Current Sociology

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Response: The Moral Conundrums of the Global Age

Victor Roudometof
Current Sociology 2005; 53; 143
DOI: 10.1177/0011392105048292

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Victor Roudometof

Response: The Moral Conundrums

of the Global Age

I n his article, Bruce Mazlish argues that, during the modern era, cosmo-
politanism emerged in the 18th century, concomitant with the Enlighten-
ment, only to conquer the globe on the heels of the post-1800 globalization
waves. ‘What was merely an ideal and an ideology in the eighteenth century
in Europe has become . . . an actual condition for many today. . . . My
“neighbor” is just as likely to be an email correspondent a continent away as
the person living next door to me in my apartment building, whom I never
meet’ (Mazlish, p. 106).
There can be two objections to this line of argument. The first concerns
the democratic nature of this cosmopolitanism (e.g. how many are truly
participating in this emerging culture). While an important criticism, it is not
necessarily a fatal one. For alternative visions of localized or glocalized or
rooted cosmopolitanism have been developed. These versions of cosmo-
politanism do not face this criticism. While their advocates would disagree
with Mazlish’s proposition that ‘today, the cosmopolitan vision is entwined
with the global’ (Mazlish, p. 107), but only insofar as we should view the
cosmopolitan intertwined with the ‘global’ alone. Instead, they would argue
that, even though the global is an indispensable component of cosmo-
politanism, the local is or can be an equal partner at least for their own rooted
cosmopolitanism. In other words, the entire debate concerns only the extent
to which cosmopolitanism should be correlated with the ‘global’ or with the
‘global’ and the ‘local’. However, both sides would agree that cosmo-
politanism is correlated with globalization.
The second objection concerns precisely this point. To what extent is it
valid to argue that 18th- or even 20th-century cosmopolitanism is the
offspring of globalization? In fact, Mazlish’s own argument rests on an
identification of universalism with globalization. According to his interpre-
tation of intellectual history, contemporary cosmopolitanism is the grandchild

Current Sociology, January 2005, Vol. 53(1): 143–147 SAGE Publications

(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) www.sagepublications.com
DOI: 10.1177/0011392105048292

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144 Current Sociology Vol. 53 No. 1

of Enlightenment universalism. Globalization is but the spread of this univer-

salism worldwide. What I want to question is the degree to which the ‘global’
is necessarily identical with the ‘universal’. My impression is that Mazlish
views these concepts neatly packed in pairs with globalism, cosmopolitanism
and universalism on the one side and localism and particularism on the other
side. I think that ‘globalism’ and ‘universalism’ warrant conceptual elabora-
tion and differentiation, just as much as ‘localism’ and ‘particularism’ do.
Both Robertson (1992) and, more recently, Baudrillard (2002) have
voiced their objections about such a neat packaging of terms. Robertson
(1992) suggests that globalization involves the ‘universalization of particu-
larism and the particularization of universalism’, thereby setting off a
dynamic interplay between the two that cannot be oversimplified. Originally,
the concept of glocalization (Robertson, 1994) was developed as a means of
illustrating the simultaneous universalization of particular cultural items and
the particularization (or adaptation to local conditions) of those normative
standards sociologists used to call ‘cultural universals’.
More recently, Baudrillard (2002) has made a similar point by observing
that ‘between the terms “global” and “universal” there is a deceptive simi-
larity’ (Baudrillard, 2002: 87). Then, Baudrillard argues that the success of
globalization as a project – or the ‘globalization of globalization’ as Robert-
son and Khondker (1998) have called it – brings forth the very disappearance
of universalism as a viable cultural project. Irrespective of whether we are to
take Baudrillard’s argument literally or figuratively, it is plain to see that there
is certainly a plurality of opinions about this issue.
But, Mazlish’s argument does rest solely on its validity. It is also about
the morality or moral worth of globalization and the ethical significance of
cosmopolitanism-as-project (which is very different from cosmopolitanism-
as-reality). Cosmopolitanism-as-project remains the main focus of the
current intellectual debate (see Vertovec and Cohen, 2002). As I state in my
article, cosmopolitanism can also be conceived of as an empirical quality, an
attitude present among the public worldwide. I think that the difference
between cosmopolitanism-as-reality vs cosmopolitanism-as-project should
not be blended. In my article, I have tried to draw a boundary between the
two. My goal for doing so has been to preserve the conceptual space for
sociological research and to maintain a boundary line between sociological
theorizing and ideological or moral argumentation. But this does not necess-
arily mean that the issue of morality is irrelevant for social theory.
As a matter of fact, Mazlish’s argument is a novel one with regard to the
moral debate on cosmopolitanism. Globalization or more precisely the
‘globalization project’ (McMichael, 1992) or ‘globalism’ (Beck, 2000) or what
is commonly known as the ‘neoliberal market ideology’ of the post-1989
period, has led to important realignments among the left or centre-left. The
arguments set forth by Beck, Held and others are a means for showcasing

