Thursday, February 19, 2004
(8:37 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
On Cosmopolitanism
In On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, Derrida draws on the experience of "cities of refuge" for persecuted writers to begin formulating the ways in which cities might be able to offer alternative centers of power to the nation-state. Since the nation-state excludes so many people from its protection, as shown by the situation of refugees and others who have no state that will claim them, it is necessary to find spaces in the current order where some kind of abstract membership won't be as much of a problem -- where we can still follow the medieval rule that "whoever is in the territory is of the territory" (usually written in Latin, but I can't remember that version).
In the medieval tradition, cities are by definition cities of refuge, since whoever made it into the city was freed from serfdom, and some of that independence still occurs today. Chicago, for instance, has decided that its police force will never be an agent for the INS. Various cities around America have declared that the Patriot Act will not be enforced within their city limits or have written up resolutions opposing the war in Iraq. Perhaps most notoriously, San Francisco, long known as the most gay-friendly city in the country, has begun sanctioning gay weddings. Virtual Stoa has a nice post on the subject, which is particularly personal for him since he and his wife were married in San Francisco city hall.
Through observing American history, I have long thought that states rights were just a code word for racism, but a variety of factors, such as the various states that have tried or have actually implemented something like universal health care or the states that have been favorable to gay marriage, have illustrated that generally left-wing goals can be accomplished in the spaces that our strange and complicated system of government opens up. Even more promising that state innovations, to my mind, are acts of civil disobedience by cities. Due to their fuzzier relationship to the entire chain of command, cities that have decided to disobey the higher authorities are much less likely to simply back down once the next-highest level declares that they must do so. If the federal government wants to stop gay marriages in San Francisco, for example, it seems likely that they will have to send in troops, which would only end up helping the gay marriage cause due to the vast disproportion.
Not having a large conservative and nationalistic rural population to keep happy probably also helps cities be more progressive.
ADDITIONAL THOUGHT: Is it any coincidence that Full House, a show about three single (for most of the series) guys living together raising children, took place in San Francisco? Couldn't this point the way toward even more radical models of marriage? And if you think about it, shouldn't Joey be able to visit Danny in the hospital? Shouldn't the other two maintain the right to inherit Danny's house and continue raising his children in the event of Danny's untimely death? The more I think about that show, the more radical possibilities present themselves.
