Liberty or Solidarity? World Citizen as Nonsense, Take Two
In light of the savaging I’m taking in comments, I’m going to say a bit more about this ‘citizen of the world’ business. As it happens, I do know a thing or two about french liberalism, intellectual history, and the social construction of international politics, so no need to fear on that count. Or maybe there is: because it’s from that frame of reference that I’m interested in conceding the bulk of Obama’s speech to zero in on the use of a longstanding bit of rhetorical force that I want to knock off its longstanding rhetorical pedestal. Lots of people from Paine’s time to ours have been interested in constructing a cosmopolitan political identity for the whole world and the whole human race, and I am extremely interested in deconstructing that identity, because I care more about political liberty than I do about social solidarity.
Knocking Obama’s phrasing is not an exercise in snark. “Relax,” you say, “it’s a figure of speech” (although note that the smartest critique in comments is from someone who takes it fully seriously). But whether you take it as a metaphor or a concrete political goal, it’s a framing rooted in a deliberate desire to muddle up and blur the boundaries between the political and the nonpolitical, to speak two languages in a single phrase. I’m more than happy to talk cosmopolitanism on purely cultural terms — a ‘postmodern conservative’ ain’t much good unless he can hang with his wealthy, world-traveling, self-entitled young postmodern liberal friends — but only insofar as the politics of pan-humanist/secular-Gersonian cosmopolitanism is left out back in the trash.
This is all but an entree onto a big long conversation about how much we should tolerate (…or be economically complicit in…) the suffering of strangers, one which I happen to see as occupying the center of the debate over the future of America and the meaning of life. I can’t cram that into this post, but I can set the record straight — and clarify — why it is I bracketed all the rest of Obama’s speech in order to pick on the world citizenship line. I consider the ‘citizen of the world’ trope flawed from the start, a dangerously mixed metaphor about the human yearning for solidarity with strangers which politics can never solve among free peoples.
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. (The genius of the EU is how it functions best without an ounce of romanticism about solidarity; its inability to even generate its own preamble to its own constitution is proof that our apparently pan-human longing for pan-human solidarity may actually be a parochially European hang-up which it can only resolve by forgetting.) If I really wanted to be snarky, I’d allege that world citizenship is an atavistic little bit of European ethnocentrism — yes, even since the ancient Greeks. And though I don’t quite want to go there, because it’s just not true enough, it’s close enough for discomfort, and we Americans, especially, ought to think long and hard about exactly in what way that’s so.
Because fortunately, we Americans, far from Europe, developed without any deep collective desire and need to unify politically what was already unified culturally. But now some Americans want to look at the world as a unified culture, just as the Europeans once looked at themselves, and fantasize a symmetrically unified polity into existence. (Of course, part of the stated aim of that long-term project is to make a more perfect cultural union, too — proof of how the whole idea is the product of dual utopian stipulations that get traction by acting rhetorically as if each was both immediately possible and never achievable.) I consider this a dreadful error — not because I’m a jerk, but because we’ve seen this kind of thing go down before, and it’s unworkable. If you like liberty, that is. I fear I’m losing that argument, that liberty ain’t what it used to be, but that’s yet another story.
You want to talk world friendship? I’m right there with you. In friendship, though, not solidarity…. And these are two very different things.
Bottom line: social solidarity is incompatible with political liberty, political liberty is far more important and far greater of a human good, and to speak in terms of ‘world citizenship’, in whatever sense and for whatever reason, is to add fuel to a rhetorical fire intended to blaze away the distinctions that we need to recognize in order to appreciate the truth of my claims.
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25 Comments - add your own
steve — July 24, 2008 at 7:09 pm
“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 share huge amounts of interests with Europe, culturally and politically. Start with NATO in Afghanistan and go on from there. Acknowledging, that we share common goals and aspirations, making us a group, and wanting to promote our common interests is hardly the same as giving up individual political liberty.
Steve
steve — July 24, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Forgot to link this. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=42644
Reagan said the same thing. So did Bush Sr. This is mostly a rhetorical device noting that people have much in common, especially people of good will.
Steve
Luis — July 25, 2008 at 9:51 am
Ah, so you’re taking the Humpty Dumpty line. Being a citizen of the world means “yearning for pan-human solidarity” and being everyone’s brother, naively and without regard to whether other folks want to bash your head in.
Just like being a citizen of the U.S. means “yearning for pan-human solidarity” (among that subset of humans) and being every American’s brother, naively and without regard to whether other Americans want to bash your head in.
Thanks for clearing that one up. I do so love it when people tell me what words mean.
Mark — July 25, 2008 at 10:05 am
And let’s not forget JFK:
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.
Brian — July 25, 2008 at 10:19 am
I’ve read this three or four times now, and while I find a good many rhetorical curlicues, I’m still not finding any sort of defense. “Our yearning for pan-human solidarity is…the absurdity of the human condition…” I’d still like to hear this backed up. Why, exactly, is this so? Lead me to the absurdity.
