Cosmopolitanism feat. Andrew

Andrew is joined by James to discuss cosmopolitanism, the idea that all human beings are members of a single community.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Alsome Media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to it could happen here. I'm here
to ask you if you can imagine a world where
national borders don't define our identities. This internationalist idea has
historically been known as cosmopolitanism, and it has some deep roots,
including interestingly, some connection to anarchism, and of course that's

(00:28):
what we're seeking to explore here today. I'm joined once
again by the one and only.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
It's James James Stout. Thanks for having me, Andrew, I'm
excited about this one.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to have
this conversation. Are you familiar with cosmopolitanism?

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Yeah, and like, look, if there gets a more broad
sphere of like anarchist internationalism, it is something I'm very
interested in, right, Like, we had an interview on the
show maybe two weeks ago, for a few weeks ago,
and people hear this with people explicitly calling internationalists fighting
in Myanmar. Of course, I've spent time in re Java

(01:04):
and with internationalists there, so like internationalism is something I'm
really interested in for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
For sure, I think it's a very compelling and inspiring idea,
especially in a world that lacks many of those ideas.
At its core, cosmopolitanism is just the belief that all
human beings belong to the same shared moral and political
community that transcends national, cultural, and political boundaries. In the

(01:30):
book Cosmopolitanism, Ethics and the Wilders Strangers, philosopher Kwame Anthony
Appia describes cosmopolitanism as quote two strands that intertwine in
the notion of cosmopolitanism. One is the idea that we
have obligations to others, obligations that stretch beyond those to
whom we are related by the ties of kith and kin,
or even the more formal ties of shared citizenship. The

(01:52):
other is that we take seriously the value not just
of human life, but of particular human lives, which means
taken an interest in the practices and believe at land
them significance. People are different, the Costopolitan knows, and there's
much to learn from our differences. Because there are so
many human possibilities worth exploring. We neither expect nor desire
that every person or every society should converge on a

(02:15):
single mode of life. Whatever obligations are to others or
theirs to us, they often have the rights to go
their own way, so basically, we have obligations to others
beyond just our immediate affiliations, and that human diversity is
something to be valued, not just tolerated. So it's not
the idea of assimilating all of humanity into one singular

(02:38):
culture or society or government. Is the idea of recognizing
and embracing the diversity of humans, but recognizing our shared
affinity all the same. There are a couple of different
versions of cosmopolitanism. There's moral cosmopolitanism, or the idea that
all humans have equal moral worth. There's political cosmopolitanism, the

(03:00):
idea that global governance or international institutions should supersede national borders.
And then there's cultural cosmopolitanism, which is the blending in
exchange of cultures through migration, trade, and shared histories. But
cosmopolitanism fully embraced has I would say an inherent tens
with power, especially nationalism, the states, and capitalism. And while

(03:21):
it's true that liberal cosmopolitanism relies on global institutions like
the United Nations and reinforces hierarchies, anarchist cosmopolitanism envisions a
world where solidarity, cooperation, and mutual aid emerge from below
through free association, rather than being imposed from above. So

(03:41):
today we'll be unpacking the history of cosmopolitanism, how anarchists
have engaged with the topic, and why it remains somewhat
of a battleground today. Yes, the term itself comes from
the Greek cosmopolities, which means citizen of the world. The
earliest particulation of this idea is often attributed to Diogenes

(04:03):
of Sinope, who is a Synic philosopher who, when asked
where he came from, simply replied, I'm a citizen of
the world. According to Martha Nusbaum, Greek stoics like Xeno
of Citium, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius expanded on this idea,
arguing that humanity shares a universal reason and should live

(04:23):
in accordance with nature, not artificial divisions of state or tribe.
Of course, many of these philosophers didn't have any issue
with patriarchy or slavery in Greece, so there is some
inconsistency in their concept of a shared humanity.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah, the two counts as human I guess, isn't it like?
Which is pretty bleak.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Indeed, But let's pass forward a bit. During the Enlightenment
we see a more structured political philosophy of cosmopolitanism. Emergent
Emanuel Kant was one of its most famous proponents. In
the book Perpetual Piece, Can't imagine a cosmopolitan condition where individuals,
not just states, had universal rights and where a global