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Roudometof: Response 145

the necessity for combating neoliberal values, as well as local particularistic

impulses, such as ethnic nationalism, xenophobia, religious terrorism and so
on. Their critics on the left have suggested that cosmopolitan values are
nothing else than the values of a new transnational class, thereby proposing
localized or rooted or working-class cosmopolitanisms as an alternative
cultural and political vision.
In this moral debate, Mazlish takes the ‘globalist’ position: his argument
is that rooted cosmopolitanisms implicitly endorse an overromanticized
‘local’ and this ‘local’ is arguably less than an ideal to be preserved. On the
contrary, global compulsion can act as a vehicle for social change – either in
the case of abolition or in the case of women’s rights in numerous countries
around the globe. Mazlish’s argument is a sound one for it reminds us of the
ambiguities present in the local–global dialectic.
What I feel is the most important aspect of this moral debate is not necess-
arily the positions taken by the participants. It is the very fact that this debate
is about which entity should be awarded moral primacy, what side (the ‘global’
or the ‘local’) is the ‘hero’ and who is the ‘villain’. I have already alluded to the
fact that I consider any kind of unequivocal answer to such an oversimplified
dilemma to be just as naive as the very question it tries to answer.
What is far more important and potentially far more meaningful is to
enquire into the root causes or the conceptual presuppositions of this debate
and into the underlying social realities that give birth to the current debates
on cosmopolitanism and the ongoing debate on globalization or globaliza-
tions. To do so, it is necessary to look upon this debate as a moral one – and
not as a social-scientific discussion.
The basic impulse is to decide on moral grounds the sanctimonious
nature of the local and the cosmopolitan. But, why is this topic an import-
ant moral issue? What are the contextual or conceptual, theoretical presup-
positions that have rendered these issues a topic of apparent importance for
some of the world’s leading social scientists? To what processes are they
responding?
Robertson (2000) argues that globalization brings forth the relativization
of identities, of belonging and of the agents’ ontological security. This is the
basic proposition that gives birth both to localists and globalists as well as to
cosmopolitans and locals (and, of course, to the entire debate on whose side
one should be). By definition, globalization involves the transformation of
space and time. In contemporary analysis, the objective transformations of
time and space – expressed in terms such as ‘time-space compression’ and
‘time-space distantiation’ – have become common metaphors adapted by a
multitude of theorists. However, although globalization has operated
through changes in the objective, measurable, external dimensions of these
concepts, it has also had (and continues to exert) an effect upon the phenom-
enological dimensions of time and space.

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146 Current Sociology Vol. 53 No. 1

The conventional interpretation of globalization considers it a process

that privileges space over time as a central concept. The popular view is that
globalization brings about the annihilation of place – and the triumph of
space. This simplistic view is mistaken: globalization does not involve simply
the creation of space; rather it entails the formation of new forms of a
space–place nexus. Instead, through and in globalization place is transformed
into space and space is reworked into place. As Short (2001: 18) puts it, ‘the
spatial dialectic of globalization is the construction of space and the creation
of place. Globalization constructs space through space–time convergence,
cultural homogenization, economic re-globalization, and political (dis)inte-
gration. But the same things are also creating places. Nationalism,
community consciousness, and the self-conscious construction of ethnic
identity are as much part of globalization as 24-hr. markets and global
travel.’1
Consequently, those who are anchored in place, the localists, should not
be viewed in isolation or in opposition to globalists; for both pairs are the
products of the new glocalized reality. Similarly, those who are anchored in
space, the cosmopolitans, should not be viewed as the inevitable carriers of
universalism. Lack of attachment to place and floating in detached space do
not necessarily entail a belief in universalism as a value system, but only an
acknowledgement of the necessity for standardized practical arrangements
(see Bauman, 1998, for examples of the artificial space inhabited by nomadic
managers and other affluent transnationals).
In theoretical terms, then, ‘The universal was a culture of transcendence,
of the subject and the concept, of the Real and representation. . . . For the
universal was an Idea. When it realizes itself in the global, it commits suicide
as Idea, as ideal end’ (Baudrillard, 2002: 92). To put it differently, Otherness
is a prerequisite for existential clarity. When the Other has vanished, then,
there is very little to provide for meaning in belief systems as well as cultural
attributes. The result is manifested in eclecticism, or the attempt to develop
personal morality codes, or to adopt Clintonian logic.
For all people but perhaps most profoundly for cultural purists, the situ-
ation presents itself as a moral dilemma. Faced with the fact that in our world
a ‘tradition can not be traditionally defended’ (Giddens, 1994) it is necessary
to come to terms with the moral choices – and there are only two of them:
either one leaps into the ‘brave new world’ of cosmopolites, or one recoils
into the warm, familiar, ‘home-like’ universe of localism. There is also the
possibility of blending these two conceptual opposites into an eclectic pot
pourri, which is what Tomlinson’s (1999) glocalized cosmopolitanism stands
for.
Let me conclude with two observations. First, it is obvious that socio-
economic factors can cast a very long shadow over the aforementioned
alternatives, but they cannot resolve the entire moral conundrum. That is, for

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Roudometof: Response 147

those who can contemplate these alternatives, the solution cannot be dictated
from economics (or at least from economics alone). Second, in a globalized
world, ‘home’ is ‘where the heart is’ and therefore, localism and cosmo-
politanism are value-systems or attitudes that do not necessarily correlate
with physical crossing of the borders. Or, as I have argued in my article,
transnationalism and cosmopolitanism are not identical, neither does the one
necessarily lead to the other.

Note

1 For a discussion of the contrast between space and place see Short (2001: 15–16).
Space is global, general, universal, ‘out there’, identified with becoming, spirit,
motion, and the mind. Place is local, particular, ‘here’, identified with being, soul,
rest, and the body.

References

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