And yet it was not that my husband refused to support Swadeshi, or was in any way against the Cause. Only he had not been able whole-heartedly to accept the spirit of Bande Mataram.'I am willing,' he said, to serve my country; but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it.'
Americans have frequently supported the principle of Bande Mataram,
giving the fact of being American a special salience in moral and political
deliberation, and pride in a specifically American identity and a specifically
American citizenship a special power among the motivations to political
action. I believe, with Tagore and his character Nikhil, that this emphasis
on patriotic pride is both morally dangerous and, ultimately, subversive
of some of the worthy goals patriotism sets out to serve -- for example,
the goal of national unity in devotion to worthy moral ideals of justice
and equality. These goals, I shall argue, would be better served by an
ideal that is in any case more adequate to our situation in the contemporary
world, namely the very old ideal of the cosmopolitan, the person whose
primary allegiance is to the community of human beings in the entire world.
My articulation of these issues is motivated, in part, by my experience
working on international quality-of-life issues in an institute for development
economics connected with the United Nations. It is motivated, as well,
by the renewal of appeals to the nation, and national pride, in some recent
discussions of American character and American education. In a by now well-known
op-ed piece in The New York Times (13 February 1994), philosopher Richard
Rorty urges Americans, especially the American left, not to disdain patriotism
as a value, and indeed to give central importance to "the emotion of national
pride" and "a sense of shared national identity." Rorty argues that we
cannot even criticize ourselves well unless we also "rejoice" in our American
identity and define ourselves fundamentally in terms of that identity.
Rorty seems to hold that the primary alternative to a politics based on
patriotism and national identity is what he calls a "politics of difference,"
one based on internal divisions among America's ethnic, racial, religious,
and other sub-groups. He nowhere considers the possibility of a more international
basis for political emotion and concern.
This is no isolated case. Rorty's piece responds to and defends Sheldon
Hackney's recent call for a "national conversation"1 to discuss American
identity. As a participant in an early phase of that project, I was made
vividly aware that the project, as initially conceived,2 proposed an inward-looking
task, bounded by the borders of the nation, rather than considering ties
of obligation and commitment that join America to the rest of the world.
As with Rorty's piece, the primary contrast drawn in the project was between
a politics based on ethnic and racial and religious difference and a politics
based on a shared national identity. What we share as both rational and
mutually dependent human beings was simply not on the agenda.
One might wonder, however, how far the politics of nationalism really is from the "politics of difference." The Home and the World (better known, perhaps, in Satyajit Ray's haunting film of the same title) is a tragic story of the defeat of a reasonable and principled cosmopolitanism by the forces of nationalism and ethnocentrism. I believe that Tagore sees deeply when he sees that at bottom nationalism and ethnocentric particularism are not alien to one another, but akin -- that to give support to nationalist sentiments subverts, ultimately, even the values that hold a nation together, because it substitutes a colorful idol for the substantive universal values of justice and right. Once one has said, "I am an Indian first, a citizen of the world second," once one has made that morally questionable move of self-definition by a morally irrelevant characteristic, then what, indeed, will stop one from saying, as Tagore's characters so quickly learn to say, "I am a Hindu first, and an Indian second," "I am an upper-caste landlord first, and a Hindu second." Only the cosmopolitan stance of the landlord Nikhil -- so boringly flat in the eyes of his young wife Bimala and his passionate nationalist friend Sandip -- has the promise of transcending these divisions, because only this stance asks us to give our first allegiance to what is morally good -- and that which, being good, I can commend as such to all human beings. Or so I shall argue.
Proponents of nationalism in politics and in education frequently make a thin concession to cosmopolitanism. They may argue, for example, that although nations should in general base education and political deliberation on shared national values, a commitment to basic human rights should be part of any national educational system, and that this commitment will in a sense serve to hold many nations together.3 This seems to be a fair comment on practical reality; and the emphasis on human rights is certainly necessary for a world in which nations interact all the time on terms, let us hope, of justice and mutual respect.
