First of all, it is necessary to say that Asia' role in the global politics and economy during last decades constantly grows, and many problems and foundations of social life, for example, Western values, look from Asia a bit different. It needs to be stressed, because globalization and cosmopolitanism are broadly understood in the world: from nearly full coincidence of their meaning to serious confrontation. And relation to them is varied from positive to strictly negative.

Positive evaluations are typical for a specific kind of world outlook, endemic, for example, for many philosophers and scholars and for people associated with the «golden billion», who due to their mentality and world vision is cosmopolitan already because of the way of life and broad opportunities for using the goods of the global civilization.

However, the most of the Earth population is at the low level of socioeconomic development. Poverty, misery and absence of perspectives move the majority of countries and nations to the roadside of world processes, when their role, meaning, position, their dignity, at last, are mostly not interesting for anyone. This is the most important reason why negative evaluations of globalization and, at best, cautious relation to cosmopolitanism evidently prevail practically in the whole world.

Globalization is usually seen as a threat to national interests, first of all, in the sphere of economy, politics, culture, language. In cosmopolitanism its separated facets are often emphasized and exaggerated what is harmful for general humanistic direction of the idea of world citizenship.

Of course, those, who receive benefits from globalization by word and by deed, promote it, while the others, remaining objective observers or feeling themselves the objects of manipulation, undertake all sorts of attempts to oppose globalization, proclaiming demands to make it governable and held in the interests of the whole humankind.

The same situation is with cosmopolitanism. It is confronted, as a rule, by nationalists of all sorts and practically by all authoritarian, totalitarian and despotic regimes. Cosmopolitanism is proclaimed «rootless», torn from real life; the supporters of such ideas are often treated with suspicion or, at best, with indifference.

The weak side of the existing approaches is the prevalence of subjective evaluations and politically engaged statements. As a result, the fact remains neglected, that cosmopolitanism and globalization are not someone’s invention, but reality, which from various sides reflects a single human nature and general patterns of human evolution.

That is why to understand modern situation and the prospects of social development it is important to define properly and to correlate adequately these notions, having find for each of them its own place in the system of categories reflecting the modern world. It is a principal and, moreover, needful step on the way to understanding globalization not primarily in the negative light and to replacing fear for it with constructive analysis of objective and subjective factors, being the foundation of the global processes and their consequences.

There is no doubt, that the ideas of cosmopolitanism, their directedness towards understanding the common destiny of humankind will also become more attractive and acquire broader audience if we concentrate attention not on the extravagant behavior, for example, of the first «world citizens» – cynics or contemporary «antiglobalists», but on their concern for reduction of human rights and dignity. That is why if we analyze the performances of antiglobalists as protest movements, what they deserve, we should admit, that in their essence the participants of the antiglobalist demarches are no less cosmopolitans than those whom they confront. The difference is that both look at the same phenomena from different positions and conduct themselves differently. [1]

To resolve these problems we can only analyzing what exactly are globalization and cosmopolitanism. And first thing to pay attention to is the fact that although these phenomena are seen as tightly connected, they are, nevertheless, related to different spheres of social being.

For example, if globalization is, first of all, an objective historical process, cosmopolitanism is a philosophical position. Besides, if globalization looks like universalization of all connections and relations, the emergence of single structures in various spheres of social life at the planetary level, cosmopolitanism is a state of mind, ideology, creed, or, finally, a specific system of philosophical vision of the world and human place in it.

Let us also mention, that globalization and cosmopolitanism emerged in different historical epochs. They are engendered by different reasons and express different sides of social life.

Cosmopolitanism is a cultural phenomena, characterizing human world outlook, while globalization is a trend of social development, directed towards the emergence of the holistic world.

And still there are serious reasons for speaking about real interconnection and mutual correlation between these phenomena. It is especially clearly seen in contemporary conditions, when humankind faces global problems and looks for ways of overcoming them; and tries to formulate philosophical principles, on the basis of which different nations and states could act in coordination. Due to this fact we need shortly analyze the nature and reason for the emergence of cosmopolitanism and globalization.

