The Cosmopolitan Class

Economist Robert Shiller of Yale University says globalization is producing a growing divide between the "cosmopolitan" and "local" social classes:

A new cosmopolitan social class emerges, by Robert Shiller Project Syndicate: As globalization proceeds, with the help of ever-faster communications, faster travel and more powerful multinational corporations, a new cosmopolitan social class seems to be emerging. These citizens of the world are developing loyalties to each other that cross national boundaries.

I was at a dinner the other night with Yale World Fellows, a carefully selected group of professionals, representing every major country of the world... It was an unusual experience, because I began to feel that none of these people were really foreign to me. It seemed they were probably easier to talk to than the local Americans who were waiting on us and serving food.

Of course, a cosmopolitan class is hardly new. In fact, 50 years ago, in his classic book Social Theory and Social Structure, the late sociologist Robert Merton described the results of a case study of influential people in a typical US town, Rovere, New Jersey. ...

Merton discovered a strong pattern. Rovere's influential people seemed to be sharply divided into "cosmopolitan influentials," who habitually orient themselves with respect to the world at large, and "local influentials," who orient themselves with respect to their own town. As he and his assistants interviewed people, the division between the two groups became more intriguing, and significant, in his mind.

Merton did not say that the cosmopolitan influentials were influential outside Rovere -- apparently none of them was. What stood out instead was their habitual frame of reference, which was tied to their personal identities. When Merton engaged people in conversation, any topic would remind the cosmopolitan influentials of the world at large, while local influentials were reminded of things in their own town.

Cosmopolitan influentials, Merton said, tended to hang their success on their general knowledge, whereas locals relied on their friendships and connections. The cosmopolitan influentials were often uninterested in meeting new people in town -- the locals wanted to know everyone. ...

The local influentials, Merton discovered, spoke affectionately of their town, as if it were a unique place, and often said they would never leave. The cosmopolitans spoke as if they might leave any day.

What was true in Merton's day is becoming even more starkly true in today's globalized economy. What I find particularly striking is the sense of loyalty developing among cosmopolitans. ...

I  ... wonder ... why this is happening on such a scale now. Obviously, improved communications technology plays a role. But how much does that explain the impression that the division between cosmopolitans and locals is so much wider now?

One must realize that individuals ... make a conscious choice to become either cosmopolitans or locals, depending on their own personal talents and the perceived returns from making the choice.

In the twenty-first century, the new information age creates opportunities not just to be cosmopolitan in spirit and orientation, but to forge strong connections with other cosmopolitans. The cosmopolitans have shared experiences -- they are directly communicating with each other across the globe...

The cosmopolitans tend to be increasingly wealthy, and their wealth helps mark them as cosmopolitan. Thus, economic inequality is felt differently in today's world. Perhaps it is accepted resignedly, as the cosmopolitan class is too amorphous and ill-defined to be the target of any social movement. There is no spokesperson for the cosmopolitan class, no organization that could be blamed for what is happening.

I fear for the future. How will the cosmopolitan class behave as their role in the world economy continues to strengthen? How unfeeling will they come to be about the people who share their neighborhoods? Most importantly, if resentment by the locals emerges, what political consequences will result?

I'm not sure I could pick a friend at random and easily classify them according to the cosmopolitan/local distinction drawn above, though I suppose such a distinction might help to explain differences over policy issues such as trade and immigration (and I'm not sure the few I can classify easily had as much choice in the matter as Shiller implies). Locals would presumably prefer to protect a narrow set of interests while cosmopolitans take a broader view when assessing the costs and benefits of policy actions. Maybe I'm just blind to this distinction, or everyone I know is mostly one type. Does the cosmopolitan/local distinction ring true to you when you think about people you know? If so, are you as worried as Shiller is about cosmopolitans increasingly losing touch with or being at odds with the interests of the locals?

Comments

[jalrin]

Professor Shiller is not the first person to make this obsevation. Ever since historian Christopher Lasch described the same problem in The Revolt of the Elites, political scientists and others have been concerned about the growing discontent between those elite group members who feel that they have more in common with elites in other countries than with their own people. More recently, Robert Reich has written about the growing economic divide between "global symbolic analysts" (those professionals whose business interests are global in scope) as opposed to "national symbolic analysts who still primarily provide services in their national economy.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10721

The menace of elites that care more about each other than their own people that Shiller describes is sadly all too real.

[Isabel]

European aristocracy has always been connected by kinship. They have often been torn between two loyalties, to country and to family. Nothing new under the sun.

[evagrius]

Is Dubya a local influential or a cosmopolitan influential? Is or was his staff local influential or cosmopolitan influential? Is his foreign policy local in outlook or cosmopolitan in outlook?

If as the author argues, "cosmopolitan" refers to the world at large, then the answers to the above questions are clear.

I think the distinction between cosmopolitan and local is far more applicable to the U.S. than it is to other countries who, by geography, have been forced to be cosmopolitan, willing or not.

[himagine]

Reminds me of this movie.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Rings true to me.

The cosmopolitans tend to live in a few urban areas, usually coastal, and either have money or hang with it.

They are more likely to be involved in international business or government activities, have an elite education, and think their poop don't stink.

Cosmos attend fund raisers at the MOMA, the rest of us go to PTA meetings, run Scout troops, and hold the country together.

Cosmos are almost never military veterans - no bases in the Hamptons.

I think we need the cosmos, but we can't allow them to dominate policy discussions, especailly foreign and economic policy, because their reality does not match the reality of most of the country.

Me, I'm going out to feed the hogs. Suuuuuu pig!

[evagrius]

himagine ;

I remember seeing La Grande Illusion years ago. A great film.

But it doesn't really apply here.

My question still stands; is the White House local or cosmopolitan?

[Lafayette]

Shiller: "One must realize that individuals ... make a conscious choice to become either cosmopolitans or locals, depending on their own personal talents and the perceived returns from making the choice."

I disagree with this conclusion. It is NOT a conscious choice, it simply happens. Living abroad is a matter or career, which is often not a choice, but simply a sequence of postings one undertakes to further one’s career. That’s not a real choice … some postings are positively awful, but a necessary stepping stone.

The statistics of world migration (not immigration, which is permanent, but migration which is punctual), show only about 2% of any national population that lives outside its own borders. So, for all the talk of globalization, and it is presently arriving at rant level in some quarters, a very limited group of the "chosen few" live outside their communities (if we define community in national terms).

France has been welcoming foreigners since the Germanic tribes or Roman times that came down the Rhone Valley in search of warmer weather. The only difference today is that their descendants are coming to either work or for retirement.

Of the total number of expatriates I have seen in France, only a minor percentage (of that minor percentage of the expat total) have worked in truly multinational fashion across either the European continent or the world as a whole. If I had to guess, it would be 10% of the 2% who live abroad from the home country.

What I do recognize, however, is a difference in "framework" in terms of values. Americans/Europeans who have lived outside their country for greater than 5 years adopt "local values" and change perceptibly in their behaviour and manners in an effort to fit into the local scene.

Those Anglophones (anyone who speaks English and therefore more than likely has been able to work multinationally) who do not last more than three years tend to go home out of a variety of familial reasons.

As for Shiller’s framework, it is important to note that when anyone works for a multinational company they become very naturally market liberalists - because they see first hand that consumer choices are similar throughout the world and therefore marketing strategies are also similar if not exactly the same (depending upon the level of consumerism development).

And, there are those who look at their home country with a more jaundiced eye, because they have transited from a point-of-view, but beyond that particular horizon, do not carry weight. And, this is true of wherever you come from.

As for the future, Shiller need not worry. The "cosmopolitan class" (as he wishes to call it) will have no bearing on local politics, or even international politics, since they rarely participate in them and therefore their decisions, except at the office, are simply irrelevant.

Multinationals do NOT rule the world. They only think they do. Besides, substantive politics is constrained for the most part locally and nationally.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Mark:

Although I know some cosmos I couldn't identify any of them as friends.

Why?

I am too state-college middle class and don't have enough money to be accepted by them, and don't care for cosmos anyway. I don't play golf and I don't sail in regattas.

I do have enough professional status to intereact with them, although old money cosmos are usually much easier than the new money types.

When I lecture college (business) students I suggest that each learn at least two languages, learn networking and take up golf. Could help a little.

