<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jul 13, 2016 at 7:09 PM, Anders Sandberg <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:anders@aleph.se" target="_blank">anders@aleph.se</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<div>On 2016-07-11 00:57, William Flynn
Wallace wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Cosmopolitanism is a form of humanism. As a
humanist I feel a connection with all people, not just my tribe
and its beliefs. Which brings up patriotism. Long ago I
encountered the idea that intellectuals were more faithful to
ideas than to places or governments or their tribe. That means,
and studies show, that liberals like me are less patriotic than
conservatives. Haidt seems to regard this as moral weakness.
I do not.</div>
</blockquote>
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Exactly. I find patriotism downright disturbing - when people wave
flags, I half expect them to start a lynch mob. I tend to trust
people who wave around ideas (although I know that sometimes that
makes them even more dangerous). <br>
<br>
Of course, there is also the problem that a lot of cosmopolitans are
actually just a bit western internationalist, as Ross Doutat pointed
out:
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/opinion/sunday/the-myth-of-cosmopolitanism.html?_r=0" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/opinion/sunday/the-myth-of-cosmopolitanism.html?_r=0</a>
<br>
I am deeply annoyed that I recognize myself so much in his
description - I want to be a *proper* cosmopolist rather than just
in the internationalist tribe.<span><br><br><blockquote type="cite">
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<div>Do I
support my country's government? Depends on what they are up
to.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>(People
who are at Kohlberg's stage 5 or 6 can make difficult
citizens, who don't shut up and do what they are told).</div>
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Exactly. And that is why they are necessary for the functioning of
societies. Without them even an open society will stagnate. <span><pre cols="72">Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University</pre></span></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">Response to Douhat: Judith Rich Harris, in No Two Alike, and other writings, proves to me that most of what children become is due more to their peers than to their family. This is precisely the reason I would not, as Douhat seems to recommend, send my children to a majority-minority school.</div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline"><br></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">To be egalitarian, as a cosmopolitan must, does not meant that we must love everyone or think of them as intellectual or cultural equals. We think of others as sharing our rights and privileges, and so on. We see that they are different and should not have to be like us to be accepted.</div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline"><br></div></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">But around here, going to local schools would mean low level minorities who do not share our culture at all. Parents, mostly the males, mostly absent; relatives in prison; sexual culture involving children of 8 o 9 having routine sex; girls of 12 or even less getting pregnant. Do any of us want an environment like that for our kids? </div></div><div><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">When I went to LSU and got housed with a bunch of Cajuns, I found myself talking like them in a few weeks. Some things are picked up very rapidly.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">If the above means that I am not truly cosmopolitan, then so be it. I have to doubt that anyone can be fully accepting of other cultures. Some will just seem weird, and others just not the way we want ourselves and our families to live.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Douhat is right and wrong at the same time. I have no problem seeing the intellectual elite as a tribe, as long as my tribe is not insular or dismissive of others or afraid of them. My tribe shares the ideal of, for example, double blind studies as best in many researches, a standard not shared by some other tribes, or maybe not even understandable to some. Egalitarian does not mean equal in all things. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">And some things in some cultures, including our own, can be just wrong.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">bill w</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"><span><pre cols="72"></pre>
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