R: Become a Cosmopolitan

One of the most famous philosophical feuds in history was between Diogenes the Cynic and Plato. After receiving a mysterious pronouncement from the Oracle at Delphi, Diogenes made it his life’s work to mock and demean the political and intellectual establishment of Athens. He would sit in Plato’s lectures and loudly eat food. When Plato described man as “a featherless biped,” Diogenes brought a plucked chicken to Plato’s lecture hall, proclaiming, “here is Plato’s man.” When Diogenes was asked where he was from, he said, “I am a citizen of the world (kosmopolitēs).” This last pronouncement especially rankled Plato, who strongly identified with his home polis of Athens and valued loyalty to one’s own polis. By calling himself a kosmopolitēs, or cosmopolitan, Diogenes demanded that Plato see beyond his narrow vision of a local community and look toward a greater human commonality. 

The affirmative will concur with Diogenes that the similarities of the human experience outweigh our cultural and local differences. Man is a cosmopolitan animal in the sense that he has the capacity to be at home anywhere in the world. Thus it is especially important for a well-rounded person to travel widely, read deeply, and experience different cultures in order to avoid the blinders of operating solely within a single time and place. On the level of government, too, towns and states and nations should not be isolated and cut off from each other but rather closely interconnected via commerce and exchange of ideas. Perhaps the affirmative will point to people and nations who isolated themselves, turning inward to their own detriment. In Dickens’ Great Expectations, Miss Havisham is a wealthy and beautiful young woman who, when rejected by her fiance, shuts herself away in her moldering mansion for the rest of her life. The affirmative warns against the danger of becoming Miss Havisham, brooding over our own lives and entrenched in our own circles until the wider world loses all relevance and meaning. Similarly, isolated nations often allow atrocities around the globe while becoming sullied with a sense of pessimism and inaction at home. 

The negative will side with Plato, arguing that, while human commonality is important, our loyalty should lie first and foremost with our immediate community. In a hyper-globalized world, genuine friendship outside the staid roles of the market economy can only be found in tightly-knit communities. The cosmopolitan man is a lonely man, familiar everywhere but at home nowhere. The cosmopolitan refuses to settle down and live a quiet, peaceable life. The importance of locality is especially important in art: one of my favorite living poets, Dana Gioia, has said that the artist who is most local is the one who

will appeal to a universal audience. And indeed, much of Robert Frost’s writing is focused on a little region north of Boston (my homeland!), while Immanuel Kant never once left his hometown of Königsburg. On the national level, too, we must be stable at home before we can make a positive difference abroad. 

Is this house localist or globalist? Do you find beauty in the wild blue yonder or at home by your own hearth? Will we be cosmopolitans with Diogenes or polis-dwellers with Plato?