving, let alone adopting them.” This is a hard sell. Can a European be engaged in the activities of the Klu Klux Klan and what it stands for historically in the United States, and not be seen as racially prejudiced or in the least, as subscribing to the tenets of racism on which the KKK was founded? Very doubtful! But then, this was the form of argument that was used by many Europeans who migrated to apartheid South Africa, and merely on the strength of their color gained access to wealth, prosperity and societal ascendancy. Philosophically, such latter day settlers were far worse in their culpability of black disenfranchisement than the early Boers settlers.

If what Appiah sets out to do is establish universality and shared values (good and bad), as a determinant or common denominator for Cosmopolitanism, he drew a lot of persuasive parallels. Citing works by ethnographers, he stressed that people in far-flung places were the same in that “[they] have gods, food, language, dance music, carvings, medicines, family lives, rituals, jokes and children’s tales. They smiled, slept, had sex and children, wept, and in the end, died” (p.14). Another commonality according to Appiah, is that “a lot of what we take to be right or wrong is simply a matter of customs”. His universalizing the maxim of shared commonalties argument, draws further on acts like “good parenting”, as well as “taboo”, which exists in his native Ghana (akywandee), or in Igbo land (nso), but is Polynesian in origin.

Appiah observes that from the Positivist slant, what is custom is linked to values, which in the end, “guide our acts, thoughts and our feelings”(p.25). It is in this context that he underscores that being kind is an attribute of experience more than any other variable since “people learn to be kind by being treated kindly and noticing it.” The pooling of all these strands of similarities is meant to encapsulate one point among several: “that most conflicts don’t arise from warring values” (p.67). In the present context, the point he might have made, is that the US and Iraq being at war, is not because the people of the two countries have different values. But this is not a point the politicians in Washington would readily accept, certainly, not the ideologues. But how did he arrive at this conclusion one may ask? He seems to suggest that “encouraging cosmopolitan engagement, presupposes the acceptance of disagreement”. Perhaps, this is why cosmopolitans endorse as a key aim, that we “learn about other people’s situations and then use our imagination to walk in their Moccasins” (p.68).

The average person and politicians too, would be more intrigued by one observation by Appiah, which speaks more to the realities we are accustomed to. It nevertheless seems also to contradict some of the very valid points he has made. He underscored that “people often recommend relativism because they think it will lead to tolerance. But if we cannot learn from one another what is right to think and feel and do, then conversation between us will be pointless.” Of course, and it is called “a stalemate” in modern political and negotiating jargon. And more often than not, stalemate marks the end of dialogue and the beginning of hostilities or sectarian violence. Examples abound. Protestants and Catholic in Northern Ireland and the Jews and Palestinians in Israel just to name a few. In each instance, any of these people would readily claim not just to be fighting for their rights and the principles they believe in, but for “the good” of their race, country, men, animals, etc. or however else it is defined. Appiah agrees. He notes that “warring parties are seldom at odds because they have clashing conceptions of ‘the good’. On the contrary, conflict arises most often, when two people have identified the same things as good”, This point begs the question.

Appiah’s expose on “Believers without Borders” as in “Doctors without Borders” is instructive in explaining universalism as well as their driving motives and consequences:

They believe in human dignity across nations… share ideals with people in many countries, speaking many languages… they would never go to war for country, but they will enlist campaign against any nation that gets in the way of universal justice. They are young, global Muslim fundamentalist; they are the recruiting ground of Al Qaeda. (pp. 137-8)

Appiah goes on to suggest that such fundamentalism exemplify the universal ethics, which “inverts the picture of Cosmopolitanism and in the absence of toleration, turns easily to murder”. Further on this point, Appiah notes comparatively, a parallel similar to the phenomenon among Christians: it is fundamentalism, which is “perfectly consistent with the political and social integration as a minority within a framework of a democratic republic that allows freedom of religion”. (p.140)

