Educating for Cosmopolitanism: Lessons from Cognitive Science and Literature

Lessons from Cognitive Science and Literature

M. Bracher

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137390202
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

Drawing on developments in cognitive science, Bracher formulates pedagogical strategies for teaching literature in ways that develop students' cognitive capabilities for cosmopolitanism, the pursuit of global equality and justice. Several staple classroom texts, such as Things Fall Apart, provide detailed examples for teaching practices.

1

What Is Cosmopolitanism, and How Can Education Promote It?

Abstract: What are the specific learning objectives that will most effectively promote cosmopolitanism, defined as the commitment to reduce suffering throughout the world and promote global justice? This chapter argues that the formation of cosmopolitans requires developing the cognitive capabilities of recognizing, when the facts warrant, the need of distant peoples, understanding how they are not (or at least not primarily) responsible for their need, and apprehending their sameness or intimate connectedness with oneself. When such judgments are made, the result is compassion for the other, which in turn leads to assistance for the other. Developing these cognitive capabilities involves correcting or replacing certain faulty information-processing structures that prevent us from recognizing these truths.

Mark Bracher. Educating for Cosmopolitanism: Lessons from Cognitive Science and Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. DOI: 10.1057/9781137390202.

In her presidential address to the Modern Language Association several years ago, Domna Stanton proposed “cosmopolitanism as an educational ideal” for literary study (629). She argued that although “we do not typically see ourselves as the heirs of cosmopolitanism, ... what we, the teacher-scholars of the MLA, do in our many diverse ways is to exemplify and promote a cosmopolitan education” (629). Specifically,

when we read “foreign” texts in the original or in translation, we advocate an encounter with people who are markedly different from and at the same time much like ourselves—a complex encounter made in a sympathetic effort to see the world as they see it and, as a consequence, to denaturalize our own views. Those pedagogical practices involve cosmopolitanism by implicitly rejecting parochial, chauvinistic beliefs in the exclusive value of our language, culture, nation or ethnos and by inherently embracing diversity as fundamental to the construction of the self in—and as—its relation to others. (629)

Stanton concluded her speech by calling for a concerted effort on the part of language and literature teacher-scholars to form our students into cosmopolitans: in “teaching the languages and the literatures of the world in the classroom,” she declared, “we must try to form citizens not only of the world but also for the world” (638; first emphasis added; other emphases in original).

This is certainly a worthy aim, for “as a fundamental devotion to the interests of humanity as a whole” rather than to more limited groups (Robbins, “Introduction” 1; see also Nussbaum, “Patriotism” 4, 7; Malcomson 234; Anderson 274; Lu 264), cosmopolitanism entails “a desire to change the world” (Malcomson 234) so as “to diminish suffering regardless of colour, class, religion, sex and tribe” (Hollinger 230). As Derek Heater notes, cosmopolitanism is based on the ethical principle of “the equal worth of all human beings as world citizens” (Heater 9), and this principle, as Catherine Lu observes, “provides us with a morally compelling view of how our many worlds may meet, as they inevitably will, on terms of humanity, justice, and tolerance, which are the foundations of perpetual peace and friendship, rather than on terms of cruelty, inequity, and violence, the foundations of perpetual war and animosity” (Lu 265; see also Robbins, “Cosmopolitanism” 49, 51).¹

What, then, beyond the general parameters noted by Stanton, are the specific learning objectives through which literary study can most effectively pursue the worthy aim of forming cosmopolitans? Contrary to the assumption of many of its proponents, cosmopolitan education must involve much more than the acquisition of knowledge about other peoples. As Heater states it, “Knowledge and understanding about developing countries, which is sometimes almost equated with education for world citizenship ... , misses the very heart of the matter” (172). Cosmopolitan education, Heater argues, “should rightly be as much about ... acquiring appropriate attitudes and behaviour patterns as about acquiring knowledge” (177; emphasis added). But what are the “appropriate attitudes and behaviour patterns” for cosmopolitans? Or, as James Donald puts the question, “What ... would cosmopolitan ... graduates be in the second decade of the 21st century? What could we reasonably expect such graduates to be able to do? And what knowledge and expertise would enable them to be what they need to be and to do what they need to do?” (296; emphasis in original).

It is thus necessary to begin by determining three things:

1 the specific behaviors that constitute cosmopolitanism (see Heater 177);

2 the capabilities and habits of mind and heart that enable and motivate these behaviors (see Donald 296; Skrbis et al. 127); and

3 the types of educational practices that foster these cosmopolitan capabilities and habits of mind and heart (see Stevenson 258).

