34 • PB&J: Politics, Bureaucracy, and Justice vol. 4 no. 2 wtamu.edu/pbj Cosmopolitan Patriotism Anand Bertrand Commissiong, West Texas A&M University abstract: What is the value of patriotism in a globalized world? As the global increasingly penetrates the local and vice versa, our education and socialization strategies need to prepare future generations to think on multiple levels. Tis facility is especially necessary if the competing interests and institutions that work in and across states are to be made substantively accountable. Tis essay places into conversation cosmopolitanism and patriotism and argues that not only can cosmopolitans be patriotic, but also that patriotism must be reconceived with a cosmopolitan spirit. Te essay also argues that the state must be the focus of political action, and that focus must be multifaceted, being cognizant of the state as a transnational process that operates on multiple levels and directions in particular contexts but also in the world beyond. Patriotism therefore must take the form of a love for something that is acknowledged to be not static, constantly moving and reforming. Cosmopolitanism is important for conceiving atachments to such a mercurial thing because it is itself a dynamic form of solidarity. With the re-emergence in political theory of cosmopoli- tanism as an alternative catalyst for progressive politics, there tended to be an apologetic tone that accompanied its endorsement. Teories of cosmopolitanism are ofen expressed tentatively or defensively in contrast to nation- alism or patriotism as if the later are givens (Mehta, 2000; Waldron, 2000; Köhler, 1997; Meinecke, 1970). And when conceived in morally legitimate terms, nationalism and patriotism appear inherently benefcial in ways, it is argued, the upstart cosmopolitanism could never hope to be (Hill, 2000; Himmelfarb, 1996; Mansfeld, 1994). Tis essay places into conversation the purportedly con- tradictory grounds for solidarity in cosmopolitanism and patriotism to argue that not only can cosmopolitans be patriotic, but that today patriotism must be conceived with a cosmopolitan ethos. Tis imperative certainly ob- tains for progressive politics, but in our global context, conservatism must also take heed. Historically much abused, cosmopolitanism’s resur- gence has in part been the result of an increasingly inter- dependent world and the exasperation with neoliberal and socialist internationalisms by those seeking to ar- ticulate social justice imperatives in a globalizing context. To be sure, the ideal is both old and a newcomer to the scene, and it has always faced the question—in Aristo- tle’s terms—that if the defnition of a human as such is a being belonging to a specifc polis of some kind, what kind of creature belongs to a cosmic polis or a general po- lis of all rational beings? What is reason or logos for such creatures? Tus, in Anderson’s (1991) more recent for- mulation, if a nation is a kind of polis or community that perceives itself as sharing a common fate—a particular shared history and set of tangible historical practices— then what is it to belong to a polis that does not neces- sarily share these concrete characteristics? Indeed, the cosmopolis is conceived as timeless and placeless. 1 How- ever, membership in the cosmopolis today is determined by those faculties that allow humans to seek justice and to live simultaneously in individual and species being in the face of dehumanizing global capitalist and fundamental- ist religious forces (Commissiong, 2011). Over the last century, a potential concrete community seems to be emerging on a global scale in ways that Aristotle could not foresee or possibly comprehend (Beck, 2006; Held, 1995). As a consequence of technological innovations in communication and travel, that potential, global commu- nity can be entered into by mere assent and atitude or practice without having to change location. In part, these distinctions mark the ancient world of from the modern, but they also begin to underscore the dif- ferences between what cosmopolitan conceptions of com- munity and patriotic or nationalistic versions ofer. Tese conceptions and practices of community share an associa- tive character that mark them all as forms of human togeth- erness. As such, this essay teases out the related strands to demonstrate a stronger, more just patriotism, and how the concrete allegiances the cosmopolitan ethos demands can shape it. Te challenge here is in part to show the poten- tial of the community of cosmopolitan belonging and how it positively afects patriotism’s particular strengths and weaknesses. Conversely, patriotism may have something to say to the cosmopolitan association as well.