Cosmopolitanism and Global Citizenship:

the Rhetoric of Moral Agency

 

Peter DahlgrenPeter Dahlgren

Lund UniversityLund University

Rhetoric in Society 4Rhetoric in Society 4

University of Copenhagen Jan. 15-18, 2013University of Copenhagen Jan. 15-18, 2013

Overview

Global civil society and alternative politics: setting the scene

Cosmopolitanism: ways of seeing and being The mediapolis: a new kind of public sphere Towards civic cosmopolitanism Contingencies of the web habitus

Global civil society and alternative politics A new era

Democracies experiencing long-term trends of declining participation

Yet also opposite trend: impressive rise in alternative, extra- parliamentarian political activities

Very heterogeneous; tend to address broader range of

issues, more opportunity for participation, less

hierarchical, more inclusive Many involved in transnational issues Global civil society – new phases in history of democracy

 The cosmopolitan context

Globalization – a familiar and contested phenomenon Almost in its wake, the notion of cosmopolitanism has

become a new buzzword in the last decade Growing academic literature; a ‘discourse’ emerging Surprisingly, says little about media Also, tends to be oddly removed from ideas of political

practice

Global issues and activism

Transnational civic actors: many goals and strategies Many forms of organization: INGOs, social movements,

activist networks, etc. Some mainly ‘civic’ - humanitarian, others cultural,

religious (eg, diasporias) Others more explicitly political; alter-globalization

movements (eg, WSF) Most display democratic instincts; some anti-democratic

(and thus ‘uncivic’)

The perspective of political agency

Issue of participation: needs a ‘civic identity’, political sense of self (declines and re-emergences of participation…)

Civic cultures nourish such identity – knowledge, values/ideals, practices/skills

Thus offering socio-cultural foundations of empowered political agency

Political practice: must feel meaningful; social, collective contexts

Today, use of digital media technologies essential for civic agency

Agency as discursive practice

At bottom politics enacted via communicative practices Ex: arguing, promoting, recruiting, lobbying, mobilizing,

running a meeting, etc, All are manifestations of rhetoric, involve performative

skills ( Arendt; Mouffe). A constructionist view; impact of contingencies (enabling

and constraining) The subject, and identity, emerge in part via discourses (Themes for another occasion: Why deliberative

democracy is over-rated…)

Uh oh: excursus on rhetorical vs. discursive horizons (a few signposts…)

Conceptually a good deal of overlap; constructionist premises

Critical discourse analysis/theory: the inexorability of power relations

Discourses are constitutive; builds on theories of subjectivity, identity, social relations

Meaning is inherently unstable, contingent, contested Subjects inherently de-centered (the Unconscious, etc.) Subject positions/identities can be ‘overdetermined’ –

contradictory – via incompatible discourses

Good grief, still more excursus…

Discourses embody systems of knowledge, modes of cognitive and normative perceptions

They are manifestations of (collective) social practice Analysis: dynamics between text, discursive practice,

and social practice/structures. (Fairclough; T.van Dijk; Wodak; Laclau & Mouffe; even Foucault, etc.)

Back on track: the basic enigma at hand

Cosmopolitanism: strongly moral discourse Yet global activism tends to fall outside; not relevant? Cosmopolitanism needs to connect with agency, with

media, with the political Thus: how might we conceive of ‘civic cosmopolitanism’?

Cosmopolitanism: moral ways of seeing and beingOld concept, new package

Socrates, Kant (who seldom left Köningsberg)… Globalization: brings the Other closer Offers varying analytic frame for issues about social

perceptions and relations with distant others in the world Helps us to illuminate the normative grounds for such

practices

Multiple voices: a rhetoric of moral agency

One version offers vision of a more just and democratic world order

Cosmop. as the only way forward for global issues (eg, D. Held, Archibugi)

Others focus on citizenship, rights, inclusion; EU (Habermas, Benhabib)

Still others: moral and political philosophy (Nussbaum) Also: socio-cultural conditions for its realisation (Beck;

Appiah) Many variations, but lots of moral admonishment

High demands on how to be cosmopolitan

Required: self-reflexion on own cultural context, origins, and values

Scepticism towards the ‘grand narratives’ of modern ideologies

Critical distance about the ultimate authority of one’s own culture

Predicated on routine encounters with those significantly different from oneself

Involves a considerable degree of cultural capital Yet, quest for some mythic ‘new cosmopolitan subject’ is a

dead end  

Troublesome empirical investigations

Notions of ‘everyday cosmop.’ have been studied Sobering results - often not too encouraging… Popular discourse about attractive affordances of

globalisation, such as travel and culinary diversity Also discourses about ‘cultural loss’ and ‘dilution of

national culture’ circulate…

A practical link: human rights

B. Turner: Cosmop = pacifist values that preclude violence, promote agency and dignity

Opposition to human suffering transcends and unites different cultures and epochs

Vulnerability of the human body a starting point for commonality and compassion

UN Declaration of Human Rights obviously a very cosmopolitan document

Yet: this is ‘uncomplicated’. What about minority cultures, etc.?

Some critical voices

A lot of lofty idealism; charged with political naïveté Utopian tendency - a new world of tolerant and

responsible citizens Yet offering little analytic insight on major global divides Few authors see a confrontation with neoliberalism

(exceptions: Delanty, Harvey) Delanty claims that conflicts around ‘difference’ are less

about culture and more about social and economic questions with political implications

Intersections: post-colonialism

History of colonialism raises questions of power,privilege Post-colonialism sensitive to how culture and production

of meaning always bound up with relations of power Ex: patterns of cultural influences, images of the other,

identity processes, integration/assimilation, language use, institution-building, etc.

