Introduction
Who
are we as
citizens in the digital age? This question concerns
what is being
called netizens
or digital citizens, i.e., persons involved in all
kinds of activities
utilizing the Internet, particularly social media,
for private or
public
purposes.[1] But
what does citizenship in this context mean? Who is
addressed when we
(who?) ask
this question? Is it the citizen of democratic
states? The concept of
citizenship has changed throughout the ages but it
seems to be
intrinsically
related to the physical world.
What
is the difference
between being a citizen
in the physical world and in the cyberworld?
Cyberworld means “an
(electromagnetic) medium for the
movement of digital beings
(bit-strings) in which we human beings participate
and through which we
also
steer, either directly, or indirectly through
automatically executable
digital
code." (Eldred 2012) [2]
It is not
just a
technical medium – and as
such it belongs also to the physical world – but as far as
we are related to it, it is a way of our
being-in-the-world, i.e., it is an existential
phenomenon concerning who and not
only what we are as human
beings.[3] This
brave new cyberworld includes phenomena such as
social media,
hacktivism,
cybersex, online gaming, Bitcoin finance, Ebay,
Skyping etc. [4]
A
new
civilization emerges that needs a fresh
intercultural dialogue that
should not
be steered, as the word cyber
suggests, by old or new global
players, but allowing more information and
communication freedom and
letting
people to control themselves. Letting people think
freely is at the
core
of a
future intercultural information ethics that takes
seriously the
messages
coming from others in a heteronomic digital
environment. How far can we
(who?)
go beyond the institutional, legal and moral
paradigms that steer our
present
physical world? It seems that we (who?) need a new
kind of thinking for
a
future being-in-the-(digital)-world. [5]
The
question "Who are
we as citizens in the digital
age?" addresses the following issues: firstly,
who are
we as citizens in the
cyberworld? Secondly, is the
concept
of citizenship – which one? – translatable from the
physical world to
the
cyberworld? Are we as
citizens of the cyberworld only concerned as far as
we interact
digitally within it with other human
(and non-human?) agents? What is the relationship
between citizenship
in the
physical world and in the cyberworld? Thirdly,
what is the meaning of the concept of global
citizenship or cosmopolitanism
before and after the
rise of the
cyberworld?
The aim of
this essay
is to answer these
questions starting with a brief overview on Greek
and Roman concepts of
cosmopolitanism. The second part is devoted to the
concept of world
citizenship
in Kant, as an example of a modern concept of
citizenship that still
pervades
our thinking and political reality particularly in
Western countries.
The last
part deals with the global citizenship in the
digital age. [6]
On
Greek and Roman Concepts of Cosmopolitanism
The
cynic
philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (c. 404-323 BC),
once
asked where
he came from, answered: "[I am] a citizen of the
world (kosmopolitês)" (Diogenes,
1853,
Section 6 para. 33).[7] He was
apparently the first Western philosopher
to
have understood himself using this neologism.
Although nothing from his
writing remained, Diogenes is well known for
challenging established
behavioral codes with his teaching and his
lifestyle. He was the son of
a money-changer and, as Diogenes Laertius reports,
he was banished with
his father for seemingly adulterating public money.
He probably
misunderstood the oracle of Delos who told him that
he might change the
political customs (politikón
nómisma). The word nomisma also
means coin. As custom since the time of Cleisthenes
(ca. 570 BC), one's
identity was based
on the place in which one was
born.[8] The
Romans called jus
soli
this notion of citizenship, in contrast to jus sanguinis
or right of blood,
based on the family or tribeone one belonged to.
Diogenes breaks with
Cleisthenes' concept of citizenship and creates a
new term whereby the
concept of city (pólis) is related to
the universe (kósmos).[9] The
kósmos is
the true original pólis
as the birthplace of
everybody. The laws (nomos)
and customs (ethos)
of the pólis
are secondary with
regard to the laws of the kósmos.