Cosmopolitanism, as rejection of national isolation, as broadening the idea of fatherland to the whole world and striving for the world without state borders emerged in the Ancient Times. People in that period did not know real construction of the Earth and the limits of the inhabited world they correlated not with a globe but with a cosmos. That is why the emergence of the cosmopolitan ideas in that time we can and should understand as the first symptom, first sign of globalization, which at the level of rationality revealed itself when in reality there was, of course, no globalization.

Ancient India, Ancient China and the Ancient Mediterranean, where the first philosophical schools emerged, lived in that period exclusively within the borders of their eucumenas. But the strength of philosophical reflection means that it penetrates the essence of things, sometimes being many ages and even millennia ahead of its time. For example, together with the ideas of cosmopolitanism, the Ancient philosophy engendered another absolutely not evident in that time speculative constructions, such as, the idea of atoms (Leucippus, Democritus, Epicure), ruminations about the universal interconnection of events and phenomena (Heraclites) and even guesses that the Earth is a rotating globe (Eratosthenes, Philolaus, Nikita of Syracuse, Ekphant).

It should be specially emphasized, that the cosmopolitan ideas have been formed not accidentally and not on the empty place. Their emergence was determined by both the historical development itself and the rational type of thinking of that era, which was called «axial Time» by K. Jaspers. It was the period of emergence of the world religions and philosophical teachings, of the famous campaigns of Alexander the Great and the dissipation of the traditional world order, when mass migrations of large numbers of peoples, coming into interaction with other peoples and cultures, led to the loss of the customary way of life, engendering the crisis of the Antic polis. As a result, the philosophical conceptions of the Hellenes, passed on the system of values of a polis, were being destroyed and penetrated the limits of the isolated city-states. Man, thus, found himself in the world of uncertainties, where the future already not corresponded the past well known for him. Deprived of the customary way of life, the Ancient Greeks tried to find support in their belonging to a single humankind, feeling and proclaiming themselves the citizens of the cosmopolis – world state. Late, in the Roman epoch, the universal nature of the Roman state itself contributed into the spread and development of the cosmopolitan ideas.

Socrates, Antisphenes, Diogenes, Cicero, Seneca, Epictet, Mark Aurelius, and many others are bright representatives of the Antique cosmopolitanism, which took different meaning in dependence on concrete historic conditions and philosophical position of this or that thinker. For example, while the term «cosmopolitan» was invented by Stoics, the very idea of world citizenship was produced earlier by their predecessors – Cynics. They were the first to proclaim themselves «world citizens», because they felt their belonging not only to the polis isolated in its space, but to the open and endless «cosmos», the whole world, the laws of which they put higher than the conventional laws of a polis.

In the next centuries we will find also many bright thinkers, whose outlook and basic ideas were in their essence cosmopolitan. These are representatives of Christian Philosophy: Tertullian, Eriugena, and Humanists of the Renaissance: Dante, Erasmus, Thomas More, Monten, Campanella and many others, whose names we can list up to modernity.

But the topic of my presentation requires to pay special attention to the rise of interest to cosmopolitanism in the epoch of Renaissance. It was an important historical boundary for understanding the problems in question, because from here real globalization begins, and cosmopolitanism becomes really planetary, i.e., not cosmic already, but global. There is no doubt, that such a turn of events was provoked by rethinking the Antique heredity and discovering real scale of the real human environment. And the most important role here was played, of course, by the «Copernican revolution» in the understanding of the world and the Great geographic discoveries, which firstly confirmed that the Earth is a globe. By this the fundamental corrections were made in human outlook, when the final sphere of interaction between man and nature not «cosmos», but «globe» was. With a share of conventionality one can say, that from that period the notion of the «globe» changed what the Ancient Greeks associated with the «eucumena», or, more generally, with the «cosmos».

