Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

332 reframing latin america
representation of this alienation. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum offers a
similar portrayal of the patriotic (i.e., nationalistic) student who is challenged
to think in a broader, international cosmopolitanism:
Becoming a citizen of the world is often lonely business. It is, in effect,
as Diogenes said, a kind of exile—from the comfort of local truths, from
the warm nestling feeling of patriotism, from the absorbing drama of
pride in oneself and one’s own. In the writings of Marcus Aurelius (as in
those of his American followers Emerson and Thoreau), one sometimes
feels a boundless loneliness, as if the removal of the props of habit and
local boundaries had left life bereft of a certain sort of warmth and
security. If one begins life as a child who loves and trusts its parents,
it is tempting to want to reconstruct citizenship along the same lines,
fi nding in an idealized image of a nation a surrogate parent who will do
one’s thinking for one. Cosmopolitanism offers no such refuge; it offers
only reason and the love of humanity, which may seem at times less
colorful than other sources of belonging. 2
As Nussbaum says, this new perspective, whatever one wants to label it,
might seem “less colorful” at fi rst. But we would like to suggest here that,
in actuality and over time, it shines much brighter than its predecessor.
Perhaps the alienation that comes with moving from modernity to postmodernity
is not so permanent. Perhaps it is quite temporary, and maybe even
liberating and life affirming. How could this be? Simply put, cultural theory
releases us from the narrow self-righteousness of modernity and reveals to
us a much more open and, at the risk of sounding like a modernist, humanitarian
place of residence.
Mark Taylor, a professor of humanities at Williams College, wrote an
article in the New York Times in 2004 in remembrance of Jacques Derrida.
Taylor wrote that Derrida’s critics (who are also the critics of postmodernism,
poststructuralism, cultural studies, etc.) argue that to accept Derrida’s
arguments is to begin sliding down a “slippery slope of skepticism and relativism
that inevitably leaves us powerless to act responsibly.” Taylor argued
that this criticism is inaccurate. Listening to Derrida, he writes, “does not
mean . . . that we must forsake the cognitive categories and moral principles
without which we cannot live: equality and justice, generosity and
friendship” because “there can be no ethical action without critical refl ection.”
3 Taylor’s argument recalls Edward Said’s comment we cited in the
introduction. Said said he believes that any political or ethical stance must
accept a position of constant criticism as its foundational position. It must