The World We Want: Restoring Citizenship in a Fractured Age [Hardcover]

Mark Kingwell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 27, 2001

What does it mean to be a citizen in a world of fractured identities and crumbling nationalism--when people are withdrawing into consumerism, cultural separatism, and self-regarding isolation? Citizenship meets one of our deepest needs, the need to belong; it also makes concrete the ethical commitments of care and respect. Political and cultural theorist Mark Kingwell traces the history of the idea of citizenship, and argues for a new model for the next century. In the style of Michael Ignatieff's The Needs of Strangers, he takes a long look at what citizenship has meant in the past and what it means today.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In his sixth book, political-cultural theorist Kingwell (philosophy, Univ. of Toronto; Better Living: In Pursuit of Happiness from Plato to Prozac) poses the question of what citizenship means in an age of broken identities and disintegrating nationalism. There are no simple answers, since actions taken on one side of the globe impact people on the other. Kingwell affirms the concept of citizenship the sense of public commitment and public good but redefines it as an ethical commitment of care and respect, which fosters justice among people and a sense of belonging. The author analyzes current realities (e.g., the overseas production of Nike shoes) against the backdrop of history and competing philosophies. His goal, however, is to do more than provide fodder for the mind, and he spells out some practical ways of advancing social justice and building the world we say we want. While the author makes his case well, the book is not simple reading and is most appropriate for academic libraries or large public libraries serving college-educated readers. Deborah Bigelow, Leonia P.L., NJ
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

Mark Kingwell is a beautiful writer, a lucid thinker, and a patient teacher. Here, he expertly guides readers through the philosophical questions about what makes a just society. His insights are intellectual anchors in a fast-changing world. (Naomi Klein )

Mark Kingwell proves a delightful companion down the ethical byways of contemporary life, with proper attention to ancient precedents and modern temptations. He thinks philosophy should be both relevant and charming, and shows that thinking aloud is refreshing. Disagree as we may--and I sometimes do--I find him a boon companion. (Gitlin, Todd )

The writing is elegant, often poetic. It appeals to the thoughtful reader who thrives on insights into the way humans interact or who enjoys a rich tapestry of concepts and ideas and the thinkers behind them. (The Globe and Mail, (Toronto) )

Kingwell has become our Socrates, not only directing attention to our self-created crisis of global significance, but also pointing very specifically to the way out of it. (The Gazette, (Montreal) )

A moving and necessary book. (Georgia Strait )

Global growing pains now being felt are a signal that we need to start addressing the social virtues of participatory democracy, not just the economic benefits of capitalism. In a style that is refreshingly free of both starry-eyed idealism and doom-laden cynicism, Kingwell examines this challenge. (The New Presence, (Prague) )

A piquant political-philosophical examination of the meaning of citizenship in these heady times. (The Edmonton Journal )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 257 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (November 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0742512665
• ISBN-13: 978-0742512665
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,182,192 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slipping Out of the Soft-Noose Consensus, May 13, 2002

By 

Panopticonman "panopticonman" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The World We Want: Restoring Citizenship in a Fractured Age (Hardcover)

Along with other clear-thinking Canadian writers such as Norma Klein (NO LOGO), Stephen Dale (LOST IN THE SUBURBS), John Ralston Saul (THE UNCONSCIOUS CIVILIZATION), Mr. Kingwell cannot ignore the many perfectionist proclamations emanating from the U.S. Like them he is able think constructively about the political implications of the ideology of global consumptionism down here in the McMegastate.