But is it sufficient? As students here grow up, is it sufficient for them to learn that they are above all citizens of the United States, but that they ought to respect the basic human rights of citizens of India, Bolivia, Nigeria, and Norway? Or should they, as I think -- in addition to giving special attention to the history and current situation of their own nation -- learn a good deal more than is frequently the case about the rest of the world in which they live, about India and Bolivia and Nigeria and Norway and their histories, problems, and comparative successes? Should they learn only that citizens of India have equal basic human rights, or should they also learn about the problems of hunger and pollution in India, and the implications of these problems for larger problems of global hunger and global ecology? Most important, should they be taught that they are above all citizens of the United States, or should they instead be taught that they are above all citizens of a world of human beings, and that, while they themselves happen to be situated in the United States, they have to share this world of human beings with the citizens of other countries? I shall shortly suggest four arguments for the second conception of education, which I shall call cosmopolitan education. But first I introduce a historical digression, which will trace cosmopolitanism to its origins, in the process recovering some excellent arguments that originally motivated it as an educational project.
Stoics who hold that good civic education is education for world citizenship recommend this attitude on three grounds. First, they hold that the study of humanity as it is realized in the whole world is valuable for self-knowledge: we see ourselves more clearly when we see our ways in relation to those of other reasonable people.
Second, they argue, as does Tagore, that we will be better able to solve our problems if we face them in this way. No theme is deeper in Stoicism than the damage done by faction and local allegiances to the political life of a group. Political deliberation, they argue, is sabotaged again and again by partisan loyalties, whether to one's team at the Circus or to one's nation. Only by making our fundamental allegiance that to the world community of justice and reason do we avoid these dangers.
Finally, they insist that the stance of the kosmou politês is intrinsically valuable. For it recognizes in persons what is especially fundamental about them, most worthy of respect and acknowledgment: their aspirations to justice and goodness and their capacities for reasoning in this connection. This aspect may be less colorful than local or national traditions and identities -- and it is on this basis that the young wife in Tagore's novel spurns it in favor of qualities in the nationalist orator Sandip that she later comes to see as superficial; it is, the Stoics argue, both lasting and deep.
The Stoics stress that to be a citizen of the world one does not need to give up local identifications, which can frequently be a source of great richness in life. They suggest that we think of ourselves not as devoid of local affiliations, but as surrounded by a series of concentric circles. The first one is drawn around the self; the next takes in one's immediate family; then follows the extended family; then, in order, one's neighbors or local group, one's fellow city-dwellers, one's fellow countrymen -- and we can easily add to this list groupings based on ethnic, linguistic, historical, professional, gender and sexual identities. Outside all these circles is the largest one, that of humanity as a whole. Our task as citizens of the world will be to "draw the circles somehow toward the center" (Stoic philosopher Hierocles, 1st 2nd CE), making all human beings more like our fellow city dwellers, and so on. In other words, we need not give up our special affections and identifications, whether ethnic or gender-based or religious. We need not think of them as superficial, and we may think of our identity as in part constituted by them. We may and should devote special attention to them in education. But we should work to make all human beings part of our community of dialogue and concern, base our political deliberations on that interlocking commonality, and give the circle that defines our humanity a special attention and respect.
This means, in educational terms, that the student in the United States, for example, may continue to regard herself as in part defined by her particular loves -- for her family, her religious and/or ethnic and/or racial community or communities, even for her country. But she must also, and centrally, learn to recognize humanity wherever she encounters it, undeterred by traits that are strange to her, and be eager to understand humanity in its "strange" guises. She must learn enough about the different to recognize common aims, aspirations, and values, and enough about these common ends to see how variously they are instantiated in the many cultures and many histories. Stoic writers insist that the vivid imagining of the different is an essential task of education; and that requires in turn, of course, a mastery of many facts about the different. Marcus Aurelius gives himself the following advice, which might be called the basis for cosmopolitan education: "Accustom yourself not to be inattentive to what another person says, and as far as possible enter into that person's mind" (VI.53). "Generally," he concludes, "one must first learn many things before one can judge another's action with understanding."
A favored exercise, in this process of world thinking, is to conceive of the entire world of human beings as a single body, its many people as so many limbs. Referring to the fact that it takes only the change of a single letter in Greek to convert the word "limb" (melos) into the word "[detached] part" (meros), Marcus concludes: "If, changing the word, you call yourself merely a [detached] part rather than a limb, you do not yet love your fellow men from the heart, nor derive complete joy from doing good; you will do it merely as a duty, not as doing good to yourself" (VII.13). It is important to recall that, as Emperor, he gives himself this advice in connection with daily duties that require coming to grips with the cultures of remote and initially strange civilizations such as those of Parthia and Sarmatia.
