Cosmopolitanism
2 January, 2006
How timely for a New Year to be introduced to the term "Cosmopolitanism," this in the NYTimes Magazine article by Kwame Anthony Appiah. My best friend and I, in 1984 met each other at Public Health School, the only two women wearing heels amidst a band of Birkenstocked, be-flanneled colleagues and instantly pegged ourselves as the Cosmo twins. Not because of some interests in Madison Avenue sexual adventuring but because we sensed in each other a worldli-ness, a flirtatiousness with that world and a huge appetite for life that included African dance, Statistics 101, deep fried garlic, cigarettes, international family planning, men, women and children. 21 years later, we are still close to each other's hearts after years of career, marriage, child-bearing and soul searching has taken us in different directions.
Now, the idea of Cosmopolitanism can mean more than just a city sense, and all that entails with its heterogenity of peoples, flavors, life-styles and beliefs, but a world view that is shared by people of distinctly different cultures from Islamic to Eastern Europpean. Kwame suggests that we step back from our cultural imperialisms and look to our individuals selves with out prejudice and sites a second century BC playwright (also sited by Jung) who says Homo sum: humanin il a me alienum puto: "I am human: nothing human is alien to me." This quote was particularly illuminating to me a while back, while (and still) trying to figure out how to accomodate internal emotional and cognitive battles. That we humans can be on this planet in so many diverse ways from paying women to pole-dance for us to mutilating their genitals, from worshipping CEO's who fill our stock coffers to tearing them down with glee when their greed gets the spot-light, to angel-icizing children but also working them in factories or trading them as sex slaves, says there is no one way to be human.
And how gloriously frustrating and frustratingly glorious! Of course, this comes from a liberal American whose basic needs are met and who has the time to pontificate and ponder to herself in a variety of public and private ways. But there is relief and recognition in having a major newspaper publish, thereby validating, thoughts that I've been entertaining for years and now must challenge myself to honor. As Rushdie's (op. cit.) novel "celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations fo human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs. It rejoices in mongrelisation and fears the absolution of the pure. Melange, hotch-potch, a bit of this and a bit of that is how newness enters the world."
I can foresee, with globalization, that this trend will be hard fought and hard won on societal (when will we ever sign the Kyoto agreement?) and individual levels (more/less therapy please!). And huge upheavals, with today's horrifyinigly effective arsenals, likely. But out of all the psycho-societal chaos, like the new seedlings that sprout after a tornado passes through town, what marvelous new life will be born? I hope to be around and aware long enough to taste it and share it with my loved ones.
How timely for a New Year to be introduced to the term "Cosmopolitanism," this in the NYTimes Magazine article by Kwame Anthony Appiah. My best friend and I, in 1984 met each other at Public Health School, the only two women wearing heels amidst a band of Birkenstocked, be-flanneled colleagues and instantly pegged ourselves as the Cosmo twins. Not because of some interests in Madison Avenue sexual adventuring but because we sensed in each other a worldli-ness, a flirtatiousness with that world and a huge appetite for life that included African dance, Statistics 101, deep fried garlic, cigarettes, international family planning, men, women and children. 21 years later, we are still close to each other's hearts after years of career, marriage, child-bearing and soul searching has taken us in different directions.
Now, the idea of Cosmopolitanism can mean more than just a city sense, and all that entails with its heterogenity of peoples, flavors, life-styles and beliefs, but a world view that is shared by people of distinctly different cultures from Islamic to Eastern Europpean. Kwame suggests that we step back from our cultural imperialisms and look to our individuals selves with out prejudice and sites a second century BC playwright (also sited by Jung) who says Homo sum: humanin il a me alienum puto: "I am human: nothing human is alien to me." This quote was particularly illuminating to me a while back, while (and still) trying to figure out how to accomodate internal emotional and cognitive battles. That we humans can be on this planet in so many diverse ways from paying women to pole-dance for us to mutilating their genitals, from worshipping CEO's who fill our stock coffers to tearing them down with glee when their greed gets the spot-light, to angel-icizing children but also working them in factories or trading them as sex slaves, says there is no one way to be human.
And how gloriously frustrating and frustratingly glorious! Of course, this comes from a liberal American whose basic needs are met and who has the time to pontificate and ponder to herself in a variety of public and private ways. But there is relief and recognition in having a major newspaper publish, thereby validating, thoughts that I've been entertaining for years and now must challenge myself to honor. As Rushdie's (op. cit.) novel "celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations fo human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs. It rejoices in mongrelisation and fears the absolution of the pure. Melange, hotch-potch, a bit of this and a bit of that is how newness enters the world."
I can foresee, with globalization, that this trend will be hard fought and hard won on societal (when will we ever sign the Kyoto agreement?) and individual levels (more/less therapy please!). And huge upheavals, with today's horrifyinigly effective arsenals, likely. But out of all the psycho-societal chaos, like the new seedlings that sprout after a tornado passes through town, what marvelous new life will be born? I hope to be around and aware long enough to taste it and share it with my loved ones.
posted by Barbery at 12:08 PM
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