Kingwell, a philosopher, refers to this latest eruption of economic imperialism as the "soft -noose consensus of production and consumption," just one well-turned phrase among many in this fascinating meditation upon the meaning of citizenship and the importance of dissent in an environment where dissent is either marginalized or co-opted by commercial culture. For instance, he explores today's diminution of the polis through the "soft-noose consensus" by discussing Leibniz's 18th century theodicy of the "best of all popular worlds." This neat bit of legerdemain hypothesized that since God could create any kind of world he wanted, and that since God is perfect, the world we live in is "the best of possible worlds." As Kingwell points out, Liebniz's contemporary critic, Voltaire says this idea does not take into account the existence of evil, i.e., if God is "omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent, " then he would not allow evil in the world. Leibniz would reply by claiming the problem is not that God allows evil in the world, the problem is that we mortals cannot see his larger design, which indeed *is* benevolent.

Kingwell's point is that we no longer talk about the potential for evil in capitalism, because the same kind of "theodicy" can be found in capitalist ideology, which now "brooks no rational challenge." The only "debate" we are treated to here in the States is that we're living the "best of all possible worlds" a world being created by that best of all possible engines -- the free market -- case closed. Thus any caviling about disparities in wealth, or the misery that abounds in the Third World and pockets of the First, is met with a "chorus of incredulity" by the faithful. For them, the great Market God has "omnibenevolent designs" and to question Him is to doubt Him and his great works. This "rhetoric of inevitability" as Kingwell calls it, is so omnipresent here in the States and has come to explain everything we do, that our leaders can only think in terms of the marketplace. For example, only recently, we Americans were told that the best way to fight the "terrorist threat" was to go out and buy something. By charging a big-ticket item on our Visas, we too strike a blow for freedom. A corollary to this theodicy not mentioned by Kingwell might be that the Market God's ultimate purpose is to bring all and sundry into the best of all possible First World, despite their kicking and screaming. The "rationale" directing this belief is that once all barriers are trampled down -- cultural barriers, religious barriers, geographic barriers, the barriers of unions, wage scales, etc. -- the dream of perfect production and consumption will be fulfilled, the telos of the Almighty Dollar will become immanent, and we will all enter Paradise together.

Here's Kingwell on some of the manifestations of the consumptionist theodicy: "...the contemporary branding and narrativizing of consumer products, which compresses desire and expectation into the slick miniature plot of the television commercial, makes all of us de facto experts on names and logos and spokespeople. Our overwhelming exposure to these microtales of success and beauty transforms acquisition into a kind of hypercompetitive graduate school, with Phil Knight, or Bill Gates, or Michael Jordan our presumptive professors. All the buying and selling of cool naturally comes down to this: I know more than you about the available brands, I am more *au courant* with the latest narrative, I discovered this logo sooner than you, and therefore I have an advantage over you. ...We all know this is true because marketers and their critics (who are sometimes in another elision the very same people) ....and yet we seem unwilling to act on that knowledge." Kingwell argues, overall, that a new humanist telos can take root and flower in the dry and cracked ground of the current theodicy, even in the fearful shadow of the Market God, and that is up to us to begin to think about to what that new telos should point.

Apologists for the free market may say the publication of books such as Kingwell's shows how free, and therefore morally good, the free market really is. They might further argue that the lack of popularity of such views indicates they are not shared by most Americans (thereby reflecting the true market "disvalue" of his thinking). This is, of course, a disingenuous argument at best, and it is the same familiar argument used to justify most of the free market project. In a time when the din of hypercapitalism drowns out everything else down here in the States, where its acolytes pounce on any idea which deviates from free market scripture because it might actually spark a public debate about the world we want, thinking like Kingwell's is dangerous, as dangerous as those pesky questions Socrates kept asking in Athens.

If the current "marketplace of ideas" were truly a free market, if Kingwell's probing ideas were broadcast in a weekly column in The Wall Street Journal, featured prominently on CNN, on Bloomberg terminals and TV stations, in Businessweek and Forbes, my guess is that the long twenty year huzzah for the miracles of the free market would sputter to a stop in about two months. Replacing it would be a realistic discussion of what we value in society, and how we might achieve it. How invigorating it would to converse about where we are going instead of bowing to a Market God as the Divinity that shapes our ends.