Elvis Elvisberg — July 25, 2008 at 10:26 am
This is a colorable argument as to why you don’t like the phrase. But it’s common parlance. Reagan, Bush Jr., JFK, et al have used it.
If I don’t like the phrase “two wrongs don’t make a right,” and President Bush uses it, it’s not a valid criticism for me to claim that he is soft-headed or immoral or whatever on that basis.
elle loco — July 25, 2008 at 10:38 am
Mr. Poulos, when you’re in a hole, stop digging. Barack Obama is being head-butted by reactionary, xenophobic America for employing a rhetorical trope priorly invoked by Presidents John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush, among others. It is a sentiment in favor of human rights and the recognition of our common humanity and fate.
By your friends shall you be known, and judged. Your point is fatuous, overcooked, and objectively swinish.
Bad — July 25, 2008 at 10:40 am
“Knocking Obama’s phrasing is not an exercise in snark. ”
The fact remains that when countless other politicians who weren’t Obama used the same phrase (sometimes without even prefacing the phrase without “proud American” as many on the right seem to prefer not to mention), did you express the same deep worries about their character?
And frankly, your complaints aren’t very convincing. Is political liberty really a goal best served by only insularity? Is a sense of being in the same world as other and thus having to work out how to interact with them to achieve certain (western enlightenment) goals somehow a barrier to increased liberty instead of a boon?
You seem to be making an extremely forced interpretation in the service of a very unjustifiably absolutist point.
Paul — July 25, 2008 at 10:44 am
Take a step back. This is just self-regarding windbaggery. You pundits should all go on holiday until the first debates happen.
KJ — July 25, 2008 at 10:57 am
I do love it when the commenters are all smarter than the poster. Mr Poulous, wasn’t some blogger saying the same thing about the Black and White races back in the 50s? Our interdependence on each other grows daily, to the benefit of most in our dear world, and to deny that reality is simply putting makeup on xenophobia.
But that’s a larger point. The fact that “citizen of the world” is a common construction used by many a conservative politician and president should be embarrassment enough for you to stop.
Scott de B. — July 25, 2008 at 11:01 am
I think a world government should be the goal of human political development, and moreover I think it is an inevitable one, although I am realistic enough to believe it is around 300 years away. Such a government need not be inimicable to liberty — in fact I would argue that it is the best vehicle for preserving liberty.
We have too many common interests to think that we can live in splendid isolation, as the British Empire once did. Trade policies in the U.S. can make or break a third-world economy. Stock market fluctuations in Europe can trigger a recession in the U.S. Greenhouse gas emissions in Asia can lead to humanitarian catastrophes around the world. The decisions of Arab oil sheiks arguably have more impact on my day-to-day life than the actions of my House representative, so why shouldn’t I have a say in the former? That would seem to advance the cause of liberty.
In the end, the arguments that the U.S. and, say, Austria should be part of the same polity are no weaker than the arguments that Oregon and Alabama, Guandong and Xinjiang, or the Crimea and Kamchatka should be part of the same polity.
Patrick Tomlinson — July 25, 2008 at 11:03 am
How about until after the election?
matt — July 25, 2008 at 11:22 am
I think there’s a deep misunderstanding of internationalist cosmopolitanism here. The cosmopolitical bind between ‘citizens of the world’ does not make them closer; it doesn’t ‘bust borders’; it is adopted more in the interests of political liberty than ’social solidarity’; it has little to do with ‘the suffering of strangers’. Indeed, sophisticated cosmopolitanism depends upon borders, and upon the (even cultural) antagonism of nations.
mattc — July 25, 2008 at 11:31 am
“We share huge amounts of interests with Europe, culturally and politically. Start with NATO in Afghanistan and go on from there.”
There are many people who believe entangling alliances such as NATO are perfect examples of loss of individual political liberty.
“I think a world government should be the goal of human political development, and moreover I think it is an inevitable one, although I am realistic enough to believe it is around 300 years away.”
It’s a damn good thing I’ll be dead by then.
“We have too many common interests to think that we can live in splendid isolation, as the British Empire once did. Trade policies in the U.S. can make or break a third-world economy. Stock market fluctuations in Europe can trigger a recession in the U.S. Greenhouse gas emissions in Asia can lead to humanitarian catastrophes around the world. The decisions of Arab oil sheiks arguably have more impact on my day-to-day life than the actions of my House representative, so why shouldn’t I have a say in the former?”
If you think your House representative does little for you know vis-a-vis your day-to-day life, what influece do you think your WORLD representative will have.
Liberal internationalist do pine for pan-human solidarity. It’s one of the tenets of social democrats as well. Without us all accepting our “citizenship” to the world, these types of political and economic philosophies will continue to meet resistance. They don’t want that, and neither does Obama.
“Just like being a citizen of the U.S. means “yearning for pan-human solidarity” (among that subset of humans) and being every American’s brother, naively and without regard to whether other Americans want to bash your head in.”