I would like to see education adopt this cosmopolitan Stoic stance. The organic model could of course be abused -- if, for example, it were to be taken to deny the fundamental importance of the separateness of persons and of fundamental personal liberties. Stoics were not always sufficiently attentive to these values and to their political salience; in that sense their thought is not always a good basis for a scheme of democratic deliberation and education. But as the image is primarily intended -- as a reminder of the interdependence of all human beings and communities -- it has fundamental significance. There is clearly a huge amount to be said about how such ideas might be realized in curricula at many levels. Instead of beginning that more concrete task, however, I shall now return to the present day and offer four arguments for making world citizenship, rather than democratic/national citizenship, education's central focus. (The first two are modern versions of my first two Stoic arguments; the third develops one part of my Stoic argument about intrinsic moral value; the fourth is more local, directed at the pro-patriotism arguments I am criticizing.)
To give just one example of this -- since 1994 is the United Nations'
International Year of the Family -- if we want to understand our own history
and our choices where the structure of the family and of child-rearing
are involved, we are immeasurably assisted by looking around the world
to see in what configurations families exist, and through what strategies
children are in fact being cared for. (This would include a study of the
history of the family, both in our own and in other traditions.) Such a
study can show us, for example, that the two-parent nuclear family, in
which the mother is the primary homemaker and the father the primary breadwinner
is by no means a pervasive style of child-rearing in today's world. The
extended family, clusters of families, the village, women's associations
-- all these groups and still others are in various places regarded as
having major child-rearing responsibilities. Seeing this, we can begin
to ask questions -- for example, how much child abuse there is in a family
that involves grandparents and other relatives in child-rearing, as compared
with the relatively isolated Western-style nuclear family; how many different
structures of child care have been found to support women's work, and how
well each of these is functioning.4 If we do not undertake this kind of
educational project, we risk assuming that the options familiar to us are
the only ones there are, and that they are somehow "normal" and "natural"
for the human species as such. Much the same can be said about conceptions
of gender and sexuality, about conceptions of work and its division, about
schemes of property holding, about the treatment of childhood and old age.
To conduct this sort of global dialogue, we need not only knowledge
of the geography and ecology of other nations -- something that would already
entail much revision in our curricula -- but also a great deal about the
people with whom we shall be talking, so that in talking with them we may
be capable of respecting their traditions and commitments. Cosmopolitan
education would supply the background necessary for this type of deliberation.
This point may appear to presuppose universalism, rather than being
an argument in its favor. But here one may note that the values on which
Americans may most justly pride themselves are, in a deep sense, Stoic
values: respect for human dignity and the opportunity for each person to
pursue happiness. If we really do believe that all human beings are created
equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights, we are morally required
to think about what that conception requires us to do with and for the
rest of the world.
Once again, that does not mean that one may not permissibly give one's
own sphere a special degree of concern. Politics, like child care, will
be poorly done if each thinks herself equally responsible for all, rather
than giving the immediate surroundings special attention and care. To give
one's own sphere special care is justifiable in universalist terms, and
I think that this is its most compelling justification. To take one example,
we do not really think that our own children are morally more important
than other people's children, even though almost all of us who have children
would give our own children far more love and care than we give other people's
children. It is good for children, on the whole, that things should work
out this way, and that is why our special care is good rather than selfish.
Education may and should reflect those special concerns -- spending more
time, for example, within a given nation, on that nation's history and
politics. But my argument does entail that we should not confine our thinking
to our own sphere -- that in making choices in both political and economic
matters we should most seriously consider the right of other human beings
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and work to acquire the
knowledge that will enable us to deliberate well about those rights. I
believe that this sort of thinking will have large-scale economic and political
consequences.
For one thing, the very same groups exist both outside and inside.
Why should we think of people from China as our fellows the minute they
dwell in a certain place, namely the United States, but not when they dwell
in a certain other place, namely China? What is it about the national boundary
that magically converts people toward whom our education is both incurious
and indifferent into people to whom we have duties of mutual respect? I
think, in short, that we undercut the very case for multicultural respect
within a nation by failing to make a broader world respect central to education.
