Cosmopolitanism and Solidarity: Studies in Ethnoracial, Religious, and Professional Affiliation in the United States

Preface

Preface Just who belongs together with whom, and for what purposes, and on what authority? The answers to these basic issues in affiliation are not as obvious as they once seemed. Ascribed and takenfor -granted identities are being disrupted by a multitude of social transformations throughout the world, especially in the United States. The problem of solidarity is emerging as one of the central challenges of the twenty-first century. The analytic essays and critical interventions of 2000–2005 collected in this volume are united by my engagement with this problem and with cosmopolitan responses to it. What do I mean by “the problem of solidarity”? How does “cosmopolitanism” respond to it? Why is the history of United States a potentially helpful resource for anyone interested in the global problem of solidarity? By speaking to these three questions in this preface, I hope to clarify the concerns that drive the writings collected here. But before I turn to these questions, I want briefly to describe the character of these pieces, explain the circumstances of their composition, and thank several people and institutions to whom I am indebted. Several of these pieces focus on communities of descent— my preferred term for what are often called “races” or “ethnic groups”—and the processes by which the borders of these communities are maintained or altered. Some of the other pieces address religious, civic, and professional associations. Each was designed for a particular occasion or with a highly specific analytic ix task in mind, so it will not do to exaggerate the thematic unity of this collection. Yet I have written a headnote for each, calling attention to connections between them and sometimes expressing second thoughts. All nine appear in these pages unchanged from the text of their original publication in scattered journals and books, with the exception of a few small errors of fact I have taken this opportunity to correct. Cosmopolitanism and Solidarity builds directly upon my two previous books. Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism (New York, 1995; third expanded edition, 2006) focused on the problem of solidarity as displayed in the debates over multiculturalism in the United States. Science, Jews, and Secular Culture: Studies in Mid-Twentieth Century American Intellectual History (Princeton, 1996) explored the writings and careers of two generations of American intellectuals especially attracted to cosmopolitanism. Some of what now appears in Cosmopolitanism and Solidarity was first drafted for presentation as the Merle Curti Lectures under this title at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2000. Hence it is appropriate that this volume be published by the University of Wisconsin Press. I thank the Department of History of that campus for the honor of serving as Merle Curti Lecturer. I also thank the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and Queens College of the University of Oxford, two hospitable locations where I completed some of the essays collected here. Most of all I thank my wonderful academic home, the University of California at Berkeley, filled with faculty colleagues, students , and staff who sustain me on a daily basis. I also owe much to collegial conversations with individuals acknowledged in the journals and books where these pieces were originally published. But here I want to mention the several people in Berkeley to whom I feel the most deeply indebted: Carol J. Clover, Carla Hesse, Joan Heifetz Hollinger, Martin Jay, Thomas W. Laqueur, John Lie, and Yuri Slezkine. Beyond Berkeley, my greatest debts are to James T. Kloppenberg and Werner Sollors of Harvard x Preface • University. For carrying Cosmopolitanism and Solidarity through the publication process, I am grateful to Paul S. Boyer. So, what do I mean by “the problem of solidarity”? Solidarity is an experience of willed affiliation. Some might prefer to speak of “the problem of community,” but this usage blurs more than it clarifies. Solidarity entails a greater degree of conscious commitment, even if that commitment is inspired by inherited expectations. The word solidarity best serves us if we use it to denote a state of social existence more specific than what the word community has come to mean. The latter often serves simply to classify people, to denote a group defined by one or more characteristics shared by its members whether or not those members are disposed to act together. Hence we speak of “the real estate community,” “the gay community,” “the Asian American community ,” “the...