Educating for World Citizenship

Abstract

Academic research and postsecondary education in the United States have witnessed, in recent decades, a host of controversial developments that critics regard as catastrophic. In literature courses, mediocre works of postmodernism, Afrocentrism, and feminism have replaced Western classics; ideals of truth, objectivity, and merit have been forsaken; unqualified women and minorities have usurped academic power which they use to annihilate dissenting voices; the ‘‘political correctness’’ police monitor everyone’s slightest remarks, and sexuality studies hawk a political agenda of unlimited sexual deviance. Not true, says Martha Nussbaum. With a particular emphasis on the humanities, her recent book, Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education,1 presents a resounding defense of many of the new curricular changes. Nussbaum draws irrefutably on the very Western traditions that critics invoke to denounce the changes. The tradition of Socratic self-examination, for example, figures prominently in this defense. Nussbaum is not the first to have claimed that the tradition of critical reflection supports recent educational innovations.2 Nussbaum, however, develops the point at great length and showcases its classical pedigree. In addition, she expands this classics-based defense of multicultural education by situating critical reflection itself within a wider ideal that is also supported by classical sources. The wider ideal is a cosmopolitan education, an education for world citizenship. Thus, liberal education should aim at making students into ‘‘citizens of the World,’’ persons who can interact competently and respectfully