Cosmopolitan Universalism vs. the Left
An important observation from Chris Bertram:
The fact is, of course, that far from being advocates of the kind of cosmopolitan universalism championed by Kant, most of the “decent” left are actually advocates of or apologists for some form of 19th-century ethnic nationalism. Of course, the case for and against such nationalism has to be argued on its merits, but there is something radically inconsistent in simultaneously banging on about the Enlightement and endorsing nationalisms antithetical to the ideals of thinkers like Kant and Voltaire.
Long live Kant and Voltaire!
March 29th, 2006 10:08
Will, I think you are misinterpreting Bertram. I’m inferring this because of your elision of the word “decent”. Bertram doesn’t refer to those on the left who are in favour of protectionism. The “decent left” means something quite specific and refers to those, such as David Aaronovitch, Harry’s Place and Norman Geras, who identify as “left” but who were/are also pro-war. Incidentally, his argument is a bit stretched here and is based on the dubious notion that the “decent left” are primarily concerned with the issue of national self-determination.
March 29th, 2006 12:49
I was once party to a Harvard graduate seminar on Marx that discussed his views on nineteenth century nationalist movements. The professor argued that Marx was actually quite cautious in his appraisal of which nationalist movements were based on genuine historical conditions that could give rise to a nation. For example, Marx was sympathetic with Polish nationalist movements (he seemed to think that they had somewhat more historical justification than German nationalism), but he ridiculed the notion that residents of the Isle of Man could claim an authentic nationalist movement.
Of course, its silly for the left to look to a particular political thinker as a source for its views on nationalism. But the point may be worth making that IF the left were to look to Marx it would NOT reach the conclusion that nationality was the key aspiration for political movements in, say, the range of third world situations.
So, why indeed should the left emphasize nationalism (much less ethnic nationalism) instead of focusing on the goal of creating a political-economic middle class in whatever state systems happen to exist?
I’m not in fact convinced that the left in general is excessively focused on nationalism. Yet there is an uncomfortable tendancy on the left to disdain (for lack of a better term) middle-class values.
It seems to me that if we on the left are going to argue that (1) increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny minority of individuals and (2) domination of the global economy by centrally managed, highly capitalized corporations are dangerous trends, then we need to extol the virtues of societies that have/had large middle classes that controlled the vast majority of resources and set up the political and economic conditions for free markets and democracy. It seems to me that neither the right nor the left is particularly cognizant of what exactly we are losing as inequality waxes.
March 29th, 2006 20:01
Frank’s right on both counts - those are Bertram’s scare quotes around “decent,” intended to identify a particular crowd of hawkish liberal internationalists, and there’s no reason I can see to claim that they are all worked up over self-determination, as opposed to liberal democracy. The whole back-and-forth is a muddle of misplaced accusations and counter-accusations.
April 1st, 2006 06:32
will– Chris Bertram remarks about so called decent left interesting ? common who on the decent left subscribes to nationalism that defines membership ethnically ? Geras ? Hitchens ? no and simmilarly it is hard to find this sort of outlook among the Harry’s Place posters.
Anyway it is clear that the ‘decents’ are broadly Rawlsian and it requires particularly uncharitable reading of where they stand to see the sort of nationalism lurking that Bertram claims to see.
April 2nd, 2006 10:45
“cosmopolitan universalism championed by Kant”
There’s a fine case to be made that Kant (when writing about politics and not simply ethics) did not advocate “cosmopolitan universalism”. In Perpetual Peace or the Rechtslehre, the world remains divided into republics. One of the preliminary articles of Perpetual Peace says that countries should not interfere with the constitution of another state. Kant is not really an ethnic nationalist here. I don’t really understand the debate on this thread and on crooked timber. Are you suppossed to be an ethnic nationalist, by definition, if you as a theorist think giving priority to one’s fellow compatriots or fellow citizens is justified? Kant’s a ‘cosmopolitan’ of a sort, but does not seem to be fully a cosmopolitan universalist, at least not in the sense of how that phrase is used by some modern day Kantians (e.g. Teson, Pogge).