This does not necessarily mean that he is
advocating for some
kind of world polis-state. It would be, at least,
the opposite of his
lifestyle. He understands himself as
a cosmic
being instead of
being subject to a political
order. He
denies the primacy of Athens and Athenians as
opposed to citizens
coming from a
provincial town like Sinope. His answer is also a
challenge to the
distinction
between Greek and barbarians as all humans are
citizens of the kósmos, i.e., of
the shared world.
Diogenes might have learned about the primacy of kósmos
over polis from
Antiphon the Athenian (c. 480-411 BC)
who wrote:
We
can examine
those attributes of nature that are necessary
in all humans and are
provided to
all to the same degree, and in these respects
none of us is
distinguished as
barbarian or Greek. For we all breathe the air
through our mouth and
our
nostrils, and we laugh when our minds are
happy (A3) or weep when we
are
pained, and we receive sounds with our
hearing, and we see by the light
with
our sight, and we work with our hands and walk
with our feet. [Gagarin
2002, p. 183, see also Capurro 2007, p. 35ff]
This
concept of cosmic citizenship was further
developed by the Stoic
school.
Thinkers like Cleanthes (ca. 330-2030 BC)
and Chrysippus (279-206 BC)
grounded cosmopolitanism in the rational cosmology
and ontology of
Hellenic
thought. As Brown (2006) remarks:
According
to the Stoics, the cosmos as a
whole is put in order by right reason, and it is
a place where human
beings
live. So the cosmos as a whole does satisfy the
definition of 'polis'.
This is
the Stoic doctrine of the cosmopolis. Because it
rests on normative
ideals that
far outstrip what ordinary practice manages to
satisfy, one might well
assume that
the Stoic who strives to live as a citizen of
the cosmopolis would have
to turn
away from ordinary politics. On this assumption,
"living as a citizen
of
the cosmos" would be nothing more than a
metaphor for living in
agreement
with the right reason that pervades nature—just
a metaphor for living a
good
human life as Stoicism understands it. […] On my
account, Chrysippus
consistently believes that to live as a citizen
of the cosmos, one
should also
engage in ordinary politics (where one can).
Indeed, I suggest that by
conceiving of how a citizen of the world can
engage in ordinary
politics,
Chrysippus effectively invents the ideal of
cosmopolitan politics. […]
Politics
offers the chance to lead by example (or advise
those who do) and to
shape laws
that condition behaviour, and because it has
these powers, it is
generally
preferable to engage in politics.”
[pp. 2-3, 10] [10]
The
difference between this kind of cosmopolitanism
and the one proclaimed
by
Diogenes consists, according to Brown, in the fact
that
Diogenes
fancied himself "citiless, homeless, deprived of a
fatherland," and
it is not easy to see where his commitment to
world-citizenship goes
beyond
this rejection of more local citizenship. Diogenes
does purport to help
people
wherever he goes, but his cosmopolitanism
resembles nothing so much as
the
worldliness of a nomad. [pp. 17-18] [11]
Hierocles
(2nd century) conceived citizenship as three
concentric
circles, one
around the self and the family, then the city
dwellers and finally
humanity. The sense
of togetherness
within such circles was called oikeiosis,
oikos
meaning house or home. [12] Oikeiosis
means, for a Stoic
philosopher, the process of coming to a life
“according to nature”
(“secundum
naturam vivere”), [13] nature
being our original house and therefore the measure
of the customs of
the polis. [14]
Kleingeld and Brown (2013) write::
Nowhere
was Stoic
cosmopolitanism itself more influential than in
early Christianity. Early
Christians took the
later Stoic
recognition of two cities as independent
sources of obligation and
added a
twist. For the Stoics, the citizens of the
polis and the citizens of
the
cosmopolis do the same work: both aim to
improve the lives of the
citizens. The
Christians respond to a different call:
“Render therefore unto Caesar
the
things which are Caesar's; and unto God the
things that are God's”
(Matthew
22:21). On
this view, the local city may have divine
authority (John 19:11;
cf. Romans 13:1,4,7), but the most
important work for human
goodness
is removed from traditional politics, set aside
in a sphere in which
people of
all nations can become “fellow-citizens with the
saints”
(Ephesians 2:20) [para. 12].
