Both/And or Neither/Nor? On the Prospect of “New Cosmopolitanism” to Serve as a Middle Ground between Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism

Over the course of the past three decades, Western politics has gone from one extreme to another. Whereas the immediate post-Cold War years were marked by a cosmopolitan heyday, in recent years we are witnessing a nationalist backlash. Given this heightened political polarization, the quest for a viable middle ground becomes all the more pressing. The unlikely candidate that this article considers is the body of thought that has been termed “new cosmopolitanism,” but that on closer inspection is neither new nor cosmopolitan. Tracing its dualistic conception in Stoicism and Kantianism, it is argued that “new cosmopolitanism” is much richer and more modest than its label suggests. Whether this qualifies it to serve as a middle ground between cosmopolitanism and nationalism, however, depends on the readiness of “new cosmopolitans” to make practical either/or choices where both/and or neither/nor categories do not hold. Treating the Olympic Games as a microcosm, the article explores whether the biannual festivals of humankind and nationhood hold any lessons for “new cosmopolitans” in that regard.