At the same time the discovery of America and then the first circumnavigation of F.Magellan put a beginning for real globalization, which, having began from discovering and exploring new territories, i.e., in the sphere of geography, very soon pulled into its orbit the spheres of economy, politics, culture. And cosmopolitan views first time acquired a principal opportunity to transcend the boundaries of abstract speculation and to be realized in the sphere of practical activity.

Now, in the beginning of the 21^st century, when the world became a holistic system according practically to all basic parameters of social life, some countries and peoples in fact have no choice – to take part or not to take part in globalization. They are determined to take part due to natural course of events, for them not only cannot change the place of living or neighbors, but to avoid integrating into the world community. Theoretically it, of course, possible, but those who do not fit economic, political and cultural processes of globalization, who confronts cosmopolitanism, putting his national sovereignty above all, is condemned to isolationism and backwardness. And this, apart from a series of negative consequences for such a people, creates also a threat to world stability, because in such countries the most suitable conditions are for interethnic conflicts, organized crime and international terrorism.

So, being a natural process, globalization itself is neither good or bad, but it influences differently on different people. For less developed countries and deprived strata of population is really conceals more threats than positive solutions, while rich and developed countries win more from it. But the cause is not globalization, but sociopolitical and economic condition of modern humankind, its disunity and uneven development. Cosmopolitan ideas are not someone’s engineering, but normal and needful condition for common living of different people in the global world.

That is why we should fight not globalization and cosmopolitanism, but the existing bad world order and unjust social relations.

What is said demonstrates some vector for resolving the problems set. Namely, if cosmopolitanism is a child of culture and globalization – a result of civilizational development of a society, our further analysis of cosmopolitanism and globalization should be directly connected with the analysis of these spheres of social life.

It is important to emphasize, that at the verge of culture and civilization the dualistic, contradictory nature of social development, confrontation between cosmopolitanism and nationalism, globalization and autarchy, reveals itself most acutely and openly.

Indeed, if we understand culture not only as creative activity of man and its results, but first of all as a complex of customs, traditions, beliefs, values, making the spiritual basis for human living activity, and if we understand civilization as a historically defined step in social development, which is characterized by a level of development of state, urbanization, technosphere, finally, civil society and law, when culture should have been named the soul and civilization – the body of a society.

But why we talk about it discussing, it seems, another topic – cosmopolitanism and globalization? The answer is, that under the influence of the objective global processes humankind moves in its development from local manifestations of civilization to civilizational unity, engendering simultaneously not only a single global civilization, [2] but also what can be called global, universal, mass culture. And here newly understood ideas of cosmopolitanism become not just mind play or philosophical position, but a needful condition for human survival in the global and interdependent world. In other words, as far as globalization increases, cosmopolitanism also gains force, because it is directly connected with global world outlook and is an attribute of social life in the global world.

But this is only a part of the reality. The point is, that globalization, leading to some unification of social life, nevertheless, does not exterminate cultural diversity, which existed always, exists now and will exist in the future, because every people, as well as every separately taken person, is absolutely unrepeatable and in a way unique. One cannot seat at several chairs at one moment, and one cannot exist in several cultures, for even more than two thousand years later a well-known saying by Confucius did not become less actual: «People are close to one another in their nature, but they are fare from one another in their habits». [3] That is why cultural development of any people, deeply connected with its language, traditions, religion, mentality, etc. presupposes cultural autonomy and, hence, the defense of nation state, striving for self-determination and independence. As a well known Polish philosopher Tadeus Kotarbinsky accurately mentioned: «It is enough to be a cosmopolitan, to become a stranger in every point of the modern world». [4]

But in this case it is cultural context where one should look for the roots of nationalism, isolationism, chauvinism and everything, what, being brought to its extremes, is opposed to cosmopolitanism, global outlook, single humankind, i.e. to what, it its turn, civilizational development of both separated nations and the whole humankind leads. Let us mention, that globalization, now multiaspect, is a concrete form of such a development, which, independent on will and wishes of separated people with necessity forms the world civilization.