The
messages of the Cynic and Stoic schools were
transformed
within the Christian context,
contradicting in some
cases the original ideas. In a locus
classicus St. Paul claims to be a Roman citizen
(“civis romanus sum”),
i.e.
having the Roman citizenship by the very fact of
being born within the
Roman
Empire (“ius soli”):
As they
stretched
him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion
standing there, “Is it
legal
for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even
been found guilty?”
When the
centurion heard this, he went to the commander
and reported it. “What
are you
going to do?” he asked. “This man is a Roman
citizen.” The commander
went to
Paul and asked, “Tell me, are you a Roman
citizen (Romaios
ei)?” “Yes, I am,” he answered. Then the
commander said, “I
had to pay a lot of money for my citizenship (politeian).”
“But I was born a citizen (gegénnemai),”
Paul
replied. Those who were about to interrogate him
withdrew immediately. The commander himself was
alarmed when he
realized that
he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains.”
[New Testament 22, 24-29,
New International Version] [15]
The
concept of citizen of the world is a core concept of
the
Enlighentenment. [16] The
ancient concept of kosmopolites
has a resonance
particularly in Kant's concept of "world
citizenship"
("Weltbürgertum").
On
Kantian World Citizenship
Kant
develops the ideas on this matter in the opusculum
"Perpetual Peace: A
Philosophical Sketch" ("Zum ewigen Frieden: Ein
philosophischer
Entwurf").[17] According to
Kant (n.d.b), perpetual peace can only be
achieved if the following "articles" are realized:
firstly, if the
civil constitution of all states is a republican
one; secondly, if the
"law of nations" (Section 2 para. 7) is founded on a
federation of free
states; and thirdly, if "the law of world
citizenship" is "limited to
conditions of universal hospitality" (Section 2
para. 15). Kant is
aware that the situation in his time is far away
from this goal. He
writes:
But to this
perfection compare the inhospitable actions of
the civilized and especially of the commercial
states of our part of
the world.
The injustice which they show to lands and peoples
they visit (which is
equivalent to conquering them) is carried by them to
terrifying
lengths.[Kant, n.d.b., Section 2, para. 17]
This
does
not, however, hinder him in looking for a
practical legal solution,
namely:
Since
the narrower or wider community of the
peoples of the earth has developed so far that
a violation of rights in
one
place is felt throughout the
world,
the idea of a law of world citizenship
(“Weltbürgerrechts”) is no
high-flown or
exaggerated notion. It
is a supplement
to
the unwritten code of the civil and
international law, indispensable
for the
maintenance of the public human rights and
hence also of perpetual peace. One
cannot flatter oneself into believing one can
approach this peace except under the condition
outlined here.
