Cosmopolitanism and U of M

The university of Michigan prides its self on being a university with a diverse student body. Our student body is made up of people from all over the world and from many different cultures, religions, and backgrounds. Along with this diverse population we also find an equally numerous and diverse arrangement of clubs, groups, and organizations. For the most part, we all live our daily lives with little conflict and with acceptance of each other’s differences. However, you can also see that many of the people in these groups become closed off from regular social interactions with others when they become engaged with people in the same social or ethnic group. Maybe you’ve noticed this when walking to class, I did. This concept got me thinking about Kwame Anthony Appiah's video on cosmopolitanism.

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Appiah explains cosmopolitanism as the recognition and acceptance of the differences between groups of people from different backgrounds. A citizen in an ideological cosmopolitan community recognizes members of all ethnic groups as a member of their own community. The University of Michigan has many of the same goals and features as cosmopolitanism. All of these different diverse groups are being unified for the sake of worldly education under this single institution but does it work? 

In my time here I have noticed, in general, that many of these groups tend to form their own communities and networks where they close themselves off to regular social interaction with the others who call themselves members of this universities student body. Appiah explains that as human beings, we have only evolved to associate and interact with networks of maybe 100 to 150 people. Although it is easy to say that we are all connected because we are members of the same university, there is little intercultural exchange between the social groups to classify the university community as cosmopolitan in the terms posed by Appiah. Under his view of a cosmopolitan society there has to be an appreciation of the differences between the many small communities that comprise the whole. This appreciation is based on quality interactions where members of separate communities learn from and understand each other. On campus, I don’t think there is enough interaction outside the classroom to foster a deep understanding and appreciation of other cultures. Look at the Greek system, for example, apart from a few exceptions these organizations remain largely homogeneous in ethnic makeup and create an atmosphere that is sometimes less than welcoming to other groups. I realize that there is a need to create community and the greek system sees this as one of its purposes but does this simply continue to perpetuate the problems we see in our country and society as a whole? I think that Appiah would agree that our evolutionary limitations play a role in this problem. He argues that it is difficult to have these closed networks of people that we naturally and reasonably fall into and still comprehend the vast number of other member’s who we associate with. If we have trouble forming something similar to a cosmopolitan community at this small of a level I think it will be a long time, if ever, that it could be successful on a global level. 

              Heres another look at some of Appiah's other works on cosmopolitanism 

Picture sources:

http://auvoleur.tumblr.com/post/473762085/kwame-anthony-appiah-theres-a-german-proverb

http://teacherweb.com/HI/KahaluuElementary/Trela/apt30.aspx

Video source:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inyq_tfm8jc