Lafayette: you are correct, being a comos is not really a choice, there are some entry criteria (education, connections, money, location) that tend to limit entry. A person can have the neccessity and choose not to be a cosmos. There is also the luck factor, hit the right job out of college, get the right assignment, etc.

[anne]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=EE05E7DF173BE564BC4B52DFBF668383629EDE

September 13, 1938

Grand Illusion
By FRANK S. NUGENT

Surprisingly enough, in these combustible times, the French have produced a war film under the title Grand Illusion. It served to reopen the Filmarte last night and it serves to warn the British that they no longer have a monopoly upon that valuable dramatic device known as understatement. Jean Renoir, the film's author and director, has chosen consistently to underplay his hand. Time after time he permits his drama to inch up to the brink of melodrama: one waits for the explosion and the tumult. Time after time he resists the temptation and lets the picture go its calmer course.

For a war film it is astonishingly lacking in hullabaloo. There may have been four shots fired, but there are no screaming shells, no brave speeches, no gallant toasts to the fallen. War is the grand illusion and Renoir proceeds with his disillusioning task by studying it, not in the front line, but in the prison camps, where captors and captives alike are condemned to the dry rot of inaction. War is not reality; prison camp is. Only the real may survive it.

Renoir cynically places a decadent aristocrat, a German career officer, in command of the camp; he places his French counterpart among the prisoners. Theirs is an affinity bred of mutual self-contempt, of the realization of being part of an outgrown era. The other prisoners are less heroic, but more human. They are officers, of course, but officers of a republic, not an aristocracy. One is Marechal, ex-machinist; another is Rosenthal, a wealthy Jew. Von Rauffenstein, the German commandant, held them both in contempt. The elegant Captain de Boeldieu respected them as soldiers, admired them as men, faintly regretted he could not endure them as fellow beings.

So it becomes a story of escape, a metaphysical escape on de Boeldieu's part, a tremendously exciting flesh-and-bone escape on the part of Marechal and Rosenthal. Renoir's narrative links the two adventures for a while, but ultimately resolves itself into a saga of flight. As an afterthought, but a brilliantly executed one, he adds a romance as one of his French fugitives finds shelter in the home of a young German widow. The story ends sharply, with no attempt to weave its threads together. It is probably the way such a story would have ended in life....

[anne]

Now, Jean Renoir was a genius, but as for Robert Shiller tell me when you figure out what he is talking about and I figure out whether I should bother caring. The essay strikes me as trite beyond parody, but I should be sensitive to the poor dear for fearing for the future because he got along so well with the rest of a dinner party. Fear not, dear. Oh, is it safe to buy stokc yet?

[anne]

Remind me never to have dinner with forever fearing-for-the-future Robert Shiller. By the way, the nice thing about being cosmopolitan is knowing a little, just a little about anything other than one's room, but that is part of the difference between say Robert Shiller and Joseph Stiglitz.

[dryfly]

Locals would presumably prefer to protect a narrow set of interests while cosmopolitans take a broader view when assessing the costs and benefits of policy actions.

Half right - they are both motivated by 'narrow interests'... their own interests... not just the locals.

I find it laughable that 'globalists' are considered to be some how 'enlightened' when in reality they benefit materially from their 'globalization' as much or MORE than the 'localists' benefit from keeping global forces out.

The globalists invariably benefit either directly (if they are the ones leveraging the wage arbitrage) or indirectly if it is done via proxy in their investment portfolios where they own interests in the activities of others doing the arbitrage but never get their own hands dirty with such details as closing plants and handing out pink slips... not allowed at OUR dinner parties they all say. Harrumpf!

It really is nothing new under the sun.

[anne]

By the way, there was a time when the term "cosmopolitan" was used to designate a class tyrants found threatening. The term would lead to ethnic slurs. I rather find the classing of people with international interests as sinister, as threatening as such. I like the idea of thinking of people as cosmopolitan. Bono is cosmopolitan, and I find thinking of such a cosmopolitan as completely comforting.

[bob mcmanus]

Umm, The First and Second Internationals? 19th Socialists were cosmopolitan, in theory and in practice. Now whether and to what degree there was a gap between the elites of the various left-wing (labor, anarchism) and the working-class base is a question that might define a difference between socialism and populism. But it isn't cosmopolitanism that is a problem, but nationalism and tribalism.

says...

Shiller, Reich, and others are right to be worried

Increasingly the fortunes of this cosmopolitan class are divorced from any tie to the soil -- or their less fortunate countrymen.

Noblesse oblige -- say what?! Hard to sell this idea at our elite universities or in our corporate boardrooms -- were it not for the Solomon Amendment, our country's military would be kicked off campus!

It's this same group of cynics that look at me, cockeyed, as if I am an idiot, when I tell them that I dutifully serve as a juror (You didn't get out of that?!) or when I show any interest in local civic affairs.

...wish I knew how to solve it!

[Noni Mausa]

I think we are at risk of confusing ourselves with this discussion of cosmopolitan versus local. We need another axis to the discussion. I will offer one -- "caring" versus "uncaring".

Now our four-element grid has caring-worldwide, uncaring-worldwide, caring-local, and uncaring-local.

The first I would call cosmopolitan. The second I would call locusts, or nomads. The third I would call stewards, the fourth I would call your everyday jerk.

Does that help?

Noni

[john c. halasz]

By the way, the inventor of the word "cosmopolitan", "citizen of the world", was Diogenes of Sinope and it was regarded and intended as a deliberate blasphemy against Greek political mores.

[Alex]

Being a "Cosmopolitan" isn't a bad thing. It is the result of the world becoming more integrated. As for the interconnections among elites, thats been around since the beginning of humanity. Since national borders are increasingly irrelevant, and I think people would agree nationalism is dying, except for various wars like the current one in Iraq, does it really matter if someone is local or cosmopolitan? The world has its various people and interests, and those which are the same or similar will join together. I fail to see the problem that cosmopolitans will view locals with distain. Besides, cosmopolitans don't really control anything anyways; taxes are still levied around the world at progressive rates, whereas such cosmopolitans would prefer VATs. Unions exist. Environmental protections abound, as do tariffs and all else to heals the ails of common man. Sounds like the so-called "elite" have less power than paupers.

[evagrius]

I haven't found anyone yet answering my question; is Dubya local or cosmopolitan?

I'll answer it then- he was born into a cosmopolitan family since his wealth originates from cosmopolitan connections, and yet he's more local than most locals- incurious about the world, indeed contemptious about it, and arrogant in his views about the "American way of life" as being morally, perhaps metaphysically superior to the rest of the world. Although he is local in one sense, he remains "cosmopolitan", ( following the definition of rustbelt), in his disdain for the true locals, his fellow Americans.
On the other hand, to use the easiest example for contrast, Bill Clinton was born into a local family with a completely local inheritance, ( i.e; no money at all, indeed quite poor). Yet he became, through education and effort, a cosmopolitan, global in his view of cultures and nations, open to all types of attitudes, curious etc; Ironically, he does not disdain locals. He's able to transcend both categories.

I've simplified to highlight the contrast but I think it holds true.

Being local or cosmopolitan is not being a member of a certain class. Shiller is erroneous in this. It's really a matter of attitude and experience. Europeans are cosmopolitan through necessity. They can't afford to be merely local. The result is that many of them, especially those with higher education, can speak 2-3 often 4 languages, knowing the cultures and histories of the countries of those languages. Japanese also have adopted a cosmopolitan attitude, learning English, French, Russian etc; as have the Chinese. Other nations too have "cosmopolitan" educated classes, ( including Canada where many Canadians speak 3-4 languages as a matter of course).

The U.S. is the one major country where speaking a foreign language is considered offensive. As support for this, I refer to Bush's response recently to a U.S. reporter who dared to ask the French President a question in French. He commented on the question by uttering a few words in Spanish, implying that he could speak it, when, of course he can't. His response was quite sneering according to reports.

[lonesome moderate]

Well, almost anyone reading or, especially, posting to, this site is cosmopolitan compared to 99% of the world's population 20 or even 10 years ago. It is much easier to make at least a nominal connection with people "out there" than it was before.

Conversely, it is much harder to connect with people in your own community, for many reasons. We move around more, have become much more afraid to venture out of our houses, and the local institutions that built "local influentials" and often defined our communities (churches, local social/business clubs) have declined.

says...

Respectfully disagree, Alex.

Yes, the world is becoming MORE integrated in some ways, namely, the tighter cross-border interests of groups political, ethnic, economic, and even religious.

