Not Universalists, Not Pluralists: The New Cosmopolitans Find Their Own Way

Abstract

Within the past five years, a host of initiatives in critical and democratic theory have been launched under the old sign of cosmopolitanism. The symposium "Cosmopolitanism Then and Now" published in a recent issue of Constellations 1 is but one of a flurry of relevant happenings in the quarterlies. The Partisan Review and Dissent printed ringing cosmopolitan manifestos from two continental theorists, Pascal Bruckner and Ulrich Beck, 2 and American Literary History published a state-of-the-art essay on cultural theory declaring that cosmopolitanism was the concept now replacing multiculturalism in the work of the most methodologically up-to-date and ideologically self-aware of literary scholars. 3 Public Culture has announced its intention to devote an entire issue to cosmopolitanism. The movement has found strong voices in a number of disciplinary communities, as represented, for example, by Exactly why the new cosmopolitanism emerged with such force in the second half of the 1990s is an interesting question I will not try to answer here. 8 Instead, I want to attempt an analysis that seems to me more urgently needed. I want to indicate the most prominent features of the new cosmopolitanism, and, at the risk of rendering the movement more unified than it is, to explain how it is marking out a distinctive doctrinal position between what I believe is best called the 'universalism' of Nussbaum and the 'pluralism' of Will Kymlicka. In so doing, I will call attention to the relevance of the case of the United States to the development of a cosmopolitanism responsive to contemporary global conditions.

Everything Moves? Beyond Culture and Multiculturalism in Irish Public Discourse

“…Beyond celebration it is not always clear if the recognition of difference involves anything more than the prescription of a primary identity, and a pluralism content to observe and conserve the putative margins of coexisting cultures structured by the very invocation of pluralism. 31 It is beyond the scope and competence of this article to examine the dynamics of being recognized, although research suggests that the conflation of all difference to the cultural register both provides possibilities to and inscribes limitations on the negotiation of ethnic minority status in a country feeling its way into the issues. 32 The quote from Brian Hayes also inevitably describes post-homogeneous Ireland as a 'multicultural exciting' place to live, and this standard characterization is worthy of scrutiny.…”

La voix des femmes autochtones sur les débats entre droits individuels et droits collectifs au Mexique

“…En cela, leurs demandes s'éloignent d'une position pluraliste acritique de la culture et des systèmes normatifs. Elles cherchent une reconnaissance de droits spécifiques tout en se distanciant du risque d'essentialiser la diffé-rence et d'en évacuer les rapports historiques et contextuels de pouvoir qui y sont intrinsèques (Hollinger, 2001 ;Sierra, 2004b). Face à ce rejet d'une position universaliste qui se base uniquement sur les droits individuels, mais au rejet également d'une position pluraliste qui tend à réifier la différence, les femmes autochtones se trouvent à négocier une position articulant les deux dans leurs pratiques quotidiennes.…”

Chasing Butterflies Without a Net: Interpreting Cosmopolitanism

“…Gunesch (2004) distinguishes cosmopolitanism from internationalism by characterizing the latter as a political concept and the former as a psychological and cultural concept. Hollinger (2002) contrasts cosmopolitanism with pluralism as follows: ''Cosmopolitans are specialists in the creation of the new, while cautious about destroying the old; pluralists are specialists in the conservation of the old while cautious about creating the new'' (pp. 231-212).…”