If cosmopolit ism is so wonderful, why are we to day seeing a resurgeance of nationalism? What's unsatisfying about cosmopolitanism? I think most of us like to be connected ith with a place, or a couple of places, and to feel rooted in them. So the idea that cosmans are rootless, i think, is just a mistake, or have to be. Why has so much of the world turned away from things connected with other places? Well, partly because they've been encouraged to think so.
Born to a Ghanaian father and British mother, Kwame Anthony Appiah grew up splitting time between both countries — and lecturing in many more — before eventually settling in America, where he now teaches philosophy at New York University. This, along with a family scattered across half-a-dozen countries, establishes him as a true cosmopolitan, a label Appiah readily accepts. Yet he insists it is nonetheless possible to be a cosmopolitan patriot, rooted in a place, while having obligations and interests that transcend one’s national identity.
He joins Tyler to discuss this worldly perspective and more, including whether Africa will secularize, Ghanian fallibilism, teaching Jodie Foster, whether museums should repatriate collections, Karl Popper, Lee Kuan Yew, which country has the best jollof rice, the value of writing an ethical advice column, E.T. Mensah, Paul Simon, the experience of reading 173 novels to judge the Man Booker prize, and what he’s learned farming sheep in New Jersey.
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Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
Recorded June 12th, 2019 Other ways to connect