Some of this is downright TROUBLING, like the numerous polls of Arab "Britons" who show sympathy for UK terrorists and want SHARIA LAW introduced in the UK!

The real question in the article is: What does it mean that these special interest groups (whether political, economic, ethic, religious) are LESS integrated with their local counterparts?

Disagree again with your comment "national borders...irrelevant". Polls in the US show overwhelming support for a southern US border fence to stem illegal immigration . Most Americans, whether black, white, or brown -- deep in their gut -- want people to respect the border and come here legally, honoring the moral, legal, and social contract that we citizens have had with each other for generations.

[evagrius]

I wouldn't call immigrants to Britain wanting Sharia law "cosmopolitan" but quite local in their attitude.

As for immigration problems, that has nothing to do with being local or cosmopolitan. That has to do with economics.

If the U.S. wants less illegal immigration, ( and not all of it is from Mexico- do you know how many illegal Filipinos, Chinese, Polish, Russian and Irish are in the U.S.?), then it should look at fixing the economic situation. It should also quit looking for cheap labor.

[anne]

"What does it mean that these special interest groups (whether political, economic, ethic, religious) are LESS integrated with their local counterparts?"

More and more ominous, the special subversive groups like, say, my students from Ghana or Hong Kong or Panama or shudder France? Can Catholics, say, marry Methodists or Buddhists or Jews? Can African Americans travel to France? Suppose I do not care for my neighbors? Say what? I realize more and more how bizarre this essay is. Robert Shiller really needs to get out more, and think.

[fiskhus jim]

the Cosmopolitan/Local distinction certainly rings true - or at least, has the ring of truth about it. Like all either/or propositions, like George Lakoff's Daddy state/Mommy state dichotomy, while they may accurately reflect some aspects of the larger problem, usually there is a great deal more at work than a simple either/or existentiality.

And, the extent of the truth implied also depends, to some extent, on the definitions of each side that are, sometimes successively, employed.

For example, "Locality" may, in many respects, be a convenient catch-all for what I sometimes refer to as the "Ed McMahon Amurrrkans" - the folks who see the world in terms of "Us" and "Them"; the simple folks for whom team spirit is the only motivator, with "country' merely replacing "school" as they grow older but no more intelligent or involved in the greater world; you know, the ones always involved in political conventions' "spontaneous" floor demonstrations for their candidate.

While "Cosmopolitan" might serve as proxy for the entirety of the Progressive/Liberal landscape, since, even when such thinkers act locally, they tend to see a bigger, more nuanced picture.

On the other hand, Local vs. Cosmopolitan might merely mean protectionists vs. profiteers. Or patriots vs. traitors. And I'll leave it to others to parse just exactly "who" is "who".

[jamzo]

shiller seems to be in a "capital vs labor" frame of mind

"either a or b"

the dichotomy makes his article seem to be a disguised
argument about free trade versus protectionism

he writes of a bipolar world

even though i have become accustomed to hearing that i
am luck that i live in an era of "consumer choices"

(in my lifetime i have been given health insurance choices, electricity supplier choices, telecommunications supplier choices, cable tv choices,
ketchup choices, canned soup choices, etc)

it far less provocative to write about issues from a multi-polar perspective - "the chinese menu - column a, column b, column c" approach

i wonder if this bipolar world is a direct reflection of an economicst thinking

capital vs labor

money vs physical and mental effort

the haves vs the have-nots

i am sure there are exceptions but when i think of sociology i think sociologists are more concerned with multi-polar phenomena - things like upper, middle and lower classes and so on

of course, sociologists are not trapped in the labor vs capital frame of mind

oh!

maybe this bipolar world of shiller is a disguise for the eternal pro-life vs pro-choice debate

about me:

i stopped watching the tv show "60 minutes" when they started their "point/counter-point" segment

says...

Arab immigrants seeking Sharia in the UK

-- or members of the Global Earthworm Collectors wanting "common" standards for naming earthworms --

is absolutely "cosmopolitan" behavior

like it or not, things "cosmopolitan" cannot be limited to only those things "good"

and a root cause of the immigration problem is "cosmopolitanism" on both sides of the border!

1) political/economic elites in Mexico not forced to fix their own damn economy -- with little incentive to do so given that cash sent from the US is the country's LARGEST revenue source!
2) political/elites in the US who don't care about displaced US workers and only want low wages paid ...

Oh, and analogously, ask citizens in southern California whether they support the "Aztlán" movement (to make that a part of Mexico) -- Nope ...yet another "cosmopolitan" movement -- this one of global Chicanos.

[Ken Houghton]

evagrius - Local. There is really no question of that, is there?

STR's condescension aside, there is nothing new under this sun of Shiller's.

There are still two types of people in the world: Those who divide everything into three different types, and those who don't.

[evagrius]

Oh, please.

Oh, and analogously, ask citizens ( you mean Anglo here-don't you?) in southern California whether they support the "Aztlán" movement (to make that a part of Mexico) ( It was a part of Mexico before 1845 so what's the problem? )-- Nope ...yet another "cosmopolitan" movement -- this one of global Chicanos.( Chicano is specifically a "Mexican- American" not a Mexican.)

Good God. What idiotic drivel.

At least give yourself a handle, M(r)(s) Anon.

You completely misunderstand the concepts. I won't even argue that you're a local.

It seems you're a troglodyte.

[Bruce Wilder]

Dubya is local. So local, it hurts, it burns!

Duh.

[evagrius]

Ken Houghton;

Could you repeat your statement?

[adam]

evagrious-

just got here and read your question. was going to say the same and use clinton as a counter example.

i like what a poster above said. everyone could be discussing this articel with the person next to him at work. instead we read and post to those miles away.

sounds pretty cosmopolitan.

[evagrius]

adam;

Except I'm not at work.:)

[Bruce Wilder]

"It seemed they were probably easier to talk to than the local Americans who were waiting on us and serving food."

A key, here, is that Shiller is in New Haven. Yale is a weird place, a beseiged island; no where else that I know of has as stark a divide between town and gown. At Yale, the Quads actually lock their medieval gates like it really was the 15th century! Ann Arbor, by contrast, is a town, which consists almost entirely of alumni; Cambridge, Mass., once an Irish blue collar town, still has remnants of class divisions, but lots of Harvard students or faculty members become at least part-time locals, completely enmeshed in the shabby charm of Central Square or Somerville. A Yale spouse has a hard time finding a job; a Harvard spouse works downtown or at B.U. or Tufts, etc.

[Bruce Wilder]

I agree with others that it is wrong to imagine that this "division" is just emerging now. If there is a date for its "historic" emergence it lies between 50,000 and 10,000 BCE, when humans acquired the capacity to cooperate and live together in social groups larger than a band of one or two dozen adults.

Let Shiller contemplate the recent history of Yugoslavia or current events in Iraq, if he wants to meditate on the interplay of cosmos and locals.

[himagine]

Maybe I should have made link to the wikipedia more specific in the previous comment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Illusion_(film)#Class

[Miguel]

"Besides, cosmopolitans don't really control anything anyways; taxes are still levied around the world at progressive rates, whereas such cosmopolitans would prefer VATs. Unions exist. Environmental protections abound, as do tariffs and all else to heals the ails of common man. Sounds like the so-called "elite" have less power than paupers"

I don't see if these questions have much connection with the cosmopolitan/localist division - I doubt if the "cosmopolitan elites" are more in favour of VAT and against progressive taxation than the "localist elites", for example.

[Lafayette]

anne: "he adds a romance as one of his French fugitives finds shelter in the home of a young German widow. The story ends sharply, with no attempt to weave its threads together. It is probably the way such a story would have ended in life...."

Phew! I knew there had to be a romance somewhere. Renoir would not have otherwise been the director.

There are at least 150,000 Yanks who live in France, more than 200,000 Brits, less than a 100,000 Germans, about as many Dutch and even a token native American Indian - that French television trots out from time to time to show how "open" France is.

It's a great place to live. Just bring money.

[Lafayette]

dryfly: "I find it laughable that 'globalists' are considered to be some how 'enlightened' when in reality they benefit materially from their 'globalization' as much or MORE than the 'localists' benefit from keeping global forces out."

I can't imagine why you would equate cosmopolitans with globalism or protectionism necessarily with local yokels.

Must I presume it is American irony that makes one write this? Any other reason would certainly not be very flattering.

