Archive for July, 2008

Obama, the cosmopolitan pragmatic

I am a Berliner, Kennedy told the crowd that it jaleaba in the German capital in 1963, while the Soviet Union lifted the famous wall. I am a citizen of the world, said yesterday Obama to the thousands of fans who saluted the streets in Berlin, dazzling in its powerful rhetoric .

The cosmopolitanism is one of the philosophical currents which lately has gained more ground in the academy. With roots in classical Greece and pacifist in the universalism of Kant, the interconnectedness of the world today has revived the idea of “one world” as read one of the banners hanging on the bridge from San Francisco to the passage of the Olympic flame china . In fact, the recent Iraq war pitted the traditional realpolitik to multilateralism in U.S.-European roots. Obama’s speech was a clear attempt to unite what Ortega y Gasset called “the two lobes of the West”: Europe and The United States .

Obama’s speech in Berlin is a cosmopolitan pragmatic. His reference to NATO as the alliance greater peace of history was not free. Obama tried to square the circle. On the one hand, recognized the need to cooperate in defeating the common threats that neither the largest of the powers can tackle alone. On the other hand, support for NATO (the largest ever alliance created to defend our common security “) was an implicit denial of the dreams of a world federation, whose embryo was the defunct League of Nations, the mother of the current Organization United Nations (UN ).

The debate between proto-world federations (UN type) and strategic alliances between nation-states (type NATO) has been a constant during the twentieth century. There will be those who will not just believe, but in the middle of World War II demonstrated the cosmopolitan One World from – Republican – Wendell Willkie was a real blockbusters in 1943. The idea, so European, that the mutual dependence favors peace, was still in force the United States. Walter Lippmann it would soon respond. As Ronald Steele reminds us in his superb biography of the distinguished journalist and adviser to presidents, Lippmann revealed the book U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic in April 1943. It also reaped success in bookstores and, above all, in the Oval Office. Steel sums up the position of Lippmann, which would be subscribed in full by future U.S. presidents: “The security is based on power, not on abstract principles. Alliances and spheres of influence, and not a majority of votes in an international assembly, are those that govern the behavior of nations. “(Steel, 1980, p. 407 ).

The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 were prepared in Germany and Pakistan, and on American soil perished victims of all nationalities, Obama recalled. But nobody expected that the first black president becomes a staunch defender of proto-world federations like the UN. Perhaps because, although we evil, the world we live in is far from the Kantian ideal. But we will have in the White House to a cosmopolitan pragmatic, that is not little. Hopefully endorse the famous phrase of Terence: “I am human and nothing human is alien to me .”

References :

Steel, Ronald. 1980. Walter Lippmann and the American Century . Boston

What is the political role of blogs?

Uncover scandals and check the veracity of the statements of politicians. These are the two main functions that Matthew Hindman, a political scientist from the Arizona State University, attributed to the political blogosphere (1 ).

Hindman is critical of those who give to blogs the ability to make the audible voice of the ordinary citizen in political discourse. A voice is not the same as being listened to, Hindman remembers. In his forthcoming book, The Myth of Digital Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2008), Hindman shows that blogs are the most read authors who are having a very superior to that of the columnists in the press Traditional, dismantled and the theory that the network makes the audible voice of the common citizen. To all this we must add the results of recent surveys, which reveal the sources of political information more popular among citizens on the Internet are electronic versions conventional media .

After an initial period of euphoria Tecnofil, arrives time to reflect on the advantages and limitations of the so-called public sphere online. Two consultants from the Democratic Party, Lowell Feld and Nate Wilcox are in full promotion of his book NetRoots Rising: How to Citizen Army of Bloggers and Online Activists Is Changing American Politics (Greenwood, 2008). Do not be taken by the charm of these two mermaids singing. Listen to him, but also to read Hindman .

Notes :

( 1) Hindman, M. 2008. “What is the Online Public Sphere Good For?” In The hyperlinked Society: Questioning Connections in the Digital Age , edited by Joe Turow and Lokman Tsui. University of Michigan Press, pp. 268-288 .

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