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This thread on academic book titles using “cosmopolitan” as a way to defend @HawleyMO speech as not part of the anti-Semitic history of that term brings to forefront an important part of the debate: academic as elite. Follow along 1/
First here is text of Hawley’s speech I will be working from 2/ hawley.senate.gov/senator-josh-h…
He uses “academic” once: “That’s because our elites distrust patriotism and dislike the common culture left to us by our forbearers. The nation’s leading academics will gladly say this for the record...” 3/
Then he quotes 3 academics, ending with Martha Nussbaum: “who wrote that it is wrong and morally dangerous to teach students that they are “above all, citizens of the United States.” Instead, they should be educated for “world citizenship.” 4/
Here @HawleyMO misquotes (that is, makes Nussbaum say something she does not say) the very Boston Review essay he quotes from and tweeted. It’s a long section but here is the context for the “above all” line: 5/
“But is it sufficient? As students here grow up, is it sufficient for them to learn that they are above all citizens of the United States, but that they ought to respect the basic human rights of citizens of India, Bolivia, Nigeria, and Norway...” 6/
“Or should they—as I think—in addition to giving special attention to the history and current situation of their own nation, learn a good deal more than is frequently the case about the rest of the world in which they live, about India and Bolivia and Nigeria and Norway...” 7/
Hawley makes it into an either/or when Nussbaum said nationalist citizenship education isn’t sufficient. The “above all” seems to rankle Hawley most, as if those Americans following Nussbaum might have allegiance to the world, not a nation. 8/
MN: “should they be taught they are above all citizens of the United States, or should they instead be taught they are above all citizens of a world of human beings, and that, while they themselves happen to be situated in the United States, they have to share this world.” 9/
MN: “the student in the US may continue to regard herself as in part defined by her particular loves—her family, her religious, ethnic, or racial communities, or even for her country. But she must also, and centrally, learn to recognize humanity wherever she encounters it” 10/
This opposes how Hawley characterizes her and other cosmos: “The cosmopolitan elite look down on the common affections that once bound this nation together: things like place and national feeling and religious faith.” 11/
“Place” is central concept for Hawley, as if America isn’t an ideal or vision but based in a land, therefore nationalism opposes “rootless” cosmopolitanism. 12/
What else is cosmopolitan and why does citing professors - get Hawley’s point across? “What (cosmos) offer instead is a progressive agenda of social liberation in tune with the priorities of their wealthy and well-educated counterparts around the world.” 13/
I’ll leave “wealthy” alone to focus on “well-educated.” As has been pointed out by many, Hawley is well-educated. Stanford then Yale. Isn’t he an elite? Oh no, he isn’t “cosmopolitan.” He’s from a small town in Missouri, “middle” America. 14/
Hawley with his #highered “reform” bill despises the “cosmo” elite academic world because it stunts economic growth and cultural pride of “working” US : “Just about any American worker without a four-year college degree will have a hard time in the cosmopolitan economy.” 14/
But here he is quoting 3 professors, taking a stance in a really specific academic disciplinary debate, all the while denouncing “well educated” elites. But he praises the actual work of higher ed... 15/
“That means investing in research and innovation in the heartland of this country, not just in San Fran and NY...That means... skills and job training, so Americans can get the tools they need... without the mountain of debt that the higher-education monopoly now imposes.” 16/
What monoply does higher ed have? Hard to know. 50% of US has some college, 30% a degree. But Hawley means a monolopy on education/citizenship training. This is the “elitism” he wants to end. Specifically higher ed in San Fran and NY, the *kind* he sees repeated across US. 17/
This is how all professors - like me, in Georgia at a third tier regional university - become cosmopolitan. We “teach” as Nussbaum, as Hawley rejects. We claim to teach citizenship but we are not *American* to Hawley. 18/
Colleges in Missouri and Georgia and other places are getting more applicants and attendees. GOP opinion of higher ed has tanked but they still send their kids to those “cosmo” elites because thry need that degree to work and then they can destroy the system 19/
Hawley echoes Charlie Kirk who calls it a “higher education cartel.” What is our central product? An anti-American “world citizenship” that “distrust(s) patriotism and dislike the common culture left to us by our forbearers.” 20/
link.medium.com/NQDj8WbqsY
link.medium.com/NQDj8WbqsY
yet this is *not* the education/indoctrination Hawley received at Stanford or Yale. Best evidence of that: it didn’t “turn” Hawley. It is not what I or colleagues in Missouri teach. It is fear-mongering that works akin to those who feared “cosmopolitan” Jew in 20th century. 21/
Many have pointed out that “cosmopolitan” has Greek roots, not merely a negative trope. True. Hawley ignores this and so ignores Nussbaum who wrote the Stoics and America share values:
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“But here one may note that the values on which Americans may most justly pride themselves are, in a deep sense, Stoic values: respect for human dignity and the opportunity for each person to pursue happiness.” 23/
Nussbaum adds: “If we really do believe that all human beings are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights, we are morally required to think about what that conception requires us to do with and for the rest of the world.” 24/
Hawley debases higher ed using an old trope. That some of my long dead colleagues were Jewish and concentrated in cosmopolitan areas is pertinent to note. But he really attacked us all as “elite.” My students are “middle” America and they know better. End/
PS the thread I ran earlier on Hawley