No, citizenship only applies with regards to polity. Read James’ first post. That’s the point. You are a citizen of your town, state, and country because they have a government that represents you. Conversely, you are not a citizen of Brazil.
The rhetoric Obama used (as others have as well) specifically blurs this definition of citizenship. Some think it’s a rebuke to isolationism. I think it’s a rebuke to self-government and political liberty, as does James. Obama wants a social solidarity, a communitarian world-view, as much as any President I’ve seen in my lifetime. He similarly uses rhetoric to goad American’s into “social service” instead of pursuing private enterprise: his political fusion of the Social Gospel. I have no doubt that when he is President his policies will be focused on a) rewarding public employees, social workers, and union laborers and b) developing a communitarian foreign policy to directly contrast the “you are either with us or against us” policy of Bush. Either way, political liberty and self-government are NOT things Obama is concerned about.
SWL — July 25, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Nice, subtle reference to Nazi’s in the fourth paragraph. Always a solid way to prove your point.
I think Poulos misses on a couple points, first that friendship isn’t the only trope, or metaphor, capable of accurately describing relationships with strangers, what about an “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.” But, let’s assume he is correct, there are 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. Second, once two people become “friends” their outlook on competition and cooperation with each other changes. This fundamentally affects how they will work together.
Perhaps, at the heart of this debate is the definition of “citizen.” Poulos seems to imply 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.
Muzzy — July 25, 2008 at 12:47 pm
“Our apparently pan-human longing for pan-human solidarity may actually be a parochially European hang-up”?
European? Parochial?
And all this time I thought Gandhi was an Indian. How silly of me to assume that Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American! Thank you, Mr. Poulos, for setting the record straight. Wait, does that mean that Jesus of Nazareth was really just a parochial Dutchman in disguise?
Jeff — July 25, 2008 at 1:23 pm
James — You obviously fail to realize that there is a strain of “world citizenship” in which being a world citizen means essentially being able to be friends with varieties of peoples and countries outside the borders of one’s own nation. (The best example here is actually from post-war Germany, namely Jaspers.) Point is I think you’re tilting at windmills here, windmills which are largely the creation of your own intellectual narrowness.
Eric — July 25, 2008 at 1:33 pm
James, you’re wrong all over the place. Why is it preferable to be cynical than it is to be idealistic? Idealists got us to the moon, for heaven’s sake. Idealists got us the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The brotherhood of man exists in the phrase, “all men are created equal.” If we are created equal, then we are brothers, we are all “citizens of the world.” It’s not just a figure of speech; it’s an ideal. And while we humans — most notably you with these comments, James — fall short of the ideal, it does not obviate the need to reach for the ideal. We recognize the universality of being interdependent and united toward a common goal and a greater good for everyone, not just good for one group or nationality or religion.
You need to leave wherever you are and head out to where real people live.
Gerald Mullett — July 25, 2008 at 2:59 pm
“Citizen of the world” is so obviously a figurative and ceremonial concept in this context, as would be the meaning of such terms as “political liberty” and “self-government”. Communitarians are certainly as entitled to their rhetorical flights as libertarians are to theirs.
SMS — July 25, 2008 at 3:40 pm
BREAKING: “Citizen of the World” used by Plethora of Past Presidents http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/7/25/11915/3761/506/556820
Steve V — July 25, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I said this in the last comment thread and I’m going to try again. I believe the ONLY purpose for the insertion of that line was to invoke Kennedy. Look, Obama wanted to go to Europe and to identify with those notions of America which are popular with Europeans, as opposed to those notions which the Europeans despise (such as the current leadership). So he litters his speech with allusions to Kennedy and yes, Reagan whom I’m surprised would be popular with Europeans but there it is. The only purpose of including this verbiage, just like the repeated “tearing down of walls” verbiage, was to invoke the popular American leaders who originally said these things and to allow Obama to identify with them. And thus there was a great enthusiasm and waving of American flags. I seriously doubt that Obama has any particular attachment to the idea of “world citizenship” apart from this identification.
Mike — July 25, 2008 at 6:24 pm
From Casablanca:
Major Strasser: What is your nationality?
Rick: I’m a drunkard.
Captain Renault: That makes Rick a citizen of the world.
So it’s not Obama at all, it’s Bush.
elle loco — July 25, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Poulos, I hope you’re blotto drunk, like
Alcibiades at the end of the Symposium. Your audience is laughing hysterically at you. How reassuring.
Joachim Robert — July 26, 2008 at 5:42 am
There are also big differences between the people in one nation. But they are still called citizens. I don’t see the big increase in difference between people of the world from people of a nation that somehow should make it wrong to tag them as citizens. I live in this World, I am a citizen of the World; obviously that’s true.
You look at it with very nationalistic eyes, which I think is wrong.
Joachim Robert — July 26, 2008 at 5:44 am
Well, “nationalistic” not necessarily in the sense that one nation is better than the other, but more than you are focusing too much on the borders between nations.