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What Doesn’t Love a Wall: Human Systems, Emotions, the Russian Doll Fallacy, and Contemporary Cosmopolitanism

  • Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences
  • Abbr :
  • 2017, (54), pp.5-20
  • DOI : 10.17939/hushss.2017..54.001
  • Publisher : Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences
  • Research Area : Interdisciplinary Studies > Interdisciplinary Research
  • Received : October 4, 2016
  • Accepted : February 1, 2017
  • Published : February 28, 2017

Bellomy,Donald C. 1

1호남대학교 인문사회과학연구소

Accredited

ABSTRACT

In its essence human society is not a series of Russian dolls with progressively larger and more complex systems distinguished by distinct but comparable identities, for the history of the species has been driven by an emotional impulse to break down walls of experience in the interest of erecting new walls around a more securely integrated identity. In the contemporary crisis, states, nations, religions, markets, races, ethnicities, and other communities are swept together in this compulsion for a simultaneously expansive and defensive emotional identity. This paper centers on the first three – states, nations, and religions – with examples from different periods and places that illuminate the difficulties posed by this tendency for the cosmopolitan mindset. It nevertheless will argue that human emotions not only play the central role in creating the problem – they are also the key to its resolution. The paper concludes with practical solutions to begin dealing with the Russian doll fallacy in the interest of cosmopolitan values.

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