Summing up, one can say, that civilization is a basis for cosmopolitanism and the unity of the world community. It is the uniting element, the moving engine of the integration processes. At the same time, culture is a basis for individualism and difference. It separates and, in a way, disunites peoples, i.e. it is a basis for differentiation of the global humankind. And this state of things should not be evaluated in terms of «good» and «bad». It is reality that should be recognized and learned to live with. It is also important to understand that absolutization or exaggeration of the role of one of the social development factors – cultural or civilizational – engenders extremes and not needful social tensions. One can bring a lot of examples, including ones from the modern life, to confirm that where culture is exaggerated good soil for nationalism and chauvinism emerges. Where worship civilization and exaggerate the meaning of globalization – we deal with naked, abstract cosmopolitanism.

In this regard we should state that a complex symbiosis of the cultural and civilizational development engenders and, as far as globalization increases, enforces and aggravates the fundamental contradiction between the national and the international, between patriotism and cosmopolitanism. Now this contradiction has transcended the boundaries of pure consciousness and became a distinctive characteristic of social life in the age of globalization.

But the age of nation-states is not over and that is why I would compare modern humankind with a man, standing at two ice-floes, when one of them gravitates to one, and the other – to another bank. And in order not to be drowned he should constantly apply efforts to make these ice-floes not to distance from one another too much. And the world community is also determined to find the «golden mean», which would allow it most firmly balance between the global and the local, the international and the national, and, finally, between cultural and civilizational development of both separated peoples and the whole humankind.

But to analyze this new reality we need another categorical apparatus.

The set of categories we use now is badly equipped for the adequate description of the global world. We should change not only our vision of the world, but the means of its expression if we want to manage with global problems we face.

That is why, discussing globalization and cosmopolitanism in the context of modernity we cannot avoid a customary notion of «civilization», because it not just inadequately reflects reality, but mixes things up being used while discussing contemporary world processes. In particular, the talks about multiplicity and diversity of civilizations is a myth, which we should as soon as possible to get rid of, for it is only what seems to exist, an aberration of our visions, when we are not able to see civilizational development in the cultural context, while tearing cultural context from civilizational development.

In fact, when in this or that society the first signs of civilization emerge, we cannot divide its civilizational development from the cultural one. They, like two sides of one coin, are from this moment in unbreakable unity. And we should speak in this case not about culture or civilization separately, what at best would correspond some abstraction, but about cultural and civilizational development of this or that social organism. In other words: in the face of various social entities, separate states and now, in the conditions of globalization, already world community as a whole, we deal not with different civilizations or cultures as such, but with different cultural and civilizational systems.

On this evidence, cultural and civilizational components of such systems should be considered from the position of the complimentarity principle. [5] That means what in one context we would call culture, will be nothing but civilization in the other context, and vice versa. Let us only mention, that if civilizational principles are common for all social systems; cultures are many. And separately taken cultures are not better or worse than the others. They are simply different. From here proceeds the multiplicity of cultural and civilizational systems, which can be classified by different foundation. For example, not only separate countries and nations can be cultural and civilizational systems, but also some regions, continents, or, for example, religious confessions. Europe, Latin America or Africa, along with Christianity, Islam or Buddhism also can and should be considered as distinct cultural and civilizational systems. [6]

And all of them, being different, having their own tasks and reaching their own goals, defended, defend and will always defend their own interests. That is why conflict and confront not some sort of mythical civilizations or separately taken cultures, but absolutely concrete cultural and civivlizational systems where achievements of civilization, norms or values, interwoven into different cultural contexts, seeming the same, produce unrepeatable and unique fusion of what we conventionally call soul and body of this or that concrete society.

That is why the East will never become the West and the West – the East. Ecumenist ideas will not replace multiplicity of religious beliefs, and cosmopolitanism will not become unconventional value and the only regulator of social relations for all people even when the world will be fully formed as a single system according to the basic socioeconomic parameters. Another words, we are condemned to live at the same time in the conditions of not only global, but locally constructed world with its diversity of cultures. Hence, although humankind develops in the direction of a global civilization, the future cosmopolis will necessarily remain culturally diverse and heterogeneous. And it is fully evident, that sensibility to cosmopolitan ideas, their spread will directly depend from the level of development of civil society at the global scale – the way, on which only the first steps are made.