[Kant, n.d.b., Section 2 para. 29]
Kant
argues in favour
of a federation of free nations (“Föderalism
freier Staaten”) that
acknowledges
the differences between people and states, and
therefore does not aim
to
homogenize their cultural differences in one
people’s state
(“Völkerstaat”) but
in a federation of states and their people
(“Völkerbund”) (Kant,
175c). In other
words, he
acknowledges their sovereignty and brings them
at the same time
together with
the “idea of federalism” (“Idee der
Föderalität”) that
includes a “peace
league” and a “peace treaty" (Kant, 1975c). Why
should
states be interested in creating or joining such a
league? Kant’s
answer is
astonishingly pragmatic. He writes:
Just
as
nature wisely separates nations, which
the will of every state, sanctioned by the
principles of international
law,
would gladly unite by artifice or force, nations
which could not have
secured
themselves against violence and war by means of
the law of world
citizenship
unite because of mutual interest. The spirit of commerce, which is
incompatible with war, sooner or later gains the
upper hand in every
state. As
the power of money is perhaps the most
dependable of all the powers
(means)
included under the state power, states see
themselves forced, without
any moral
urge, to promote honorable peace and by
mediation to prevent war
wherever it
threatens to break out. They
do so exactly as if they stood in perpetual
alliances, for great
offensive
alliances are in the nature of the case rare and
even less often
successful [Kant, n.d.a., para.12]
There is, then,
according to Kant, a close relationship between
“the law of world
citizenship”
(“Weltbürgerrecht”), the “spirit of commerce”
(“Handelsgeist”) and
“the power of
money” (“Geldmacht”). Kant’s cosmopolitan citizen
is not subject to a
world
Leviathan with coercive military power and he is
also not a subject
free from
any legal or customary conditions. This way of
being in the world as citizen is
a legal, non-philanthropic
one. It is based on the right to “hospitality”
(“Hospitalität”,
“Wirtbarkeit”)
that he defines as follows:
Hospitality
means the right of a stranger not to be treated as
an enemy when he
arrives in
the land of another. One
may refuse to receive him when this can be done
without causing his
destruction; but, so long as he peacefully
occupies his place, one may
not
treat him with hostility. It
is not the right to be a permanent
visitor [“Gastrecht”] that
one
may demand. A special
beneficent agreement would be needed
in order to give an outsider a right to become a
fellow inhabitant for
a certain
length of time. It is
only a right of temporary sojourn
[“Besuchsrecht”],
a right to associate,
which all men have. They have it by virtue of
their common possession
of the
surface of the earth, where, as a globe [“Kugelfläche”],
they
cannot
infinitely disperse and hence must finally
tolerate the presence of
each other.
Originally, no one had more right than another to
a particular part of
the
earth [Kant, n.d.b., Section 2 para 15]
Kant’s foundation of
the concept of world citizenship is literally global
in the sense that we, as humans, share the
surface of the
globe (“Kugelfläche”) which is limited, thus
building the material condition
for a cosmopolitanism that echoes
Diogenes,
Antiphon and the Stoics while keeping in mind
simultaneously the modern
developments of republicanism and sovereign
states. Kant’s world
citizen is
neither an anarchist nor an idealist. Rather,
they are subject to the
“law of
world citizenship,” without making “all men” in
the same way a subject
of a coercive
power akin to the nation state to which they
also belong. The “law of
world
citizenship” allow us, human beings, to go
beyond national boundaries
without
becoming an expatriate or loosing any kind of
international legal
protection. In
short, Kant’s cosmopolitan subject is free to
“visit” other nations
and
cultures and meet other people on the basis that
we all share the same
earth upon which we exist. Kant
provides, in
other words, an existential
foundation
of the modern concept of nation-based world
citizenship that allows him
to
enlarge the concept, and the range of freedom,
beyond the boundaries of
nation-states without a kind of super-power that
would not only become
a danger
for the sovereignty of other states, but would
also undermine the
common basis
upon which equality and peaceful relations among
people
as well as
among states rest, namely the common earth of
which nobody can claim
ownership.
The earth as a globe is our
common
host and we are its guests. “The
law of world
citizenship”, writes Kant, “should be limited
to conditions of universal hospitality” (Kant
n.d.b., Section 2 para.
15)
which means that it should be based on a mutual
freedom of meeting each
other
as freely and legally acknowledged by a
federation of states and not on
the
basis of the coercive law of a world Leviathan.
[18]
A
citizen of the world is one who is allowed to live
according to this
kind of
freedom and peace. This
freedom and
peace remains fragile as it is based on a free
agreement under the
pragmatic
presupposition that nations as well as individuals
have a practical
interest in
promoting the “spirit of commerce”. It is also a
pragmatic solution, as
it does
not depend on the moral perfection of individuals.
On the contrary, the
moral
perfectibility might profit from universal
hospitality. As Kant
remarks, human
societies are neither societies of angels nor of
devils:
But it
is the most
difficult to establish and even harder to
preserve, so that many say a
republic
would have to be a nation of angels, because men
with their selfish
inclinations are not capable of a constitution
of such sublime form. But
precisely with these
inclinations
nature comes to the aid of the general will
established on reason,
which is
revered even though impotent in practice.