(05:04):
federation of free republics would ensure peace and cooperation. However,
his version of cosson Politanism still relied on legal structures
and state based governance. Another Nightman thinker associated with cosmopolitanism
was Dni Dederu, who criticized colonialism and argued for a
cultural exchange free from that kind of domination. He also

(05:25):
argued against monarchy, the church, and aristocratic privileges, as they
were obstacles to a truly free and universal human community,
which then brings us to the French Revolution, which brought
these ideas into the real world. Revolutionaries declared the Rights
of Man and of the Citizen, which proclaims universal rights
beyond national or social status, but the revolution soon became

(05:48):
entangled with nationalism, particularly under the Acabins, who suppressed dissent
and waged wars in the name of France. Meanwhile, the
Haitian Revolution provided a different example of liberation. In practice,
enslaved Africans, inspired by the French Revolution's rhetoric of liberty inequality,
revolted against French colonial rule and established the first free

(06:10):
Black republic. The revolutionaries, led by to Saint Levitire, argued
that liberty was a universal human right, not one limited
to European citizens, and declared Haiti a refuge to all
enslaved persons. But despite its radical implications, the Haitian Revolution
was largely ignored or outright opposed by European powers. Their

(06:33):
so called enlightenment only extended to Europe, ignoring our racial
and colonial realities. We also see in this time the
emergence of nationalism, which on the one hand promoted self

(06:55):
determination for omopressed nations, but on the other hand saw
the nations state as a superior form of political organization.
So anarchists were among the earliest critics of nationalism. Patrons
of Pradawn, for instance, rejected both the nation state and
centralized cosmopolitan governance, instead advocating for federation, a frequently misunderstood

(07:17):
concept that refers in anarchist literature to a decentralized network
of freely associated individuals and groups working in solidarity. Similarly,
Mikhil Bcunen attacked nationalism as a tool of ruling elites,
arguing that states used national identities of press, class struggle,
and international solidarity. Bi Cunin did back national liberation movements,

(07:40):
but he understood the danger of nationalism as a force
that often replaces foreign rulers with homegrown oppressors. Instead, Bercunen
promoted anarchist internationalism, where workers and oppressed peoples across borders
would unite against both capitalists and state powers. By contrast,
the Bolsheviks would eventually developed the idea of socialism in

(08:03):
one country, and the ever paranoid Stalin would famously deride
Jewish intellectuals as quote rootless cosmopolitans. This, of course aligned
him with the rest of Europe's nationalists in their anti semitism,
inaccurate cricketerization of cosmopolitanism as opposed to cultural identity or
sovereignty and ramid defense of national borders. Honestly, I would

(08:26):
not be surprised if Trump or Putin used some equivalent
to rule less cosmopolitanism today.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Yeah, yeah, I did see. It was like a pro
tramp account. I guess constantly or unconstantly paraphrasing Stalin.

Speaker 4 (08:40):
This week, so that was great.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Really well, they say it's like, how many divisions does
the judge command? Which is a I think there might
be a quote from Stalin if it's not quote to paraphrase, right,
But in this case, it's a reference to the attempts
by a district court judge in GC to block the
rendition of people to US ale were accused of being
members of various gangs and Miroslature being the two main ones.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yes, so just being expelled. What's the connection to Stalin?

Speaker 4 (09:12):
Though?