[Jonathan Goldberg]

Just a historical note: Alvin Gouldner wrote an influential (at the time) paper title in a titled Cosmopolitans and Locals in the 50s; it studied buisness people. At that time cosmopolitan mostly meant nationwide rather than worldwide.

[evagrius]

"If there is a date for its "historic" emergence it lies between 50,000 and 10,000 BCE, when humans acquired the capacity to cooperate and live together in social groups larger than a band of one or two dozen adults."

It actually might be later than that. I'd argue for about 2-3,000 B.C.E.

Karen Armstrong's book, ( which I tout all the time because it really is an excellent source for reflection), the Great Transformation explores how the major faiths became cosmopolitan in attitude. One can read how the God of Israel became the God of all people, how Brahma is the goal of all people, how the Tao is for everyone and how Sophia is for everyone and one can read how that transformation was resisted by locals at every step.

One can see this even now when an American general brags how "his" God is bigger than a captured "terrorist'"'s God.

[evagrius]

"It's a great place to live. Just bring money"

Lafayette- I'd argue that statement holds true for anyplace. Why be local in your remarks about France? :)

says...

well! now evagrius has finally "won" the argument

cosmopolitans good & locals bad

-- a perfect trifecta

anyone who disagrees:
1) is racist
2) is ignorant
3) is unenlightened and ungodly

Armstrong's book looks very interesting, but i'll bet even she would say it is not rubbery enough to be stretched into this discussion!

[save_the_rustbelt]

Ken:

And just how was I being condecending?

You have hurt my feelings, I am deeply wounded.

[billy]

Well, the the word "parochial" is really old.

Locals want to live in a limited world, because expanding the boundaries brings change, and change means that they lose their place in the pecking order.

Cosmopolitans can deal better with changes. Better abilities to adapt.

>save_the_rustbelt:
>Cosmos are almost never military veterans - no bases in the Hamptons

Well, the joke is on the locals - every war results in an advancement of the cosmopolitan world view.

Evagrius,
Bush is a local. Being local does not mean that you dont engage with "non-locals". What you do not ever allow is that interaction to seed any changes in the social order, which can disrupt your power base. See conservative definition of tolerance. In fact were it not for the corruption of the meanings of the word conservative and liberal, those would more or less map to local and cosmopolitan.

[evagrius]

Well Anonymous,

I wouldn't be so insulting if I "knew" who's making the remarks.

That's right- I take the term local to be a "small-minded" person and a cosmopolitan to be more universal in attitude.

It has nothing to do with wealth, class, education or religion.

It has to do with attitude,an attitude of spirit and generosity and one that doesn't make the distinction of us vs. them.

You seem to confuse local with native. I don't.

One can be a cosmopolitan native who has never travelled. There are many examples of this type.
I can refer you to Kenji Miyazawa, a Japanese poet and children's storyteller who died quite young but left behind stories that have enchanted children around the world. Of course, there are a huge number of writers, thinkers, artists and musicians who are cosmopolitan in attitude.

One can be a smug local who's been fortunate to travel yet has seen nothing, heard nothing and felt nothing that couldn't be reduced to local meaning.

Dubya is a prime example of this type. So is Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the others in the Whote House. They can't seem to get out of their skins, so to speak.

[save_the_rustbelt]

On another note, in many ways it is good to have both cosmos and locals, as long as the cosmos dont rule the world.

We need yachtsmen and we need plumbers, and we need them in balance.

In some ways I am lucky as I get to travel through both worlds on a semi-regular basis. If you want a genuine friend though, stick with the plumber. If you want common sense, again the plumber. If you need connections, go with the cosmo.

[evagrius]

save_the_rustbelt;

I've known plumbers who speak more than two languages. Are they cosmo or local?

Don't confuse the distinction with class. There's quite a few "upper-class" people who've travelled that are completely "local" in attitude- they have absolutely no comprehension of other peoples and no interest even as they travel.

( An example- I was in Sarlat, France, the "capital" of foie gras and geese, mushrooms and great wine. A young couple staying at the same hotel asked if there was a pizza restaurant around. American of course. "Local" of course. Sad. The hotel owner was not perturbed at all. He'd seen plenty of "locals".)

[Movie Guy]

A comparison of viewpoints

Robert Shiller - "I fear for the future. How will the cosmopolitan class behave as their role in the world economy continues to strengthen? How unfeeling will they come to be about the people who share their neighborhoods? Most importantly, if resentment by the locals emerges, what political consequences will result?"

Shiller raises an issue that many understand.

anne - "as for Robert Shiller tell me when you figure out what he is talking about and I figure out whether I should bother caring."..."Remind me never to have dinner with forever fearing-for-the-future Robert Shiller."

Listen to the snobbery and disdain in this person's message. Clueless. Elitist.

save_the_rustbelt - "Rings true to me. The cosmopolitans tend to live in a few urban areas, usually coastal, and either have money or hang with it."..."Cosmos attend fund raisers at the MOMA, the rest of us go to PTA meetings, run Scout troops, and hold the country together. Cosmos are almost never military veterans - no bases in the Hamptons. I think we need the cosmos, but we can't allow them to dominate policy discussions, especailly foreign and economic policy, because their reality does not match the reality of most of the country."

This person sees a difference. This individual raises the issue that extends beyond local - that of national allegiance and support.

Lafayette - "The "cosmopolitan class" (as he wishes to call it) will have no bearing on local politics, or even international politics, since they rarely participate in them and therefore their decisions, except at the office, are simply irrelevant."..."Multinationals do NOT rule the world. They only think they do. Besides, substantive politics is constrained for the most part locally and nationally."

The acknowledgement and yet the dismissal.

dryfly - "I find it laughable that 'globalists' are considered to be some how 'enlightened' when in reality they benefit materially from their 'globalization' as much or MORE than the 'localists' benefit from keeping global forces out."

A challenge thrown down.

anne - "Bono is cosmopolitan, and I find thinking of such a cosmopolitan as completely comforting."

The selection of an identity. Agreeing after all with Shiller's observation. Local versus cosmopolitan.

anon - "Increasingly the fortunes of this cosmopolitan class are divorced from any tie to the soil -- or their less fortunate countrymen."

A clarification.

Alex - "Since national borders are increasingly irrelevant, and I think people would agree nationalism is dying, except for various wars like the current one in Iraq, does it really matter if someone is local or cosmopolitan?"

The question. A challenge to Shiller's point.

evagrius - "Being local or cosmopolitan is not being a member of a certain class. Shiller is erroneous in this. It's really a matter of attitude and experience. Europeans are cosmopolitan through necessity. They can't afford to be merely local." ..."can speak 2-3 often 4 languages, knowing the cultures and histories of the countries of those languages."

A definition.

lonesome moderate - "...it is much harder to connect with people in your own community, for many reasons. We move around more, have become much more afraid to venture out of our houses, and the local institutions that built "local influentials" and often defined our communities (churches, local social/business clubs) have declined. "

Another explanation.

anon - "The real question in the article is: What does it mean that these special interest groups (whether political, economic, ethic, religious) are LESS integrated with their local counterparts?"

The second question.

anne - "I realize more and more how bizarre this essay is."

Elitism, once again.

fiskhus jim - "While "Cosmopolitan" might serve as proxy for the entirety of the Progressive/Liberal landscape, since, even when such thinkers act locally, they tend to see a bigger, more nuanced picture."

A further clarification of one group.

jamzo - "the dichotomy makes his article seem to be a disguised argument about free trade versus protectionism" [and many more comparisions]

The author's intent under scrutiny.

Ken Houghton - "There are still two types of people in the world: Those who divide everything into three different types, and those who don't."

A dismissal.

Bruce Wilder - "Dubya is local. So local, it hurts, it burns!"

An elitist putdown of locals and those who identify with them.

billy - "Locals want to live in a limited world, because expanding the boundaries brings change, and change means that they lose their place in the pecking order. Cosmopolitans can deal better with changes. Better abilities to adapt."

A further clarification.

[evagrius]

Movie Guy;

So- are you a local or a cosmopolitan?

Or- define the terms yourself.

Otherwise....what's your point?

[Bruce Wilder]

"I'd argue for about 2-3,000 B.C.E."

