When discussing the motifs that make up a sociological consciousness, Peter L. Berger gives us four motifs; debunking, unrespectability, relativizing and a fourth “less far-reaching in its implications” (though the most far-reaching to our concerns): “the cosmopolitan motif”.
“Going back to very ancient times, it was in cities that there developed an openness to the world, to other ways of thinging and acting. Whether we think of Athens or Alexandria, or medieval Paris or Renaissance Florence, or of the turbulent urban centers of modern history, we can identify a certain cosmopolitan consciousness that was especially characteristic of city culture. The individual, then, who is not only urban but urbane is one whoe, however, passionately he may be attached to his own city, roams through the whole wide world in his intellectual voyages. His mind, if not his body and emotions, is at home wherever there are other men who think. We would submit that sociological consciousness is marked by the same kind of cosmopolitanism.” (p. 52-53)
“Someone once defined urbane sophistication as being the capacity to remain quite unperturbed upon seeing in front of one’s house a man dressed in a turban and a loincloth, a snake coiled around his neck, beating a tom-tom as he leads a leashed tiger down the street.” (p. 49)
Uit. Berger, Peter L. Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective. New York, Anchor Books. 1963.
Categorie: De stad, kosmopolitanisme, Sociologie, Peter L. Berger
