![]() This is the only group that cannot be challenged as being merely accidental in the sense that you might have been born into one nation rather than another, or one sect rather than another, or one tribe rather than another. The point of this argument should be obvious: There is only one nonarbitrary point at which such a line may be drawn, and that is at the community of all the human beings on the planet. It is possible, however, to recast Nussbaum’s argument as one that is not historical, but logical, in which case it can be stated roughly as follows: If your first loyalty should be to your own group, then why arbitrarily make this group the one represented by your country? Why not direct your primary allegiance to your own particular tribe or kinship group? After all, if the mere accident of belonging to such and such a group is to be the basis of your moral allegiance, then what makes your country a more logical choice than your sect or tribe or even your family? Where do you draw the line? In fact, it could be argued that the point of nationalism was precisely to dissolve the hold that lesser forms of group loyalty had traditionally imposed on the human mind by subsuming these lesser loyalties under an allegiance to the larger community. The rise of both German and Italian nationalism in the nineteenth century was accompanied by a struggle against all those less inclusive forms of particularism - regional, linguistic, cultural, religious, and ethnic - that had kept both of these nations so politically backward. ![]() For if Nussbaum is making a historical claim, the record runs counter to it. If we are going to stop short of full-fledged cosmopolitanism and choose to promote patriotic values instead, then what is to keep us from descending to increasingly narrower and ever more exclusive categories of allegiance, such as our particular class or race or region or trade association? Or, as Nussbaum puts it, “nationalism and ethnocentric particularism are not alien to one another, but akin” - so that “to give support to nationalist sentiments subverts, ultimately, even the values that hold a nation together.”īut there is an immediate problem with this argument. ![]() Indeed, a look at the curriculum of modern public education demonstrates a core emphasis on precisely those subjects that do not require an undue prejudice toward, or interest in, one’s own culture, if it happens to be American.īut what is the basic justification for the notion that American education should promote the cosmopolitan ideal? And, indeed, that it should promote this ideal even if it is at the expense of less inclusive ideals such as patriotism?Īt the beginning of her essay, Nussbaum sketches an answer. At its most topical, it is illustrated by the course of Islamic studies that John Walker was encouraged to pursue in his Marin County high school, almost entirely to the exclusion of the once mandatory courses in American history and the subject quaintly known as civics. The significance of the cosmopolitan ideal in contemporary American education is obvious at every level. ![]() These are the questions that were addressed in the justly celebrated essay “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism” by Martha Nussbaum, and her answer was that education should actively encourage “the very old ideal of the cosmopolitan, the person whose primary allegiance is to the community of human beings in the entire world.” 1 I s it wrong to teach our children to be patriotic? Or may we teach them to be a little patriotic, provided that we also teach them to value and respect the cultures of others? Should they be encouraged to be loyal to their own nation, or should they be taught that they are citizens of the world before all else? ![]()
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