Richard Rorty's patriotism may be a way of bringing all Americans together;
but patriotism is very close to jingoism, and I'm afraid I don't see in
Rorty's argument any proposal for coping with this very obvious danger.
Furthermore, the defense of shared national values in both Rorty and
Hackney, as I understand it, requires appealing to certain basic features
of human personhood that obviously also transcend national boundaries.
So if we fail to educate children to cross those boundaries in their minds
and imaginations, we are tacitly giving them the message that we don't
really mean what we say. We say that respect should be accorded to humanity
as such, but we really mean that Americans as such are worthy of special
respect. And that, I think, is a story that Americans have told for far
too long.
In Tagore's novel, the appeal to world citizenship fails -- fails because patriotism is full of color and intensity and passion, whereas cosmopolitanism seems to have a hard time gripping the imagination. And yet in its very failure, Tagore shows, it succeeds. For the novel is a story of education for world citizenship, since the entire tragic story is told by the widowed Bimala, who understands, if too late, that Nikhil's morality was vastly superior to Sandip's empty symbol-mongering, that what looked like passion in Sandip was egocentric self-exaltation, and that what looked like lack of passion in Nikhil contained a truly loving perception of her as a person. If one goes today to Santiniketan, a town several hours by train from Calcutta, the town where Tagore founded his cosmopolitan university Vishvabharati -- whose name means "all the world" -- one feels the tragedy once more. For all-the-world university has not achieved the anticipated influence or distinction within India, and the ideals of the cosmopolitan community of Santiniketan are increasingly under siege from militant forces of ethnocentric particularism and Hindu-fundamentalist nationalism. And yet, in the very decline of Tagore's ideal -- which now threatens the very existence of the secular and tolerant Indian state -- the observer sees its worth. To worship one's country as a god is indeed to bring a curse upon it. Recent electoral reactions against Hindu nationalism give some grounds for optimism that this recognition of worth is widespread and may prove efficacious, averting a tragic ending of the sort that Tagore describes.
And since I am in fact optimistic that Tagore's ideal can be successfully realized in schools and universities in democracies around the world, and in the formation of public policy, let me conclude with a story of cosmopolitanism that has a happy ending. It is told by Diogenes Laertius about the courtship and marriage of the Cynic cosmopolitan philosophers Crates and Hipparchia (one of the most eminent female philosophers of antiquity) -- in order, presumably, to show that casting off the symbols of status and nation can sometimes be a way to succeed in love. The background is that Hipparchia is from a good family, attached, as most Greek families were, to social status and pedigree. They resent the cosmopolitan philosopher Crates, with his strange ideas of world citizenship and his strange disdain for rank and boundaries.
[Hipparchia] fell in love with Crates' arguments and his way of life and paid no attention to any of her suitors nor to wealth or high birth or good looks. Crates, though, was everything to her. Moreover, she told her parents that she would kill herself if she were not married off to him. So Crates was called on by her parents to talk their daughter out of it; he did all he could, but in the end he didn't persuade her. So he stood up and threw off his clothes in front of her and said, "Here is your bridegroom; these are his possessions; make your decision accordingly--for you cannot be my companion unless you undertake the same way of life." The girl chose him. Adopting the same clothing and style of life she went around with her husband and they copulated in public and they went off together to dinner parties. And once she went to a dinner party at the house of Lysimachus and there refuted Theodorus the Atheist, with a sophism like this: "If it wouldn't be judged wrong for Theodorus to do something, then it wouldn't be judged wrong for Hipparchia to do it either; but Theodorus does no wrong if he beats himself; so Hipparchia too does no wrong if she beats Theodorus." And when Theodorus could not reply to her argument, he ripped off her cloak. But Hipparchia was not upset or distraught as a woman would normally be. (DL 6.96-8)5
I am not exactly recommending Crates and Hipparchia as the marital ideal for students in my hypothetical cosmopolitan schools (or Theodorus the Atheist as their logic teacher).6 But the story does reveal this: that the life of the cosmopolitan, who puts right before country, and universal reason before the symbols of national belonging, need not be boring, flat, or lacking in love.
6 I exempt Hipparchia, since she was clearly trying to show him
up, and she did not endorse the fallacious inference seriously.