Speaker 3 (09:12):
The quote how many divisions does the judge command? Let me,
I'm pretty sure how many divisions does the pope command?
Was the starting quite, that's right. So like it's referencing
this idea that like might makes right and like that,
you know, if you have the bar of the state,
then you're not accountable to morally or even even within

(09:33):
the confines of the state, like separation of powers that
we're supposed to happen in the US, right, Like if
you have the monopoly on coercive violence and you're no
longer constrained by those things.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Right, yeah, I see, I see. So of course, Alec,
I suppose all those things they appouse. What is happening now,
and they oppose what was happening then, you know. From
its inception, anarchism has been an internationalist movement, rejecting the
artificial borders imposed by state and champion in global solidarity.

(10:06):
Unlike Marxist internationalism, which has often relied on the centralized
structures of the first, second, or Third internationals, anarchists emphasized decentralized,
horizontal networks of struggle that connected workers, revolutionaries, and stateless
peoples across continents. The anarchist Saint Emer Internationale, which ran

(10:26):
from eighteen seventy two to eighteen seventy seven, was one
such network. As discussed by Lucian van der Waldt and
Schmidt in Black Flame, that group explicitly rejected nationalism and
state power, and throughout history anarchists worked a bridge linguistic, cultural,
and national divides from multi lingual anarchist newspapers in the

(10:48):
nineteenth and twentieth centuries such as Laprotester Argentina, der Camp
in Germany and The Libertaire in France, through transnational cynicalist
movements like the Industrial Workers of the World World, which
organized workers across race, nationality, and language. In the early
twentieth century and including contemporary mutual aid networks where anarchists
coordinates across borders to support refugees, disaster relief, and addigenous

(11:13):
land struggles. Anarchist networks, contrary to popular belief, often extended
beyond Europe into North Africa, Asia and Latin America, where
anti colonial and labor struggles intertwined with anarchist thought. If
you're curious, by the way, about the anarchist histories of
Egypt or the rest of Latin America, they could check
out my series on it right here on the canappen

(11:34):
Air podcast. And if you've listened to that series, you'll
know that because anarchists were constantly persecuted, exile became a
defining experience which further reinforced the internationalism. Folks like Michail
Bi Cunan, Pieter Kropotkin, and Erikomana Testa moved across continents,
spreading anarchist ideas and connecting struggles. Myl test in particular,

(11:56):
was basically a common San Diego. You know, he touched
multiple continents over the course of his life. So boyut
the late nineteenth century anarchists like Groulph Rocker developed an
alternative to both statist nationalism and liberal cosmopolitanism, which sorts
of balance cultural diversity with global solidarity from below. Rocker
argued that people should be free to maintain their cultural

(12:18):
traditions without being bound to the state or nationalist identity.
So liberal costopolitanism was pushing a global order through state
led interventions, international institutions, and legal frameworks. And while this
form of costopolitanism has led to some games on people
in human rights, international refugee protections, and anti genocide treaties, well,

(12:40):
for one, we see the failures of these institutions and
practice daily, and for two, they ultimately reinforced the state
power that creates so much harm, rather than dismantling it.
The UN and the WTO often uphold the interest of
powerful states above and before the international laws and obligations,
whilst sidelining grassroots movements. While liberal costopolitanism sits on its

(13:02):
hands waiting for elit driven reforms to the system, anarchists
engage in direct action to support migrants and other marginalized
folks without waiting for such reform. I have to give
a shout out here, of course, to the No Borders
network and also a shout out to the work that
you do, James on the side.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
Thank you. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
Yeah, I've see a lot more people than me doing
it of course.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
So the sad part is, even if it started with
some noble ideal, the concept of liberal cost of Politanism
today doesn't so much manifest in the freedom of people,
but moreso in the freedom of markets and money, the
globalization of markets and money. So we will bring McDonald's

(13:47):
Netflix to your country, but you can't come to our country,
or will kill you.