World community has to make a correspondent system of governing world economy, what is practically impossible if we not follow the way of making global civil society and global democracy. Some results are already visible in this way. For example, we objectively become world citizens when, say, express concern about environmental problems of the world ocean or climate change of the planet, when we formulate our attitude to the situation in Iraq or in the Balkans. We also behave as citizens of the world when we are guided by universal norms of conduct outside our country. In fact, we already live in the global world and continue to discuss about cosmopolitanism, which became equal to global world outlook and global world feeling, which we have in this or that way.

Time has come to clean the notion of «cosmopolitanism» from its fully negative connotations and to say that cosmopolitanism does not mean rejecting the national, as well as adherence to universal interests does not reject patriotism. The problem is in the correct putting the accents. Hence, a cosmopolitan is not the one who has no Fatherland of his own, but the one who correlates his duty to the Fatherland with the interests of the world community. It would be naive to count that all people, even in the distant future, will take this position. But humankind will simply have no future without transformation of social consciousness in this direction, at least, good future.

As for us, the representatives of philosophy, if we really want to influence historical process, we should look at the ongoing events through the eyes not only observers, but participants. Of course, philosophy cannot directly influence the decisions of national governments or the activity of international organizations. However, we, philosophers, as Richard Rorty justly says, are good for making bridges between peoples, for initiating cosmopolitan initiatives, for, if philosophers do not become internationalists, no one will. [7] Who, if not philosophers, he reasonably mentions, must formulated and defend «a clear image of a specific cosmopolitan human future: the image of the planetary democracy, a society where tortures, or closing a university or a newspaper in the other end of the world will provoke the same rage as if it has happened in the Motherland». [8]

In fact, about it Derrida speaks, who «does not wantphilosophy to be a judge, but rather a traveler and vagabond, having no place to dwell, hurrying here and where when it hears the call of the «other» for action». [9] And this is right. Philosophy is cosmopolitan already because it lives behind «the city walls», out of this or that polis. But in this case we should also agree with K. Marx, according to whom, the task of philosophers not only to explain the world, but to change it. [10] And if it is so, the time has come when we should seriously make the most important step in this direction: to start thinking over problems of globalization and the ideas of cosmopolitanism, to make them from bogey into, finally, the instrument of building just, sustainable and more secure global world.

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[1] See: Global Studies Encyclopedia. Ed. by. Alexander N. Chumakov, William C. Gay, Ivan I. Mazour. Moscow: Raduga Publishers, 2003. P. 27–29.

[2] Global civilization should not be necessarily associated with global state.

[3] Confucius. Uroki mudrosti: Sochinenia. – М., 2005. P. 109.

[4] See: http://www.aforism.ru/html/k/kosm/00001.htm

[5] The complimentarity principle, formulated by N. Bore to explain corpuscular-wave nature of light and elementary particles, can be applied to social phenomena, of course, with some level of conventionality.

[6] See: Chumakov A.N. Metafizika globalizatsii. Kulturno-tsivilizatsionnyi kontext. – М., 2006.

[7] Richard Rorty’s Pragmatism and the Russian Context. Moscow, «Tradition», 1997, p. 110.

[8] See: Rorty R. «Filosofia i budushchee» – Voprosy Filosofii, 1994, № 6.

[9] Deconstruction in a Nutshell. A Conversation with Jacques Derrida. 1997. Ed., comm. by J.D. Caputo. N.Y.: Fordham University Press. P. 51.

[10] See: Marx.K. Tezisy o Feierbakhe [text 1888 goda]. – Marx K., Engels F. Sochinenia. Izdanie vtoroe. V piatidesiati tomakh. Т. 42. – М.: Izdatelstvo politicheskoi literatury, 1974. P. 264–266.

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Other articles on globalization issue you can read in the author's book "PHILOSOPHY OF GLOBALIZATION"

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