Post on 07-Jan-2016
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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.