As various discussants of cosmopolitanism have noted, none of these tasks has yet been accomplished (Skrbis 127–128; Vertovec and Cohen 21). Indeed, few proponents of cosmopolitanism explicitly identify the specific behaviors that cosmopolitanism entails, and many appear not even to have recognized that certain psychological changes, and hence also the activities or experiences that produce these changes, are prerequisites for the establishment of cosmopolitanism (see Stevenson 265). As Vertovec and Cohen have observed, “While the trend towards positively reappropriating notions of cosmopolitanism is to be welcomed for its socially and politically transformative potential, practically all the recent writings on the topic remain in the realm of rhetoric. There is little description or analysis of how contemporary cosmopolitan philosophies, political projects, outlooks or practices can be formed, instilled or bolstered. In short, there are few recipes for fostering cosmopolitanism” (21; see also Robbins, “Introduction” 3; Beck 29).

The first question, concerning the types of behavior that constitute cosmopolitanism, is fairly easy to answer: cosmopolitanism entails helping others who are in need, no matter who or where they are. Although commentators disagree concerning how much one should be expected to sacrifice in order to meet these obligations, there is considerable consensus concerning the existence of an obligation to help others in need, including distant strangers (see Appiah 143–174). As Appiah puts it, for cosmopolitans “every human being has obligations to every other” (144). The most general helping behaviors include, as we have already noted in passing, “assist[ing] others in danger or distress” (Heater 185), “interven[ing] against active and passive injustice” (Lu 264), and “diminish[ing] suffering regardless of colour, class, religion, sex and tribe” (Hollinger 230). More specific behaviors include actions such as voting and activism in support of human rights and distributive justice—and whatever else may be needed to support their dignity and well-being—for all individuals everywhere (see Tan).

What are the psychological factors, then, that lead people to act in ways that provide help for others, including distant strangers, who are in need? Here the discussions to date are considerably less helpful, for the psychological traits most commonly ascribed to cosmopolitans are incapable by themselves of producing the helping behavior that constitutes the substance of cosmopolitanism. As Skrbis, Kendall, and Woodward observe, “commentators commonly suggest that in terms of ‘disposition’, cosmopolitanism should be understood principally as an attitude of ‘openness’ toward others [sic] cultures” (127; see also Donald 299). But as these authors go on to point out, “the notion of openness ... is rather vague and diffuse. How is such openness manifested, and what are the sentiments that are embedded within the general attitudinal category of openness?” (Skrbis et al. 127). Their own suggestions, however—“that ‘cultural openness’ can be manifested in various ways, including ... in both intellectual and aesthetic domains” and that “it must also involve emotional and moral/ethical commitments,” including “an empathy for and interest in other cultures” (127–128)—do little to advance our understanding of this issue, and the authors rightly conclude that “more research needs to address the specific elements of a cosmopolitan disposition” (128).

Other commentators have suggested that the key psychological factor in cosmopolitanism is a “larger loyalty” (Rorty) or a sense of global citizenship. Heater, for example, argues that cosmopolitanism depends on “an understanding of the nature and significance of world citizenship to the point where it is not questioned, ignored or derided, but accepted as a normal feature of one’s social life” (185). Heater believes that if “more people ... think more deeply that they belong to a global community and ... accept the moral implications of that membership ... , this might lead ... to a global community in which ‘the obligation to assist others in danger or distress was a powerful imperative’” (185). This argument would appear to be supported by studies finding that the establishment of a common, superordinate identity for two groups enhances positive attitudes and cooperation between them. However, since national citizenship does not motivate people to aid all other individuals in their own nation, it is hard to see how a sense of global citizenship would motivate them to aid distant strangers around the world. Something more than just a common group membership is therefore necessary.

The most significant psychological factor of cosmopolitanism that has been identified is compassion for strangers. As Stanton and others have pointed out, Martha Nussbaum has advocated a form of cosmopolitan education centered on literary study that promotes such compassion in readers (Stanton 631–632; Donald 303–304; Heater 155; Vertovec and Cohen 21). In Cultivating Humanity, Nussbaum claims (following Marcus Aurelius) “that to become world citizens we must not simply amass knowledge; we must also cultivate in ourselves a capacity for sympathetic imagination that will enable us to comprehend the motives and choices of people different from ourselves, seeing them not as forbiddingly alien and other, but as sharing many problems and possibilities with us” (85). Literature, Nussbaum maintains, is particularly crucial for cosmopolitanism because it promotes “an expansion of sympathies that real life cannot cultivate sufficiently” (Cultivating 111). She concludes that “[i]f the literary imagination develops compassion, and if compassion is essential for civic responsibility, then we have good reason to teach works that promote the types of compassionate understanding that we want and need” (Cultivating 99).

