James Poulos blogs at DoubleThink Oniline and wrote an entry about the logical and moral folly of Obama's call for "global citizenship."
His points are elegantly excoriated in a growing commentary section. Here is a paragraph excerpted from his post:
Our yearning for pan-human solidarity is an absurdity, the absurdity of the human condition, and the most utopian of all utopian ideas is the idea of a Brotherhood of Man: because the human race is not a family, just like it isn’t one big polity. We are stuck with differentiation; there is no metaphor that allows us to redefine humanity as a closer relationship than it is. That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. Indeed, the only trope that allows us to develop closer amicable relationships with strangers is the trope of friendship, and the only way to close the relationship with a stranger is to make friends. Not to ‘make citizens’; not to ‘make brothers’. This is crazy European talk — the discredited language of the bloody French and German experiments in various kinds of border-busting solidarity
Nice, subtle reference to Nazi's at the end. Always a solid way to prove your point.
He misses on a couple points, first that friendship isn't the only trope, or metaphor, capable of accurately describing relationships with strangers, what about a "business partner." The world is more economically intertwined than during any other time in history and it becomes more so every day. Countries and governments try to slow this change with tariffs and other trade limitations, with incomplete success. It is this selfish, economic drive that will propel countries around the world to cooperate, not high falutin' moral goals of a utopian humanity.
His second shortcoming is in reference to "strangers" only being able to relate through "friendship." That doesn't make sense. Strangers would be more likely to be interested in a business partnership and less likely to want to be "friends." Even, for argument's sake, assuming he is correct, there are still a couple flaws with this.
First, he assumes that the people of the world will always be "strangers" with each other. That was true when the philosophers and politicians that Poulos emulates wrote their ideas. Even 25 years ago, communication and travel was onerous enough to make a "world view" a rare commodity. That is no longer the case. Secondly, once two people become "friends" their outlook on competition and cooperation with each other changes. This fundamentally affects how they will work together. He belief that strangers can become friends, but friends can not act as "citizens" doesn't seem to sense.
Perhaps, at the heart of this debate is the definition of "citizen." Poulos implies that a global citizen somehow sheds all personal concern and only looks at the world with an unselfish, idealistic view. Others (Reagan, Bush Jr., Obama) view a global citizen as an entity that continues to work in their own best interests, but recognizes that more can be accomplished working with others, than alone. Sometimes that may mean giving, in order to receive, after all, compromise is the heart of realpolitik.
-SWL
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