Your dates are good for the emergence of the social and cultural phenomenon of things we might recognize as States and Armies, but there's a big gap between nomadic bands, meeting together as a proto-tribe a couple times a year to party, and Pharaoh Menes, ruling united Egypt (c3150 BCE). If you imagine, as I do, that the social division of leadership (and followership) labor, which permits the cementing together of a large State rests on a genetic foundation, then there has to be time between the emergence of humans with a symbolic culture (c. 50,000 BCE) for the traits to arise and spread.

Roughly 50,000 years ago, homo sapiens sapiens emerged with the ability not just to make and use tools, but to design and invent tools. There are, how shall we say, economies of scale and scope to toolmaking, which would have provided the necessary further evolutionary pressure, favoring the formation of ever larger and denser cooperative social groups, as the evolution of the aggressive character of humans, individually and in groups, permitted.

It took a long time to get to
more-or-less sedentary settlements (what? roughly 15,000 to 10,000 years ago) and, then, agriculture, and still longer to get to Pharaoh Menes. And, ever since, civilization rises and falls, as people try to form larger unifications -- Empires and nation-states and universal religions and international organizations --and then things either break down in the stress of dynamism or settle into paralyzed stasis and decay.

[Peter Schaeffer]

Lafayette,

Dryfly is entirely correct. Elite versus public opinion has been polled to death in the US. Every study shows that elite cosmopolitans favor Open Borders for immigrants (legal and illegal) and favor “Free Trade”. Public opinion is consistently hostile towards both. See Kohut: Sharp Drop in U.S. Support for Iraq War, With Isolationism on Rise for a CFR (very elite) discussion that includes these topics. Another CFR article The U.S. Immigration Debate contains a useful quote

“"There's a big gap between the elites and the American general public" on how to handle immigration, says Joseph Chamie, director of research at the Center for Migration Studies”

For a book that extensively discusses this subject, I recommend “Who Are We” by Samuel Huntington. He takes pains to both describe and condemn elites who have embraced “Free Trade” and Open Borders while abandoning any hint of loyalty to their fellow countrymen. Sadly, the president of the United States is a premier example of this kind of thinking.

None of this makes the cosmopolitans “wrong” or the locals “right”. However, the identity of each group is crystal clear. For the record I view the cosmopolitans as anti-Americans intent on destroying the country that has been rather nice to them.

[piglet]

Who says that cosmopolitans are "influential", "elite members"? I am a comsopolitan and many of my friends are cosmopolitans. None of them are politically or economically influential. I just don't consort with High Society.

[piglet]

"The cosmopolitans tend to live in a few urban areas, usually coastal, and either have money or hang with it."

Oh yeah? Who told you that?

[anne]

Notice the intimidation and notice how intimidated I am, because I understand that all intimidators can do is intimidate. That is what they are about.

As for me, do remind me never to have dinner with forever fearing-for-the-future Robert Shiller. Only a decade ago, we learned of the the end-of-the-investing-world from Shiller, while we currently learn of the fear of the dread cosmopolitans which when I think about it I wonder if Shiller is really thinking about the magazine. Ya think?

[jalrin]

Shiller made a mistake in citing Merton because the distinction between "cosmopolitan" and "local" that Merton found in the interests of non-elite locals is completely different from the issue that Shiller is actually concerned about. The crisis now is that elites in many countires fell that they have more in common with elite memberbs in other countries than with their own people. Such thinking is a direct assault on the very notion of a social contract which presupposes that membership in a national political community means something. This rejection of contraints and loyalties is why Shiller's blood is runnning cold and he is right to be afraid.

[anne]

There are international students every step along the Yale way, by the way, way, but a dinner with cosmopolitans from cosmopolitan land, even though he just loves the sushi and has ever so much less in common with the locals who wait and serve or serve and wait, a cosmopolitan dinner, not the magazine just the dinner, makes the sensitive dear fear for the future. I do wonder what the table talk was about. Not the magazine, just the dinner.

[anne]

Yes; my blood runs cold when I think about people having friends, say, abroad. Cold my blood runs, and I too fear for the future. Imagine a note from Hong Kong just to say "hello." Interesting, a note from a student living in America, Indonesian but raised in Bejing with parents moved to Hong Kong and planning Christmas in Indonesia. My blood runs colder than cold at the cosmopolitanism of it all. Not the magazine.

[anne]

"For the record I view the cosmopolitans as anti-Americans intent on destroying the country that has been rather nice to them."

Now, let us see how many words we could use in place of "cosmopolitan." Suddenly America has an enemy more fearsome than, say, well, then, say what? Remember, I began by noting how of old tyrants would rant about "cosmopolitans" almost always with ethnic connotations.

Who are these country destroying cosmopolitans who make our blood run cold, shudder, as we fear for the future? Who are they? Do they have, say, spiked purple hair so we could spot them in a crowd? Ya think?

[Bruce Wilder]

One of the truly distinct things associated with the emergence of homo sapiens sapiens 50,000 years ago, was that his inventiveness was localized. The earlier tool-using Homo Whatevers tended to use tools of no particular distinction -- better than the tools of the previous Homo Whateverbefore -- but not different from the same Homo Whatever everwhere else in the world at the same time.

Homo Sapiens Sapiens fled from the Tower of Babel. Linguists have confirmed that the linguistic drift, which gives us accents, then dialects and finally, distinct languages, is a product of people imitating certain local influentials.

Cosmos, I suppose, are the people, who support the universal languages: Sanskrit, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, English, Mandarin Chinese. But, evagrius makes me wonder if that's true. Is it "cosmo" to speak only your local language everywhere? Order pizza in the land of foie gras? When in Rome, do as the Romans do, but if you are a Roman, do as Romans do, everywhere: only mad dogs and Englishmen . . .

Catholic or Protestant? Anglican or Dissenter? Guelph or Ghibelline?

Much to contemplate, as anne would say.

[anne]

"For the record I view the cosmopolitans as anti-Americans intent on destroying the country that has been rather nice to them."

I thought the problem was Iraq, but what do I know.

[piglet]

"Every study shows that elite cosmopolitans favor Open Borders for immigrants (legal and illegal) and favor “Free Trade”."

Peter Schaeffer, how did they define "elite cosmopolitans" in your study? Please asnwer that question or stay silent.

[piglet]

"For the record I view the cosmopolitans as anti-Americans intent on destroying the country that has been rather nice to them."

Peter Schaeffer, I take back what I wrote in my last post. I have always had the principle that I don't discuss with fascists, and I intend to keep true to my principles. I don't want you to answer any questions, I just want you to piss off and leave us in peace.

[Peter Schaeffer]

Anne,
I hope that at some point you will notice that a war being fought in a foreign country, costing the U.S. 0.7% of GDP is less important than a Current Account deficit of 7% of GDP.

At some point you may notice that 12 million illegal aliens in this country are having a more negative impact on our wages, prices (yes raising them), schools, mobility, air, water, taxes, hospitals, streets, and ultimately national survival, then 150,00 Americans serving in Iraq.

The war in Iraq is no trifle. However, the America people will be paying dearly for the immigration and trade insanities of the Bush administration long after the last American has left Iraq.

[anne]

Bruce Wilder impertinently asks "Catholic or Protestant? Anglican or Dissenter? Guelph or Ghibelline?" thinking I will be flustered. Wrong, I have always had a thing for Guelphs. When a Guelph struts the streets, well, you know.

[jalrin]

Anne,
My closest friend for the bulk of my life has been a brillant mathematican from Iceland so do not confuse the community with parochialism. Having friends and working with people from other countries is good. Identifying more with foreign elites than with your fellow citizens is a horrifying thought when you consider that democracy as we know it has always been a national concept and that requires some sense of connection with other members of the politcal community. what happens when that sense of socia contract is gone?

Piglet,
There is nothing wrong with being cosmopolitan. Shillers use of Merton's terminology has confused most everybody on this board into thinking that Merton's cosmopolitans are the same people Shiller is worried about when they are two different groups of people. A better description is found in Robert Reich's article I linked in the first post that diffrentiates between the Goldman Sachs bankers and similar such Shiller is worrying about and the broader elite population who this problem does not apply to.

[Mark Thoma]

I grew up in a very small town, a little less than 4,000 people,and it was the same town my mom was born in. It is mostly farmers plus the grocery stores, hardware stores, tractor stores, etc. needed to support the farm community.

Their interests, their view, their whole orientation is local. I'm sure there are cosmos there, but in the working class neighborhood I grew up in, they would be hard to find. If it's good for local farmers, that's about all that matters.

