Martha Nussbaum Patriotism And Cosmopolitanism

So many of the problems they face today as a country and as a world are the result of ignorance and ethnocentrism. The misguided War on Terror, one of the more important examples in our time, is the result of religious and cultural intolerance on both sides. In her essay “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism,” Martha Nussbaum argues that to remedy such issues, they should forgo their nationalist tendencies and view themselves first and foremost as citizens of the world, or cosmopolitans. Most of her suggestions are well taken, but her belief that “national boundaries are morally irrelevant and that patriotism is altogether poisonous” (Nussbaum 1994) may be taking the idea too far, and in a very impractical direction. In this paper, I will argue for …show more content…
For one, in the process of learning about others, they learn about themselves. Americans naturally assume their own customs are the best way of going about things; looking at other cultures helps them to see where they have room for improvement. Nussbaum uses the example of childcare, they might also look at the healthcare systems of other nations, to improve their own. Secondly, she argues that they would be better able to solve global issues, such as that of pollution and global warming, if they are more willing to work together rather than reverting to competitive nationalism. Both arguments seem sound and would fit into the conceptualization of cosmopolitanism I am presenting …show more content…
They group humanity into sections of those with a shared culture, shared morality. They are significant because they themselves define how they look at the rest of the world, how they will interact with other people, and how they will approach global problems. They are the reason they have a plurality of cultures that the cosmopolitan seeks to understand. If anything should have moral significance, national borders should. There is one final, very important reason that the nation-state should not be ignored, and that is because it best fosters democracy and deliberation. Democracy favors smaller organizational entities, such as the state or the town hall meeting. It is very difficult to deliberate among 6 billion people, and one need only look at the UN to realize that the larger an area an organization encompasses, the less democratic it tends to be. With so many distinct cultures on this earth, it would be a shame to lump them all together and subject them to the will of the majority whose moral outlook they do not share. The continued existence of the celebrated diversity of this planet and the democratic ideals they hold dear depends largely on the existence of a plurality of