Speaker 4 (13:52):
Yeah, that's about it.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
It was really interesting to like the moment I sort
of became aware of libertarian left politics was in the
early two thousands in the context of the movement against
like the g eight as it was then and at
the time it would be referred to in the legacy
media as like anti globalization right, which I don't think
it ever was right by definition. I think it was

(14:26):
very global, Like you had people from all around the
world tending these protests and rallies and speeches as such,
Like it was a very global movement. The problem was
not with globalization Costopolitanism internationalism. It was with the nature
of neoliberal capitalist globalization, which let capital move and stop
people from moving.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Exactly. It's some old opposition sugg as the free reign
of exploitas across the globe.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
We let people take their money and employ people at
lower wages, but God forbid those people ever want better
for themselves, or to come somewhere where they can materially
benefit themselves doing the same labor in a different nation,
for instance.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah. And to be honest with you, I've never really
been a respect of borders. I think they're just I
think they are really really blatantly foolish imposition. I don't
even think you need to be a radical to see
the issue with this idea that your one point has
to determine your entire future. Yeah, that some people in

(15:29):
the past could cut up the earth and then decide
where you can roam freely.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, I think anyone. I see a lot more from
people who are not by any means radical or even
on the left, like this, like within Europe, right within
the Shanngen area, which the UK has decided to remove
itself from for reasons that are largely racism.

Speaker 4 (15:51):
Like we could move freely.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
When I grew up, my identity and experience was much
more European than necessarily British. Right, I could go for
the weekend to Spain if I wanted to, or France
and flights were cheap then.

Speaker 4 (16:03):
So it did.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
Like I used to get on Friday night, take a
train to Belgium, raise my bike in Belgium and come
back on Sunday night, very very often, and like you
see it here too in San Diego, where like the
border is just a line and a delay. But for
most people, like we were a very binational community. Unfortunately,
the one way that that manifests itself is that the

(16:26):
cost of living in San Diego compares the average wage
is vastly disparate because we have this over pressure valve
where like people can't afford it here, they can live
across the border where the cost of living is cheaper,
and that allows people to exploit working class people in
both contexts sadly. Right.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, as you mentioned the UK, by the way, I'm
not sure if you've heard the news, but Trenidad has
recently been imposed visa requirements by the UK for fuck's sake. Yeah, really,
thankfully we still have shanngin area access. Yeah, but just
recently the UK was like due to Yeah, the usual

(17:05):
excuse people are using the asylum seeking system that they're
not removed our visa exemption, so our colonizers have now
decided that, you know, we don't want you to move
free in our country. We want you to pay. And
visas are not cheap theyan ever cheap, especially when there's
no guarantee, no other than being accepted. Yep, it makes

(17:26):
it all the more frustrating.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yeah, and like this just comes after the British government
attempting to deport Africribbean migrant Kames, part of what we
call the wind rush generation, which is just one of
the most disgusting and like, yeah, it just just wanted
one of the most venal and pathetic things I've ever
seen a government do, Like these people who the UK
asked to come so that it could rebuild this economy

(17:50):
after the Second World War, and then taking advantage of
the fact that at that time there was no process
for regularitation and then trying to deport these people who
have lived their whole lives in the UK.

Speaker 4 (17:59):
It's just horrific.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, it is. It's horrific, it's frustrating, it's infury, it's
in really Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Yeah, it makes me really angry, like if we didn't
have a wind Rewst generation not that like you need
like popular music to justify their existence as part of
our community, and they should be able to stay. But
we wouldn't have punk music if if we wouldn't have
scar music. We like so much of what is like
integral to even like quote unquote British culture. It actually
came from these people because they are British and they

(18:30):
belong there just.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
As much as anyone else.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
I used to teach a class about music and colonial
culture and colonialism, which is why that comes to mind.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
I actually missed an opportunity to go to the UK
earlier this year. I didn't want to pay the cost
to fly to go at that point in time. I
know I deeply regrets it because I'm like I could
have gone. Honestly, I think if you're the UK and
your your country has still learn so much, like I

(19:00):
think the UK has the least right or justification out
of any country if you had to concede that a
country should be lost, I don't. I don't give any
country that concession, but if you had to give that concession,
you could be last to receive that concession as far
as I'm concerned. You don't get to go on roam
across the entire planet and then shut yourself off. Yeah,

(19:22):
you don't get to go on steel and pill fall
from across the world, shuffle it all into your national
museum and then block people from access it.