Universities are the opposite of my small town. They are inherently cosmopolitan in their orientation, at least the ones I attended or worked at. With an international faculty, so many students from so many backgrounds, it is an environment that encourages the larger view.

Maybe I don't recognize this distinction very well because I straddle the worlds myself and have found ways to reconcile the two sets of interests through economics (e.g. the free-trade advocacy some of you like so much to me supports both sets of interests, but I'm not here to argue about that right now). Also, universities in towns the size of Eugene tend to attract people who straddle both worlds, more so than, say, Boston or NY might, at least that's my perception, and a lot of the people I know here have similar backgrounds to mine depending on how you define a small town, but not all. I'm always surprised when I go home and start talking to high school friends who have never left how quickly my vocabulary switches from university mode to, what should I call it, farmer mode. Like a Chameleon. Then, back here, different words (though maybe my lectures would be improved with a few farmerisms thrown in), different way of looking at the world. I suppose I've become more cosmopolitan over time, but I find I have a surprisingly hard time saying that given my local roots. I still identify more with a local orientation somewhere down deep, and the rest of my family is mostly still there. I hope I remember the interests of the people I grew up with as I think about policy, etc.

I'm rambling. Anyway, the point is that, to the extent possible, if we can point out the ways in which the common interests of the two groups can be served, and they do share interests in some areas, that would be useful.

[piglet]

"Piglet,
There is nothing wrong with being cosmopolitan."

Why are you telling me this?

"Identifying more with foreign elites than with your fellow citizens is a horrifying thought"

More horrifying than "identifying with national elites more than with your fellow citizens"?

I would never have thought that this forum would attract fascists, nationalists, and anti-immigrant scapegoaters. So far nobody has used the letter combination J-E-W, but everything you are saying has early 20th century antisemitism (the greedy, cosmopolitan jew ruling the world) as its subtext. I start getting a sense of how living in Weimar Germany must have been like. And we are not even in crisis yet. We are 1925, 1928 perhaps. All bets are off should we fall in depression tomorrow.

[billy]

"Every study shows that elite cosmopolitans favor Open Borders for immigrants (legal and illegal) and favor “Free Trade”.

What really drives the locals nuts is across the board interaction with "non-locals" (aliens), the interaction between the masses. The interactions between the locals and aliens are to be totally controlled by the elite aristocracy, so that they can ensure that there are no changes in the power structure. If you want a definition of elite, that is elite.

It is not immigration per se, but multiculturalism that is the issue. Peter Schaeffer would undoubtedly subscribe to the theory of white man's burden.

[Bruce Wilder]

Movie Guy: Bruce Wilder - "Dubya is local. So local, it hurts, it burns!"

An elitist putdown of locals and those who identify with them.
Well, more a putdown of George W. Bush, in particular for his ignorance and incompetence, and a considered revulsion against his adoption of localism, as a political program for Empire and war.

Stirling Newberry has written several interesting essays about the tension between the "local god" imperialism of Bush and America's former policy of liberal internationalism, founded on the universalism of Enlightenment ideals. Here's a link to one of those essays: http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/jun/24/vale_to_babylon_part_ii

I am profoundly sickened by Bush's assault on my country's Constitution and his wanton destructiveness abroad. His policy on nukular non-proliferation looks to me like a policy specifically designed to promote the use of nuclear weapons in war. I feel nauseous everytime I hear the phrase, "Department of Homeland Security" -- it sounds both hokey and fascist to my ears. But, worse than that, I think it represents a completely unworkable policy, bordering on the insane and founded on the suburban Republican (and you can't get more "local" than that) view that you can keep evil "out there".

But, I'm not such a thorough-going "cosmo" really. If Bush were not so repulsive, I would not be putting down "locals". I actually like and admire many of my local locals -- the chamber of commerce boosters and community leaders, who glad-hand everyone and know everyone, and who patiently work to make life better.

My own political focus tends to be liberal and cosmo, but my sympathies are actually more like save_the_rustbelt than, say, Brad DeLong.

There's good localism in the American soul and bad localism. I used to correspond with a North Carolinian history prof and sometime Kentuckian, who tells of being a visiting prof at some college in Iowa, and suddenly understanding how subtly and importantly different local communities are led in different regions of the country.

Community spirit and boosterism is everywhere in America, but somehow it gets stunted in some places, by the desire of the local elites to oppress and exploit their fellows. It gets perverted into an empty and foolish libertarianism, to justify selfish greed.

And, for the last six years, bad localism has been politically ascendant and it sickens me.

[Peter Schaeffer]

Jalrin,

Best line of the day

“What happens when that sense of social contract is gone?”

You get 3-4 million lost manufacturing jobs without a murmur of protest and absolute hysteria when some plantation plutocrat can’t find workers for the minimum wage to pick apples. You get economic elites giddy over soaring housing and equity prices while ordinary American families decline. You get decades of declining wages, working conditions, and job opportunities for our own minorities while elites come to regard cheap servants as a constitutional right.

Piglet,

The CFR links provide explanations of who/whom they regard as elites. Their quick description might be “opinion leaders”. The CFR does not describe these folks as cosmopolitans. I added that word because they espouse cosmopolitan views.

Please try to avoid ad hominem attacks. You should attempt to refute a person’s ideas, not indulge in vituperative language.

billy,

No, I don't.

[calmo]

I like jalrin here but anne distracts me Only a decade ago, we learned of the the end-of-the-investing-world from Shiller, while we currently learn of the fear of the dread cosmopolitans which when I think about it I wonder if Shiller is really thinking about the magazine. and I'm surprised that The Cosmoclevage magazine does not make an earlier appearance. (Good work local and cosmo posters alike in avoiding this pitfall, this digression and mighty distraction)[Ok you too, axis person Noni Mausa, ancient historian john c and modern historian bob m and very modern and bad historian Alex.]
Ok, anne what could Shiller be thinking about with that magazine?

[anon]

piglet - you are paranoid and jumping the gun - or is it Anne's lack of support for the war in Iraq that gets you down?

[piglet]

"I'm always surprised when I go home and start talking to high school friends who have never left how quickly my vocabulary switches from university mode to, what should I call it, farmer mode."

This is exactly my experience as well (only it's a village of 300 rather than 4000 people). What I don't understand is why you subscribe to this "cosmopolitan class" theory. Cosmopolitanism is a world outlook shaped by experience - having lived at different places, having experienced different cultures (whether by actually living there or by absorbing foreign cultures via literature, art, the internet), having lived and worked with people of different cultural background etc.

*Cosmopolitanism is not a class distinction, an "aristocracy" or an "elite".

[Bruce Wilder]

PS: "I hope that at some point you will notice that a war being fought in a foreign country, costing the U.S. 0.7% of GDP is less important than a Current Account deficit of 7% of GDP."

Do you think the current account deficit and the War in Iraq might be related somehow? Let me think. Hmmm. What vital commodity do we import at vast cost? What do our huge payments for that commodity finance?

[piglet]

As I said, I don't discuss with fascists. And no, it is not ad hominem to call a fascist a fascist. We are in 1928 Weimar Germany. No niceties to the enemies of civilization.

One clarification for readers who may not have paid attention. Schaffer declared that "Elite versus public opinion has been polled to death in the US. Every study shows that elite cosmopolitans favor" etc. etc. Schaeffers rhetorical trick is simply to call the elite "cosmopolitan". "I added that word because they espouse cosmopolitan views." Schaffer defined cosmopolitans the way he liked in order then to declare that his polls show that "cosmopolitans think this and that", when it is simply the (national, I bet) elite that is thinking this and that.

Because adding the word "jewish" is not yet feasible.

[Peter Schaeffer]

Bruce Wilder,

I don’t quite accept the idea of Bush as a localist. He may be woefully ignorant of the rest of the world, but he is an elite globalist down to his toes. He has devoted much of his administration to pushing for “free trade” deals in spite of the grievous harm, the last generation of trade deals (NAFTA) brought the US. America is running an unprecedented Current Account deficit (7% of GDP), we have lost 3-4 million manufacturing jobs, and we can only pay for half of our manufactured imports (via exports). Yet Bush’s rhetoric on trade remains as gleefully globalist as ever.