The foregoing certainly prompts one to wonder how Appiah would respond to the conventional wisdom that “democracies do not go to war with each other?” How does he explain that in peace and security matters, those who form the “coalition of the willing” share common principles that bring them to collectively fight off or go against a party that is not of that view? Perhaps, his rationale is that Iraq, for instance, saw “the good” in Kuwait –oil and land – and thus invaded it in 1991. The Coalition of the Willing led by the United States, also saw “the good” in Kuwait -oil, land, stability in the region and a dose of morality – so, it went in to dislodge Iraq. But then, why did Iran which fought Iraq for ten years, not deem it proper to join the UK and the US in the present war against Iraq? That choice is, perhaps, because it saw “the good” in not doing so. Apropos Iran, while it sees the acquisition of nuclear power for peaceful purposes as “the good”, the UK, US, France, Russia and China, which all posses nuclear power and nuclear weapons, do not share Iran’s desire nor its intent to be “good” by aspiring to become a member of the nuclear club. Invariably, Iran and the Club are aligned on a collision course.

I totally agree with Appiah that “Cosmopolitanism is about intelligence and curiosity as well as engagement.” I also agree with him that most of what he said is “shocking”, even if one were to accept as he suggests, “that not all values have the same measure.” Simple rationalization would advise, for instance, not going to opera when the children are dying, “children who could be saved with the price of admission”. But it is this same attitude that leads to the diminution of the value of life, when it is that of a Palestinian child in Gaza or a Sudanese child in Darfur, as compared to the life if children in Stockholm, Quebec or Kent. What is not strange, is that we will always treat people different from us as exactly what they are- strangers. This will always happen regardless of the fact that they are humans like us and share some of the values we hold dear. As I see it, if Cosmopolitans were like Lot’s wife, then Iraq might have been spared the brutality of war for they are many Cosmopolitans in Iraq, Afghanistan and many other nations destabilized by war. Needless to add, that Bosnia Kosovo, and Rwanda all had their respective fair share of cosmopolitans and look at where they all ended up.

Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, like many other works of philosophy suffers from a singular constraint; “it is never easy to sketch a philosophical position” in a world of contending views and values. This is a point even Appiah himself makes (p.18). The other weakness of the book, if I dare call it that, is that not being based on hard facts, but on banquet of observations mixed with the author’s personal hunches and valuations, the thrust of all the arguments adduced by Appiah can, without prejudice, be considered from the perspective of Peter Fetlock’s theory of experts; they fall in love and romanticize their ideas and ideals, and really hate being told that they are wrong. Needless to say in this context, that falliblism is a universal human foible. The same would go for those who are insular, a deposition that is counterbalance to being a Cosmopolitan, but not necessary a flawed human or national trait.

This is a book every philosophy student and culturally curious person ought to read. Appiah’s style of writing is not dense nor does he use pedantic language to obfuscate slippery points of logic. In Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, one readily becomes accustomed to many tribes and their ways of life and values. This is a book other philosophers will in time parse and even disagree with. Some will certainly seek to discountenance some of Appiah’s postulations, but I presume he knew that in joining the fray, he became game for qualified and unqualified critics alike. That, after all, is a tool of his trade. While a philosopher is supposed to philosophize, the greatest tribute to his work, which also applies to this book, is the test it puts the reader through. As William Douglas once noted, “when ideas compete in the market for acceptance, full and free discussion even of ideas we hate encourages the testing of our own prejudices and preconception”. This book does exactly that.

While this is not the philosophy book that will end all wars, every religious and ethnic conflict, nor for that matter hunger poverty and deprivation, I deem it essential and truly ennobling that Appiah ended his work with a clarion call: “The people of the richest nations can do better. This is a demand of simple morality. But it is one that will resonate more widely if we make our civilization more cosmopolitan”. To that, I say Amen! But is anyone listening.

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*Mr. Oseloka Obaze, an aspiring writer, is a member of the Kwenu.com Book Review Forum, which is dedicated to the promotion of books with Igbo and Afrocentric themes. He is also a supporting Member of the African Writers Endowment (AWE). From 1999 to 2005 he served on the editorial board of INYEAKA, the journal of Songhai Charities, Inc., a New Jersey community-based charity founded and run by Nigerians based in New York Tri-state area in the United States, first as its founding Publisher and later as the Editor-At-Large. He is also on the editorial board of The Amaka Gazette, the journal of the Christ the King College, Onitsha Alumni Association in America. His collection of poems, “Regarscent Past: A Collection of Poems” was among the top three finalists in the poetry category in the African Writers Endowment Publishing Grant Program for 2004. He reviews books and arts strictly as a hobby.