Intellectuals often feel a certain affiliation to cosmopolitanism. They are by and large concentrated in cities (and even there within universities), and are products of the modern refinement and departmentalization of knowledge and inquiry. Their thoughts, concerns and communications span the globe, but are generally so focused at an elite audience that between their cloistered mental departments and the smallness of their community they must formulate and nourish defensive attitudes and stances against the various localisms they must participate in but see beyond. In a quintessentially postmodern way (which is still quite modern nevertheless), they often choose to defend against localisms by celebrating the rootlessness of their modern condition--by celebrating ALL localisms. This is the elite sort of cosmopolitanism Friedman describes in his insightful article which I referenced weeks ago. For Friedman, since nationalism and ethnicity are alternatives to the non-local, elite cosmopolitanism (also non-local by definition) is also contra-nationalism and contra-ethnicity and thus results in a celebration of world high-culture by promoting the local, and, especially in urban spaces, the category-busting mix of localisms--hybridity.
The problem with this elite cosmopolitanism as a cultural position is that puts so much stock in a mix of authentic local ethnic essence that it is forced to relativize to the point where all culture is purely formal. Cosmopolitanism, therefore, is empty of content as a cultural attitude, other than tolerance for cultural difference. Friedman goes so far as to state that it is an elitist position "without any project other than cultural hoarding or englobing itself".
I find this indictment of cosmopolitanism to be a refreshing kick in the pants and quite useful. It reminds me that tolerance of otherness must not be the only value (or relativism results), and that although a suspension of judgment for the sake of study is necessary and worthwhile, eventually it behooves us all to take a stand and to weather the storm of criticism from those who won't then be able to tolerate our stand's real world "intolerance" to some cultural practices. It reminds me never to be complacent with current literary canons, and yet not to throw the baby out with the bathwater in selecting so many "other" voices that other valuable works get ruled out (simply because from straight white male Christians—too "mainstream"). It reminds me, most importantly for my work as an Africanist: that Africa doesn't need me, the (potentially) cosmopolitan intellectual, as much as I need it; that ethnocentric or not, certain Western values CAN benefit Africa (or rather that the response of promoting localism when faced with the potential homogenization of globalizing forces may be misplaced, since globalism actually [eventually] results in the DE-centralization of capital and cultural production); and it reminds me never to essentialize practices (which is the central error cosmopolitanism makes).
More on the problem of essentializing cultural practices, and on Friedman's critique of Paul Gilroy on the superiority of the resistance of hybrid cultures to the mainstream later.
Friedman, Jonathan. "The Hybridization of Roots and the Abhorrence of the Bush" Spaces of Culture. Ed. Mike and Lash Featherstone, Scott. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publishers, 1999.
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