After 9-11, Bush had a once in a generation opportunity to deal with America’s porous borders and out of control illegal immigration. The public would have strongly supported fences (like Israel has), visa controls, entry/exit matching, and internal enforcement. Instead we got nonsense about “Democratizing the Middle East” starting in Iraq of all places. Rather than defend our nation against terrorism, we got a neocon exercise in mindless globalism.

A localist president would view immigration in terms of its impact on the wages, working conditions, housing, schools, hospitals, crowding, mobility, etc. that local non-elite Americans have to life with. Bush gives us rhetoric about how “family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande”. Perhaps they don’t, but the United States of America does. Bush is the antithesis of a localist. He may not be a smart globalist, but he is definitely in that camp.

[piglet]

anon: "is it Anne's lack of support for the war in Iraq that gets you down?" Not sure what anon is trying to say but maybe this is a good moment to point out that it were cosmopolitans that were at the forefront of the opposition against the Iraq war. Not surprisingly, war opponents have been "insulted" as exactly that - cosmopolitans, unamerican, unpatriotic. "He looks french", remember? The war party were definitely not cosmopolitan. Unless bombing foreign countries is your definition of cosmopolitanism.

[Movie Guy]

evagrius - Movie Guy, So- are you a local or a cosmopolitan? Or - define the terms yourself. Otherwise....what's your point?

The point is to learn, evaluate, and decide. My summary provided a reasonably good rollup of previous viewpoints at the time I posted it. That could save a few new readers some time as they review this long thread of comments.

As you asked, I am an individual who has been provided the fortunate opportunity to live internationally, respect those important viewpoints, and yet maintain allegiance to my nation's best interests along with those of the states, counties, and communities that I have lived in here in the USA. That is the lesson that I have learned. I am a mixture of the "cultures" point raised by Shiller and I understand his concerns as such are most evident today.

Mobility in the USA helped change our attitudes, though the growth in national and international wealth has taken its toll on some local communities once the money crowd rolls in, purchases dwellings, and pushes for county/municipal governing legislative or rule changes. The vacationer second home owners have demonstrated some arrogance in such efforts. While not being citizens of the State or even the USA where such second residences are owned or leased, some individuals and gated community groups have demanded changes that have attempted to force their attitudes and norms on the local residents. This is particularly evident along favorite coastlines and in a few mountain communities. Some of these individuals are the worst snobs and elitists ever encountered by the year-round county/municipal residents. I have listened to some of them and I concur.

Being or pretending to be an internationalist, cosmopolitan or global trekker seldom involves (from my observations and those of friends) embracing local values, rules, decisions, and responsibility sharing. There are many pretenders in society among the elitist crowd.

Those individuals and families who maintain local, county, state, region, and national interests know that there are responsibilities to be recognized in governing and supporting the local communities, citizens, and lands involved. This is their home and life.

It is an elitist pretense to assume that so-called cosmopolitans know much more of the world and know better on local matters. I have met individuals from all walks of life in many countries, including the United States of America, who have demonstrated exceptional grasps of world and regional events. Assuming that only the elitists and cosmopolitans have this "knowledge" cornered is a substantial error in judgment and maturity. Sometimes, it is quite comical, particularly in townhall meetings and social gatherings, when a cosmopolitan know-it-all or group of know-it-alls is politely humbled by others with a surprising breadth of knowledge - those ignorant locals who aren't supposed to know anything.

I have fortunately enjoyed international exposure, but I am not forgetful of my national, state, county, and local roots. I conduct myself accordingly, knowing the sincere importance of local responsibilities, friendliness, participation, and friendships.

[piglet]

"It is an elitist pretense to assume that so-called cosmopolitans know much more of the world and know better on local matters."

It is a straw man argument to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.

[Movie Guy]

piglet,

You prove my point.

Thanks.

[save_the_rustbelt]

piglet:

I think you define cosmopolitan in an older sense of intellectual and cultural interests. I think a new wave of economic and social cosmopolitans is what we are seeing today.

Have a martini, browse an art book from the coffee table, and relax.

[Peter Schaeffer]

Bruce Wilder,

I don’t get your point about the CA deficit and oil. Are you suggesting that oil imports are responsible for the CA deficit? Check out the BEA trade data. In 2005 (last full year), the US imported $142 billion in crude oil. Out total trade deficit was $717 billion. Clearly something else is at work here. The 2006 numbers will be worse for both the overall deficit and the total cost of oil imports.

Piglet,

The word “cosmopolitan” was introduced by Shiller. Do you have a problem with his use of the word? Do you have a problem with his use of the phrase “cosmopolitan social class”?

[Bruce Wilder]

Peter Schaeffer, I was thinking of local and cosmo as terms for people of a particular, personal temperment and habit of mind, and not, as others in this thread have done, treating them as proxies for social class, personal experience or political policy.

I think George W. Bush, as a matter of personal temperment, is very much a local. He's also very much an elitist -- of the worst kind: a would-be aristocrat, holding power by right of birth, and exercising power to benefit only his own circle or class.

As to globalism, I tend to think the President's role dictates the scope of his policy prescriptions, if not their content. His "globalism" takes the form of imperialism, which is natural for an aristocrat, I suppose. I don't think I would be much in favor of even a smart imperialism, but since "smart" is not on offer with Bush, well . . .

As for free trade, well, that language has been debased. As a purely technical and not ideological matter, I will say that the wealth of nations derives from productivity enhanced by specialization, and specialization is limited by the extent of the market. (See Adam Smith, 1776).

I think economic theories of trade are seriously deficient, and that contributes to a paucity of policy insight useful to communities, where locals are trying to make life better. Politics and economic policy, in my view (and I take it, in yours) ought to rest on community or national solidarity. We ought to be able to trust that the Mayor acts in the interest of the City, and the President acts in the interests of the Nation (and, not say, the interests of Halliburton, the Carlyle Group and the Sultan of Dubai.)

[piglet]

rustbelt: "I think a new wave of economic and social cosmopolitans is what we are seeing today."

I have no idea what you are referring to. Are you saying that somebody who favors, say, trade liberalization because that is in his or her personal economic interest is an "economic cosmopolitan"? For me, this doesn't make sense. I use the word cosmopolitan not "in an older sense" but simply in what I think is the accepted sense. E.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitanism, or any other dictionary. If you wish to redefine the word, please care to notify the editors of OED.

Robert Shiller gives us rhetorics. "a new cosmopolitan social class seems to be emerging". The evidence? A dinner with an international group of professionals. In what sense do these individuals form "a new social class"? For example, what is their common economic interest? Shiller doesn't tell us. He leaves it to our fantasy to fill in the blanks, and that is exactly what this forum has been engaged in. And I guess that is exactly what Shiller intended.

[dryfly]

I still find it humorous that if you worry about your job, your neighbor's job, or your kid's job, you are a boorish protectionist... and a 'local'. And that this is 'self interest'.

But if you think of some far off abstract other society's 'terrible plight' & how they need to be made better off... the 'bigger picture' if you will... then you are noble & enlightened and a 'cosmo'.

Never mind that the prosperous cosmo owns mutual funds & stocks in the very same companies closing that local factory, going offshore in pursuit of higher returns, laying off those locals... but some how that's not 'self interest'.

Maybe if I think hard enough I too can transcend localism. But first I think I'll need to own more stock in multi-nationals.

[evagrius]

I find the discussion so far to be quite fascinating in its confusion.

Perhaps it's because there really has been no agreement on the terminology involved.

I've stated that I think local means someone "small-minded", incurious about the world outside their borders.
Those borders are not geographical but mental. They can also be economical or class-bound.

Confusing cosmopolitan attitudes with elitism or globalism is, to me, an indication of "local" thinking.

Confusing cosmopolitanism with immigration is certainly "local" thinking.

Shiller's use of the term cosmopolitan has all of those ambiguities and, it seems to me, he depends on those ambiguities to bolster his argument.

I see that someone has referred to Huntington. He is a prime example of "local" thinking, a perfect example of truly parochial thinking, full of rather smug assumptions about his culture's innate superiority and the need to defend it against the great unwashed wave of foreigners threatening his little world of comfort.
I once attended a series of lectures by Christos Yannaris, a Greek philosopher-theologian who gave an excellent refutation of Huntington's thesis by examining what Hellenism was.
Hellenism was the first truly cosmopolitan cultural expression. It became the intellectual, philosophical and religious basis for the Roman Empire and when it became Christian, it became the foundation of European civilization. It even had great influence on Islam through translations of basic Greek texts, (that came back to Europe as it were).
Hellenism was not linked to ethnic identity nor did it require the abandonment of all ethnic expression. It did require a universal attitude, one open to as many opinions as possible.
Huntington's culture is not "American" whatever that may be. It's Anglo-Protestant. That's fairly local in expression and influence.

