Loving the whole earth, loving the single place: a long response to Gregory Rodriguez on dual citizenship and cosmopolitanism

Jendi Reiter sends me a link to this article on dual citizenship, nations, and states.

And so this dual citizen is reprinting a piece from June 2008 on this very topic.

I normally like the perspective that L.A. Times’ columnist Gregory Rodriguez takes. But he wrote an op-ed eleven days ago that really irked me: Rootless to a Fault. Here’s a portion of it:

Here in the U.S., highly skilled workers and wealthy entrepreneurs from around the globe contribute mightily to this nation’s productivity and creativity. Their presence in our cities, and ours in theirs, has fostered a greater appreciation of global cultural diversity. It has spawned a vibrant cosmopolitanism that broadens our collective concern for people who live beyond our borders.

A few years ago, I was at a fancy dinner party and found myself the only one at the table who held only one passport.

Rodriguez goes on to make a jarringly wrong premise: those who see themselves as “citizens of the world” are somehow dramatically less engaged in civic activity than those whose horizons are smaller and whose loyalties more narrowly defined. He opines:

Without denying the benefits of globalization, we should remember the beauty and strength of parochialism.

It’s all well and good to love the world, but real social solidarity is generally found on a smaller scale. And it’s not just the unskilled immigrants we should be concerned about. We need to find ways to encourage the highly skilled ones to form a sense of attachment and commitment to their new homes. On top of that, we natives must remember that there is no honor in escaping engagement by becoming a citizen of the world.

First off — and I could be wrong — I smell a tiny whiff in Rodriguez’s piece of an old anti-Semitic canard: the notion that the “wandering Jew”, cosmopolitan to a fault, undermines the stability of whatever society in which he finds himself, because his loyalties are eternally elsewhere. Though that is surely not Rodriguez’s intent, there’s no denying that jeremiads against “jet-setting elitists” who have no commitment to place are not new, and that in the past, many of those attacks have been aimed quite explicitly at Jews. Gregory ought to have known that.

But what I resent about the piece is the notion that loyalty to the world and all of its creatures is somehow incompatible with deep concern for the well-being of particular places. Rodriguez posits what is frankly a monstrously false dichotomy: parochial and engaged or cosmopolitan and unconcerned. Indeed, I assure Greg that there are those among his readers who are devoted to Los Angeles and its well-being without feeling any need to elevate the needs of L.A. above those of the entire planet!

I am a dual citizen, holding UK and US citizenship. My brother, his wife, and children hold a serious array of passports: Mexican, Austrian, British, and American. I have many friends who also have two nationalities, and I have a few acquaintances who have three. And no, we are not all part of some transnational global elite. I haven’t rubbed elbows with the super-rich at the Davos Economic Forum. Of course, my dual citizenship is not without significance to me: it not only gives me and my family options about where to work and live, it reminds me that I do indeed have multiple loyalties and multiple commitments. But my devotion to any one place is not less because of a devotion to many. I have been fortunate to have been able to see much of the world, and am fortunate to have friends and family scattered across many continents. But that sense of belonging to the globe rather than to a country doesn’t mean I am any less passionately devoted to the well-being of L.A., or to my students, many of whom have never been on an airplane much less outside of the Western Hemisphere.

I am no patriot, no nationalist. As I’ve written before, I love soccer — but always prefer “club” competitions over “country” tournaments. I love watching the English Premiership, where at times one sees eleven players on the pitch with eleven different nationalities, each wearing the same uniform. I’m mistrustful of nationalism and of ethnic pride, as I know (as a historian) how easily that pride slips into violence, bigotry, and genocide. Though I certainly did not set out consciously to marry a woman from a very different cultural background, I am glad that our future children will grow up with not only multiple passports but with a dizzying list of ethnicities in their heritage: West African, German, Austrian, English, Scots-Irish, indigenous Colombian, Jewish, Flemish, Welsh, Croatian, Spanish — and that’s only taking into account four generations back. They will not be raised to salute any flag, and they will be raised with a love of many places: the green damp of Devon, the thundering glory of Big Sur, the steamy lushness of the Colombian north coast, the rolling hills of central Virginia, and perhaps even the dry and aching splendor of the Galilee. But their love for all of these will not mean less devotion to any one particular place in which they happen to find themselves at any given time.

(Note: I wrote about similar issues in this post: A very long post about Los Angeles, an Eagles song, nationalism, history, self-reinvention and the “club versus country” debate.)

I’m a fan of Edward Abbey, one of the great fathers of the modern environmental movement. His Desert Solitaire is one of the great books, and certainly one of those works of non-fiction that has heavily influenced my life since I first read it many years ago. (You should read it too — it celebrates its fortieth anniversary this year.) Abbey said:

My loyalties will not be bound by national borders, or confined in time by one nation’s history, or limited in the spiritual dimension by one language or culture. I pledge my allegiance to the damned human race, and my everlasting love to the green hills of Earth, and my intimations of glory to the singing stars, to the very end of space and time.

It’s a great line, and it’s one I take very seriously. It’s also a fundamentally Christian line in its rejection of the heresy of nationalism. I’ve been influenced almost as much by Stanley Hauerwas as by Edward Abbey, and the former’s great book Resident Aliens makes clear in its very title how dangerous it is for anyone who follows Christ to become too attached to Caesar. And the modern Caesars are not Roman emperors; they are presidents and senators, queens and prime ministers. They deserve respect, and, when not in contradiction to Christ or conscience, a modicum of obedience. But they never, ever, ever, deserve allegiance. That is saved for God and for His creation. And every square centimeter of that creation, and every creature underneath the canopy of stars, is equally deserving of our love and our commitment.

When I have children, I will be more devoted to them than, say, to other people’s children. Not because my children are better or more important, but because I understand that I will have been charged with responsibility for them. I currently live in Pasadena, so I spend more time thinking about what is good for Pasadena than I do for, say, Paramaribo or Peoria. But that doesn’t mean I love Pasadena more, just that at the present moment, my energies are better spent here. I know this is not my “truest home”, because my truest home is in the undiscovered country on the far side of the Jordan (to mix badly classic literary tropes). But even if it is only a temporary waystation, that doesn’t mean I can’t pour my heart and my soul into caring for it.

I wrote last week about the little doomed rabbit I found that had been hit by a car, and of the hour or so I spent with it from the time of the accident until I arranged for the stricken little creature to be euthanized. During that hour, all over the world, countless human beings and other valuable living creatures perished, in all sorts of awful and regrettable ways. But during that hour, there was only one creature whose suffering I could alleviate, only one creature whom I could help. And so during that hour, I was single-minded in my love. My tears and sweat were mixed on my shirt with her precious blood, and I gave her everything I could. Part of my commitment as a Christian and as a citizen of the world is to do everything I can without preference for nations or species, knowing that most of the time, the actual help I can provide is to one single creature (human or otherwise) at a time.

Rodriguez concluded his infuriating piece thus:

…it will likely always be true (as quaint as it sounds) that home is where the heart is. At least it should be.

True enough. But the heart can be many places at once, and call many places home. And though I have but one wife, i have a huge family and a great many friends, and I do not love any of them less because I love so many. The same is true of countries and of cities, Gregory. We who, like Abbey, pledge our love to the green hills of the whole earth rather than to the parched San Gabriels alone are no less equipped to help the world than those whose loyalties are more narrowly defined.