Deep Cosmopolis: Rethinking World Politics and Globalisation (Routledge Innovations in Political Theory) by Adam K. Webb

Author:Adam K. Webb [Webb, Adam K.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781317486725
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2015-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

The Tower of Babel. Engraving by Gustave Doré, 1880.

10 Relearning How to Talk Across Traditions

Modernity makes one wonder about roads not taken. The trajectory of deep cosmopolitanism advanced erratically over twenty centuries up to the 1600s. It seemed on the verge of breaking through into the mechanisms of dialogue for a true world civilisation to emerge in the long run. Then the rise of global capitalism sent everything awry. Modernity bound the world together in a new way, which put the civilisations on the retreat rather than intensifying their integration. Humanity was to meet on the bedrock of self-interest.

From the standpoint of the deep cosmopolitans of 1600 or before, today’s globalisation would hardly be recognisable as a common human project. Even if they might welcome its scale, they would have misgivings about its content. What the ancients and mediævals saw as the most vital human questions, centred on ethics and spirituality, are largely ignored in today’s public culture. This is partly because, chastened by religious wars in early modern Europe, some believe they can buy peace by bracketing arguments about truth. It also cannot be overlooked that today’s consumer society comes into tension with some of the more rigorous visions of the good life.

If one thinks that today’s globalisation suffers from an ethical vacuum, and proposes to look to the traditions to fill it, one still comes up against the problem of exactly how those traditions can interlock on the global landscape. Vagueness, even if it springs from a desire to tread lightly, will not get us very far.

Take two prominent thinkers who have written extensively on global ethics, roughly at the intersection of religion and liberalism. Hans Küng, a Swiss Catholic theologian, has argued that there can be ‘no new world order without a new world ethic’. He has long urged dialogue among religions as a basis for world peace. Global institutions will have to be sustained by a global ethic, which Küng finds in the overlap among religions. Such shared principles include fairness, tolerance, truthfulness, solidarity, and humane treatment of all people regardless of their background. He explains that such commitments are only a ‘necessary minimum’. Because they do not get too specific, they are also ‘not directed against anyone’. We hear much the same argument from the British philosopher Nigel Dower, who alongside his academic writing has also worked in the Quaker peace movement and lobbied for more generous international aid. Dower argues for a common global ethic with much the same content as what Küng lays out. He says that this ethic need not be seen as a discovery of metaphysical truth. Rather, it can just emerge from negotiation, as a ‘common core accepted in any society’.1

No doubt Küng and Dower, and many thoughtful people like them, genuinely want to smooth the rough edges of globalisation. If such a common global ethic guided decisionmaking, it surely would help relieve human suffering and lessen conflict. Yet a deep cosmopolitan will find it unsatisfying. Thinkers such as Küng and Dower mention older religious and ethical traditions in a rather half-hearted way.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.