Cosmopolitanism can’t be reduced to power, yet power can’t be ignored

An essential tension

Universalism (one size fits all?) vs. the local/national One or many cosmopolitanisms? Cosmopolitanism as expression of multiple empirical

realities in the world OR:, as a unitary global ideal, with universalist virtues Yet universalist claims vulnerable to critiques of

ethnocentrism: an expression of a camouflaged manoeuvre for cultural power

The mediapolis: a new kind of public sphere Some media connections

The theme of news media and ‘distant suffering’

(Boltanski, Chouliaraki) Touches lightly on cosmopolitanism Does TV news make viewers more cosmopolitan? Pivotal text: Sliverstone’s Media and Morality: On the Rise of the Medialpolis (2006) Media central to late modernity and cosmopolitanism

The core concept: mediapolis

‘Mediapolis’: the chaotic, cacophonic space of global media

Resides beyond logic, rationality; efficacy always uncertain

Multiple voices, inflections images, and rhetoric ‘Post-Habermasian’, ‘post-deliberative’ (even post-

structural) Media as ‘environnments’, dense symbolic ecologies Power relations/imbalances shape media industries and

media cultures

The moral argument

Silverstone in line with other cosmop. Theorists; more detailed

Media put us in contact with global others; this evokes moral responsibilities

Between producers, journalists audiences/receivers Moral demand for reflexivity, recognition of cultural

difference Moral response via thinking, speaking, listening; and

acting (but how…?) Useful rhetorical/moral idea: ‘proper distance’ within

mediapolis

From morality to the political

Despite its messiness, the mediapolis can still provide resources for judgement: cognitive, aesthetic, and moral

He underscores inequities of representation, mechanisms of exclusion

Ideological and prejudicial frames of reporting; us and them

Says action and meaning contingent on people’s circumstances

Silverstone’s is a big step forward, but problems remain Does not really connect with political agency

Towards civic cosmopolitanism The impasse

Silverstone admits we face difficult questions The public as such does not have a strong meaningful

status Empirically it is not politically very efficacious Thought, speech, and action are disconnected and

compromised by absence of context, memory, and analytic rigour

Increasingly, also by the absence of trust

From morality to the political

And yet: sees mediapolis as a site for not only moral response

But also: potential for practice, enacting agency Yet, the connections remain fuzzy Moral engagement is a pre-requisite – but we must avoid

sidelining politics by incantations of universal morality (Dallmayr)

Civic cosmopolitanism: a first sketch

So how do we envision ‘civic cosmopolitanism’? Global civil society: thin structures for democratic

procedures For most citizens, any hope of political agency involves

the web in some way (Though not need not be limited to online contexts) The web can enable communicative – and political -

practices The affordances offer historically unprecedented tools

Contingencies of the web habitus The web and democracy: pro

Many factors shape the use, non-use, and consequences of the web

Huge literature on why or why not the web serves democracy well

Easy access, interactive, ‘produsers’ – creative practices Network logic: horizontal civic communication Natural interface with everyday life Can give political engagement a good social anchoring

…and con…

Political economy, net architecture: centralized corporate control

Issues of surveillance, privacy, etc. – Google, Facebook Politics far down on the list of uses; instead:

consumption, fun, sociality.. Problems of ‘cocoons’ and ‘echo chambers’, ‘babel’, lack

of civility… Many issues compounded when we go global…

The online habitus

Zizi Papacharissi uses Bourdieu’s notion of habitus Links social structures with agency; people’s daily micro-

milieu Taken for granted template for values, norms, tastes Durable social dispositions and practices, ‘common-

sense’ Connects the individuals in specific ways to the broader ‘fields’ that comprise their worlds

Online habitus as a discursive – or rhetorical – ‘nudge/wink’

Affordances + constraints + patterns of practices solidify expectations/norms

The web as experiential daily environment: cultural ‘pull’ Attributes: for ex: searchability, shareability, permanent

novelty, reflexivity, connectivity, self presentation, expression, revelation….

Markers of identity, (self-)sort people into recognisable categories

Facebook: eg, the ‘like button’ – but no ‘dislike button’

Seductions of the solo sphere

Patterns of personalised visibility, self-promotion and self-revelation

A new habitus of political engagement: cozy private digital setting

A retreat into an environment many people have more control over

Intertwined with consumption, entertainment, sociality The initial civic impulse morphs into an ironic mode of

narcissism

Pitfalls – but also potentials

The privatized, consumerist online individual congruent with the neo-liberal order…

‘Mundane cosmopolitanising acts’ (Chouliaraki) – click and make a donation

When compassion fatigue, etc., sets in: just click to ebay…

Nonetheless: the web habitus permits countless forms of political agency -

Discursive political acts – that can participate in global civil society

Two regimes of journalism within the mediapolis

-Modernist, mass mediated: claims to objective reporting/accuracy (despite shortcomings)

Distinction between facts and emotionality; allows for judgment and moral response

Yet, the subject position of spectator is largely cemented -Late modernist, interactive media: claims to experiential

witnessing, etc. Allows for networking, potential practice, participation

‘Objectivity’ gives way to a stream of many voices – often emotional

Who can we trust on the web…? Manipulation very easy

Conclusion: the online mediapolis and civic cosmoploitanism

Civic cosmopolitanism can be understood as the potential for political agency,

Anchored in the global environment, informed by democratically oriented moral horizons

This potential can be actualised via the affordances of the web – and limited by its constraints

This is the online sector of the mediapolis. The web must be understood (and analysed) in relation

to its shifting contingencies, Not least the attributes of habitus that it promotes.