The nihilism of Starbucks

Last day of a great conference. High spirits as I head back to Plaça Catalunya together with a group of Germans – almost enough to make me forget that I woke up this morning with the compulsory conference cold and that, if I were a responsible person, I should spend the rest of the day recovering in my hotel room. Teaching starts on Monday.

The morning was not particularly good, even apart from the cold. I think there is a correlation here: every time I do not feel well, I find myself drawn into these sliding discussions on cosmopolitanism and the perceived “emptiness” of any future global culture. As already discussed here on Rawls & Me, I have made it my personal crusade to challenge this view – with the obvious risk that people think I want to turn the whole world into a Starbucks, or perhaps an airport…

Some day, I would like to write a proper response to this criticism, admitting that cosmopolitans, too, may be driven by darker psychological motives than mere dispassionate Kantian reasoning. For one thing, if it is to be democratic, political cosmopolitanism presupposes a perfectionist ideal – a vision of a future in which people everywhere become both “reasonable” and literate. Abhorrent as such a vision may seem to many academics, it is not fundamentally different from what was once necessary to make democracy function within a single country. Just consider the levels of education in pre-20th-century Europe. Enlightened elites had to pursue a perfectionist vision of compulsory schooling and, ultimately, economic redistribution in order to make democratic participation meaningful. The case of Weimar also illustrates what happens when that idealistic vision falters and the bond between elites and the wider population breaks down.

At the same time, there is an unsettling proximity to authoritarianism here, however benign the intentions may be. The easiest solution would be to fast-forward time and, once democracy is universal, re-engage in this debate. But that will not be possible. History teaches us that the means we employ are just as – if not more – important than the ends we seek. And it is here that things become difficult.