Kwame Appiah Cosmopolitanism Analysis

Kwame Appiah, author of Cosmopolitanism, wrote in his chapter, “Making Conversation” and “The Primacy of Practice”, about his idea of what cosmopolitanism means and how it has or can help our society. The definition inferred from the reading is that people need to have conversation to be exposed to the different points of view that others may have. People do not necessarily have to agree with them about anything they just have to respect it and know that it is another point of view. Appiah does not try to create controversy within the examples he gives but rather tries to just explain what has happened in a general sense and does not chose a side to agree or disagree with. It is important that he stays neutral because it would cause people …show more content…
Locally, people can have things that go on that represent conversation. Education would be something that is more on a local scale like in cities or counties. Education would be in the sense of teaching people about things but not being biased towards the subject and just giving facts. For example, world religions is a subject that is taught and it is just the facts about each religion and what they believe in. Each religion has their own values but every person is different on how religious they are and what values they do follow. Some people are more religious than others and some may not follow all of those beliefs. We all may follow the same things but that doesn’t necessarily mean we will believe in it in the exact same way. Appiah brings up a similar idea that is with abortion and how even though we all have our own opinions about it and debates about it, it is still about the same thing. We are all debating whether we are killing a life and if a fetus is alive and if it is at what point in a pregnancy is it alive. These debates have led people to have arguments and to go back and forth as to whether abortion should be illegal or not. We all though have our own opinions towards it and what we think is the right thing to do. The reason people think that it is ok is because what if a woman is raped and was then forced into the pregnancy. Everyone debates between whether it is …show more content…
People will talk about how their day was, what was heard on the news, things happening with the government and politics, events happening in the world, the weather, and so many other things. All of these are things we communicate about with each other. The only way to know what a person is thinking is for them to say so. The things we say come from our own personal experiences and we tell others about experiences and opinions about them. Our experiences lead us to think a certain way about a topic because it is what we think is best. We have conversations that may lead to debates about things sometimes when we don’t agree with the other person. That then leads to arguments about who is right and who is wrong. Appiah, when he would bring up topics, did not want people to argue and fight over who is right and wrong because he just wants for it to bring up conversation. Conversation leads to knowledge about the subject and also awareness. People express their ideas by just talking to each other, which is a different way and the most common way people think of conversation. Appiah had different ways of conversation but this does include this one because of the fact that he thinks of conversation as understanding one another and accepting and respecting each person’s ideas. In his example of his father getting circumcised, conversation among individuals did have a part in finding out whether he should have the procedure or not.