Cosmopolitanism

“Now, if I walk down New York’s Fifth Avenue on an ordinary day, I will have within sight more human beings than most of those prehistoric hunter-gatherers saw in a lifetime.”

Appiah asks the reader to imagine a specific scenario to comment on how much more vast and complex our world is than the world of our forebears thousands of years ago. He is pointing out that the average person, tens of thousands of years ago, would have had regular contact with a relatively small circle of people, all of whom they would likely know. A person in a modern city like New York, on the other hand, comes in contact with a large number of other human beings, most of whom are strangers.

“Cosmopolitanism isn’t hard work; repudiating it is.”

In this concise sentence, Appiah suggests that, in our world, it is more difficult to choose not to interact with those outside of own community than it is to pragmatically do so. He brings up the example of a group that intentionally separates from others, the Amish in the United States, and says that cosmopolitans will respect their right to do so. However, it has always been difficult in human history for a group to cut itself off, and it is even more difficult now.

“Depending on the circumstance, conversations across boundaries can be delightful, or just vexing: what they mainly are, though, is inevitable.”

Following Appiah’s introduction of his model of conversation, he emphasizes that on a planet with a booming population, interaction with those who are different from us will be difficult to avoid.