Inventing Social Conscience: Cosmopolitanism in Piers Plowman

Abstract

Cosmopolitanism, as it is being theorized today, is “inevitably drawn to a discussion of ‘modernity.’” Beginning with Renaissance exploration and colonization and extending through modern nationalisms, diasporas, and global capitalism, “coming to modernity” has become the starting point for a cosmopolitanism that focuses its ethics on cultural pluralism, non-Western subjects, and antinationalist theories of world government, citizenship, and politics.3 In a world made up of “diverse transnational forms of life,” global capitalism, and “hybrid self-consciousness” borne of diasporic communities, the world of the national, provincial, and local serves as the retrograde, premodern antithesis of the cosmopolitan.4 The goal of most modern cosmopolitanisms, therefore, is formulated in terms of an ethics of world-citizenship based on a recognition of human dignity and cultural hybridity, a commitment to justice, and a sense of belonging to a universal community beyond national boundaries.5 Although cosmopolitan theorists such as Kwame Anthony Appiah argue for a “rooted cosmopolitanism” that includes the “smaller scale” communities in which we all live—counties, towns, streets, business, crafts, professions, and families—the impetus of cosmopolitan theory lies in its critique of the nation and nationalisms both secular and religious and its dedication to an expanded sphere of awareness and ethical engagement befitting world citizenship.