Speaker 4 (19:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
It is just like it's just the most clear and
pathetic like two level standard or whatever, and it's I mean,
the UK has a very I'm sorry you didn't get
to visit in one sense, and I'm sure we have
lots of listeners who are in the UK. Every time
I'm home, I feel this like profound sense of like
post colonial melancholy that the UK it's just sort of

(19:53):
it's getting worse and worse and worse.

Speaker 4 (19:54):
And the way.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Britain is responding is with our government blaming everyone one
else and.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Like trying to strip posterity.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah, like stealing everything they can just mess Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Yeah, I think frustration for me as well as that
it's not to watch the country itself, although I would
have loved to have visited like Scotland and you know,
Whels and that kind of thing, but and all the
stuff there is to see in London. But The biggest
frustration for me is that it's a it's a connection point.
You know, when you impose a visa like that, you

(20:30):
block people's connections other areas. One of the few direct
flights outside of this hemisphere, you know, to the European
and African hemisphere is through a flight to the UK.
And so by adding that in position, it's like it's
like the world feels like it's being closed.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yeah, you can see that.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
One more where there was almost a time in the
recent past where it felt like or the world was
opening up to people, you know, with the Internet, the
rise of the Internet, and then you had, you know,
the introduction of things like the Shangan Agreement. Our access
the Shangan area was reairly recent I think it was
twenty fifteen we got that access. Yeah, okay, But to

(21:10):
go from that point in to like just so quickly,
you know, the tied shifts. So now there's extremely hostile
global order towards something as fundamental as the movement of people.

Speaker 4 (21:22):
Yeah, it's it definitely.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
We definitely are entering it in like an era where
things are becoming more closed off again than many of
us grew up with, right, many of us you know,
I said, what most of my experience that I can
remember was being able to move freely through Europe, and
that's not the case anymore for British as citizens. Yeah,
like it's getting visas and everything else is getting harder

(21:45):
and harder to move around the world. And despite the
Internet somewhat connecting us, like, our physical mobility is certainly
much more limited.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Indeed, I think the idea of cost and Paulson is
getting back to it, I think it's valuable. I think,
you know, the idea that we have obligations to others
beyond just our mediate affiliations is important. You know that
human diversity is going to be valued, not just tolerated.
That's fantastic. Carl Levy, an anarchist scholar who wrote two

(22:16):
pieces on cosmopolitanism that a link in the show notes,
has argued that anarchism's history offers a third way between
the hierarchical globalism of liberal cosmopolitanism, which relies on state
driven global governance, and exclusionary nationalism, which weaponizes identity and borders,
often in service to the far right, and that third

(22:37):
way that anarchism presents, not third way in the sense
of fascism. Third way, in the sense of anarchist possibilities,
is a kind of federated pluralism, the web of self
organized groups that interact freely without a central authority. This
version isn't just theoretical. We've seen it in recent history
through anti globalization protests, the Occupying movement, the Square movements

(23:01):
in Egypt, Spain and beyond and so flowed. They show
the potential, not yet fully realized, for diverse place based
struggles that remain connected through mutuality and transnational solidarity. We
have to avoid this sort of abstract universalism that can
be found in cosmopolitan thought. We must incorporate decolonial struggles

(23:22):
and crown cosmopolitan practice in the voluntary cooperation of people
acted in solidarity across differences. Ultimately, the question isn't whether
anarchists should engage a cosmopolitanism, because they always have. The
real question is how anarchists can cultivate a cosmopolitanism that
is truly liberatory, when the connect struggles without eraise and difference,

(23:45):
foster solidarity without enforcing uniformity, and builds a world where
cooperation and not domination, defines our relationships. That's what they
have for today, or power to all the people.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
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