As attractive as Nussbaum’s claim is, however, it fails to offer evidence in support of the two key assumptions on which it is based: that “the literary imagination develops compassion” for real people (as opposed to fictional characters) and that “compassion is essential for civic responsibility.” There is ample evidence to support the second proposition, that compassion for strangers leads people to assume responsibility for their welfare. There is ubiquitous anecdotal evidence that, as Robert Solomon observes, “one can hardly feel compassion without wanting to do something to change the world, to end the suffering” (244; see also Nussbaum, Upheavals 335). And there is also significant empirical evidence supporting this point. As the psychologist Bernard Weiner explains, empirical studies demonstrate that emotions are often the primary immediate causes of behavior: “affects are the more proximal and more important determinants of behavior than thoughts are. ... The proximal or immediate causes of conduct are affective reactions. That is, feelings are determined by thoughts, and then the personal actions are based on those feelings rather than on the underlying cognitions” (174, 82). And since the emotion of compassion—which a leading emotion researcher has defined as “being moved to distress by another person’s suffering, and wanting to help” (Lazarus and Lazarus 125)—“promotes help giving” (Weiner 82), compassion for all humans, no matter who or where they are, advances the central cosmopolitan goal of “justice without borders” (Tan) by promoting help-giving for all people. There is thus good evidence to support Nussbaum’s claim that increasing people’s capacity to experience compassion for others who are quite different from them is central to the formation of cosmopolitans.

What, then, of Nussbaum’s other assumption, that “the literary imagination develops compassion”? In Cultivating Humanity, Nussbaum claims that reading certain types of literature “develops compassion” (99) and “broaden[s] sympathy” (93). But here, too, she offers no substantial evidence to support her claim. Instead, her argument relies upon an equivocation: the compassion that is developed and broadened refers both to the compassion readers feel for characters in a text and the compassion they feel for real people outside the text. Nussbaum appears to assume that by arousing sympathy for characters, literature also automatically heightens and broadens readers’ sympathy for real people. But while it is obvious that literature often develops compassion for characters in the text and also broadens readers’ sympathy by extending it to characters who are strange and different from readers, it is not at all evident that readers who have their sympathy for characters developed and broadened go on to experience greater compassion for real strangers outside the text. Indeed, there are clear cases of individuals feeling great compassion for suffering characters and yet remaining indifferent or even hostile to real people in need who are right in front of them. Rudolph Hess, for example, is said to have wept for characters in an opera being performed during the Holocaust by condemned Jewish prisoners toward whom he remained impassive, and William James relates the story of a wealthy woman weeping at the plight of characters in a play while her servants waited outside in freezing weather (see Solomon 233). In sum, as Suzanne Keen has observed, there is little evidence to support the notion “that novel reading, by eliciting empathy [and through empathy, sympathy], encourages prosocial action and good world citizenship” (“Theory” 224): “The [presumed] set of links among novel reading, experiences of narrative empathy, and altruism has not yet been proven to exist” (Keen, Empathy viii). Indeed, Keen wonders “whether the expenditure of shared feeling on fictional characters might not waste what little attention we have for others on nonexistent entities” (Empathy xxv). Noting that “the empirical evidence for causal links between fiction reading and the development of empathy in readers does not yet exist,” Keen concludes that “whether novels on their own can actually extend readers’ empathic imagination and make prosocial action more likely remains uncertain” (Empathy 124, 116).

If experiencing sympathy for literary characters does not reliably lead to compassion—and thereby to help-giving—for strangers around the world, what, if anything, can literary study do to promote the compassion for real (as opposed to fictional) strangers that constitutes the core of cosmopolitanism? Nussbaum herself points to a more promising possibility in Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, published several years after Cultivating Humanity. In this more recent book she recognizes that compassion is produced not only by empathy but also, and more fundamentally, by specific judgments, or appraisals, concerning people in need, and that therefore the most effective way to promote cosmopolitan compassion is to develop the capability and habit of making these compassion-producing appraisals for all people in need. Following Aristotle and contemporary cognitive appraisal theories of emotion, Nussbaum identifies three judgments that are collectively both necessary and sufficient to produce compassion:

1 that another person has a serious need or is experiencing significant suffering (Upheavals 306–311);

2 that the other is not responsible for this suffering or need (Upheavals 311–315); and

3 that the other’s well-being overla...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  What Is Cosmopolitanism, and How Can Education Promote It?
• 2  How Cognitive Science Can Help Us Educate for Cosmopolitanism
• 3  Correcting Ethnocentric Prototypes of Self and Other with Achebes Things Fall Apart
• 4  Developing Metacognition of Ethnocentrism with Lessings The Old Chief Mshlanga and Voltaires Candide
• 5  Correcting Faulty General Person-Schemas with Things Fall Apart, The Old Chief Mshlanga, and Candide
• 6  Developing Cosmopolitan Action Scripts with Camuss The Guest and Coetzees Disgrace
• Works Cited
• Index