"Local" thinking is always uncomfortable with any challenges to its presumed superiority. Local thinking is not geographic but again, mental, economic etc;

Bush is not cosmopolitan. He may be globalist but he's a local globalist, interested only in his small world's advantage in globalization.

Being cosmopolitan does not mean abandoning local,( in the sense of geography, history or cultural origin,) expression but of including those expressions in one's thinking ,attitude and actions.

As an example,the Russian nobility was cosmopolitan in name only. They spoke French not Russian, had great interest in European and world affairs and science and philosophy etc; However, they had no interest or insight in the culture surrounding them, in the lives of the "little people" that served them, supported them and died for them. They were not cosmopolitan but a "local elite", interested only in their own little world.

It's interesting to note that Shiller makes an interesting faux pas when referring to the "local" servers at the meal he was at.

He could have had the same experience at St. Petersburg, Versailles, or London as he did at Yale.

In all cases, what was there was not cosmopolitanism but "local thinking" dressed in cosmopolitan clothes.

[billy]

"A localist president would view immigration in terms of its impact on the wages, working conditions, housing, schools, hospitals, crowding, mobility, etc. that local non-elite Americans have to life with. Bush gives us rhetoric about how “family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande”. Perhaps they don’t, but the United States of America does. Bush is the antithesis of a localist. He may not be a smart globalist, but he is definitely in that camp."

Wrong - a localist president will make sure that locals always hold power, even if misery is the result. Wealth and power are both relative, and not absolute. Your whole idea of locals/cosmos as class is wrong.

The local worldview consists of seperate worlds, with the elite ruling over these worlds. Who are the elite? They are those who who enjoyed the fruits of power for a long time - they could stay put in one place for generations. The elite always wins the local game on the local turf, and only that.

In that sense, both King Abdullah and Bush are locals, and also elite.

"But if you think of some far off abstract other society's 'terrible plight' & how they need to be made better off... the 'bigger picture' if you will... then you are noble & enlightened and a 'cosmo'."

What is a far off, abstract, other society? Does the slave society in the 1800s fit into that?

[Bruce Wilder]

anne: When a Guelph struts the streets, well, you know.

White Guelph or Black Guelph?

Dante was a White Guelph, and that was enough for me.

[piglet]

dryfly, look up the definition of "straw man" that I posted above. Your attempts at being humorous are appreciated but remember that satire only works if it is based on a grain of truth and not on pure fantasy.

evagrius: "It's interesting to note that Shiller makes an interesting faux pas when referring to the "local" servers at the meal he was at." Exactly. The reason why Shiller felt uncomfortable talking to those servers is not that he's "cosmopolitan" and they are "local Americans" (or maybe "local" immigrants?). The reason is simply that they are servers and he is in the socially superior position. All of you who have bought into that dishonest "cosmopolitan class" stunt have totally forgotten the basic facts of class in a capitalistic society. You need the demagogic fantasy of outsiders, un-americans, "cosmopolitans" who "rule the world" to account for class division in your "local" society. You need to phantasize the elite that is ruling you as "cosmopolitan" so that you can better hate them. How pathetic.

[Movie Guy]

dryfly - "I still find it humorous that if you worry about your job, your neighbor's job, or your kid's job, you are a boorish protectionist... and a 'local'. And that this is 'self interest'.

But if you think of some far off abstract other society's 'terrible plight' & how they need to be made better off... the 'bigger picture' if you will... then you are noble & enlightened and a 'cosmo'."

Agree.

That is the game being played.

[evagrius]

You're right, piglet.

Bush sticks a little fake turd on his cowboy boots and suddenly everyone thinks he's just folks, he's good peoples.

He even fooled Putin who wanted to ride horses with Bush for a photo-op. He was quite disappointed to find that Bush can't ride a horse.

Confusing the ruling elite with cosmopolitans, or rather vice-versa, is a nice rhetorical trick. It's great for confusing people as to who their "betters" really are.

[evagrius]

"That is the game being played.'

The game being played by Shiller and co.

One can worry both about one's local needs and more "abstract" needs- in fact, one can see how the two are actually interelated.

After all, if an international company, based somewhere else decides to close a local factory, isn't that a conjunction of both local and abstract effects?

The separation of locals, ( in geographic terms), from the rest of the world by attacking cosmopolitan attitudes is an effective if time-worn technique.

Blame the furinners! Anyone expressing interest in furriners is a traitor! Etc;Etc;

Meanwhile, the aw shucks, I'm just reglar folks guys keep racking it in.

[jalrin]

We probably need to split this thread into two spearate discussions because I think everybody is becoming somewhat confused about what we are all talking about. Shiller made the unfortunate choice about citing Merton's work on cultural perspectives while discussing a comletely different subject in the rest of his article. This thread has suffered from our efforts to discuss both at the same time.

One discussion has been a defense of the cosmopolitan cultural persepctive described by Merton. I do not see anyone challenging its value. What the misuse of Merton's work by Shiller is obscuring is the worry that Shiller and many posters here have: that because elite groups (defined in the political science sense as the senior officers of the most government agencies, largest publicly traded corporations, and charities with centi-million dollar budgets) are more interested in their global interests, they have less concern for their country than they once did (hence Shiller's comments about the Nigerian).

To Conclude: the values divide described by Merton is not the same thing as economic and political issues that Shiller is worried about (Read the Reich article on national v. global symbolic analysts to understand why). If anyone is still curious, The best summary of the data on the changes in elite attitudes, structure, and it consequences available is Civic Engagement and American Democracy by Dr. Theda Sckopol (former President of the American Political Science Association) and Dr. Morris Fiornia.

[evagrius]

jalrin;

I think the confusion was deliberate by Shiller. He can't be so dumb to confuse the two definitions.

[evagrius]

Here's an article to put some meat into the discussion- who is the "cosmopolitan" and the "local" here?

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/01/highwaymen.html

[anne]

Jalrin,

Agreed; I should have commented before on distinguishing Robert Merton's study of cosmopolitan and local thinker. Merton was a terrific sociologist and was used in an entirely mistaken or false way by Rober Shiller.

For Merton there are habitual frames of reference we use in thinking, some local frames, some cosmopolitan. Some find local references immediately in a subject, some international references. The manners of thought were not class related, and were not related to ethical stances. Martin Luther King was a cosmopolitan thinker, who was at one with local thinkers who found purpose in integrating a single school. Local civil rights thinkers related integrating a school in Selma to a school in Biloxi, but took Selma as a frame of reference.

[dissent]

These terms need to be translated.

Cosmopolitan = Wall Street, also anyone whose salaries and job prospects are enhanced by outsourcing / globalization.

They're not CEO's - they're Cosmo Guys! With trophy wives.

Local = the working people who are expected to put up and shut up while they get felt up (molested!) by the maw of global capital, then dropped like so much dirty tissue.

[anne]

Where Robert Merton was looking to frames of reference in which we think, Robert Shiller has completely and meanly distorted the work of Merton. Possibly Shiller was simply forgetful and careless, but the classing of locals and cosmopolitans was nonetheless mean-spirited. The essay immediately seemed trivial and foolish, then seemed worse.

Then, to imagine some sort of class of cosmopolitan who we must dread and disdain is awful. Who is a cosmopolitan? What about the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize this year? Last year? The year before? Was Jonas Salk a dread cosmopolitan, because never was a person more of an international thinker? Bono, who was mocked for some bizarre reason? Jeffrey Sachs? Should we all disdain Jeffrey Sachs, for all the astonishing work done?

[anne]

Martin Luther King was severely criticized for not being able to be still about Vietnam while working for civil rights in Selma or sanitation workers in Memphis. Was Martin Luther King the problem? Should I have dinner with King and fear for the future as this idiotic essay suggests?

[anne]

Phooey; Robert Shiller. What is your fearful future about, anyway? What were you talking about at your fluffy table? Where was the emptiness, in you? Do you have any sense of how the term cosmopolitan has been used to set people "beyond the pale," literally?

Talking about Iraq as your international dinner? Nothing and no one to stop you talking so. You best believe I talk so at every dinner. What is your fear of the future, timid dear?