Descriptive Essay Valuing Identity - 3121 Words

Bestolarides 1 Paul Bestolarides Professor Stark HRS 296: Global Histories 27 February 2015 Valuing Identity I could recollect a nostalgic instance in life about a traveling experience, but upon arriving to the city of Amman in the Middle- East, no experience was evermore instilled into the intellect of my ignorant eighteen- year- old, self. Immediately, I could recognize the solemnity of organization; the formal wear between people, the newly creative technology for consumer purposes and the religious reminders echoing through the highest towers of the Mosques. The experience was unlike any from the United States. These perceptions informed me that I was living in some kind of utopian society.†¦show more content†¦Appiah, Huntington and Fukuyama’s text surround the history and reality of some the major concerns, about the fall of ideologies, resulting in a Western liberalism. But not only do these texts inform us about, i.e., how to live, what will happen, but how we can improve our lives, to compliment another’s, who are not from our specific locale. Bestolarides 2 Each of us belongs to different cultures, yet we hold some of the same universal values. It is essential to examine each author’s noted significance. In Appiah’s ‘Cosmopolitinism,’ he implies that some of the innate universal values that each individual hold, can be expressed through art, mathematics and moral values. These values manifest into a universal identity according to Appiah, [pg. 94]. â€Å"They are present in every large enough group of our species; in particular, they are the statistical norm in every society,† [pg. 95, paragraph 1]. But, to Appiah, humanity is not an identity at all. Instead, it is a collection of shared interests. Appiah concludes Chapter 6 with this particular philosophy: You can make a stranger into a common human if you discover each other’s shared interests. And in keeping this shared interest, it is beneficial in sustaining a culture. By examining a culture of any kind, a connection can be made, concerning how cultures can make up an identity. His seminal book Cosmopolitanism, is a moral manifesto, for a world where identity has become a weapon and where