Thus it is only a question of
a good
organization of the state (which does lie in
man's power), whereby the
powers
of each selfish inclination are so arranged
in opposition that one
moderates or
destroys the ruinous effect of the other.
The consequence for reason
is
the same as if none of them existed, and man
is forced to be a good
citizen
even if not a morally good person.
The
problem of organizing a state, however hard it may
seem, can be solved
even for
a race of devils, if only they are intelligent. The
problem is: 'Given
a
multitude of rational beings requiring universal
laws for their
preservation,
but each of whom is secretly inclined to exempt
himself from them, to
establish
a constitution. [Kant, n.d.a. para.7-8].
Kant also introduced
the concept of 'cosmopolitan law', suggesting a
third sphere of public
law – in
addition to constitutional law and international
law – in which both
states and
individuals have rights, and where individuals
have these rights as
'citizens
of the earth' rather than as citizens of
particular states [Section 1.2
para. 13]
The idea
of "cosmopolitan law" is based on the fact that
we all share the same
spherical earth. [19] Beyond
the forms of political, economic and moral
cosmopolitanism analysed by
Kleingeld and Brown, I would like to add to this
taxonomy two other
forms,
namely communicational and metaphysical
cosmopolitanism. I follow also
on this
issue Kant’s paths of thinking.
According
to Kant we can understand ourselves as
free individuals only if we are permitted to freely
communicate our
thoughts to
others and vice versa. He develops this idea in “An
Answer to the
Question:
What is Enlightenment?" [20]
("Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist
Aufklärung?") as well as in "What Does It Mean to
Orient Oneself
in Thinking?" ("Was heisst: Sich im Denken
orientieren?"). [21]
In the
first of these opuscula
Kant
distinguishes the public form from the private
use of reason in
an at first sight counterintuitive use of the word
"private." He writes:
Everywhere
there
are
restrictions on freedom. But what sort of
restriction hinders
enlightenment,
and what sort does not hinder
but instead promotes it? – I reply: The
public use of one’s reason must
always
be free, and it alone can bring about
enlightenment among human beings;
the private use of one’s
reason may,
however, often be very narrowly restricted
without this particularly
hindering
the progress of enlightenment.
But
by the public use of one’s own reason I
understand that use which
someone makes
of it as a scholar before the
entire
public of the world of readers.
[“vor
dem ganzen Publikum der Leserwelt”].
What
I call the private use of reason is that which one
may make of it
in a
certain civil post or office with which he is
entrusted [Kant 1996,
para. 5]
Kant’s
“private
use
of reason” (“Privatgebrauch”) concerns the
restricted use of reason
when people
act as subjects to some
“civil post
or office”. The same persons can and should
make a “public use”
(“öffentlicher
Gebrauch”) of their reason (“Vernunft”) when
addressing their thoughts as
a scholar (“Gelehrter”) to the “world
of readers” (“Leserwelt”).[22]
Kant
establishes a
duality between thinking and acting as
a citizen (“Bürger”) vs. thinking and acting,
i.e. communicating, as a
scholar. Kant favours even a
“lesser degree” of “civil freedom”
(“bürgerliche Freiheit”) if a “people’s
freedom of spirit”
(“Freiheit
des Geistes
des Volkes”) is preserved. His argument is
that “the propensity and
calling to think freely”
(“den Hang und Beruf zum freien
Denken”) might empower people
and, in the long run also the
government, to act more freely. (Kant, 1966)
In
other words,
Kant’s global citizenship goes beyond the laws
and customs of the
modern state,
respecting but also questioning its boundaries.
The instrument to
strive for
the utopian goal of an enlightened society is
the society built by free
thinkers, the so-called “Republic of Letters”
(“Gelehrtenrepublik”),
the
intellectual community beyond and across
national boundaries,
communicating
through censorship-free and critical writings
(“Schriften”) addressed
to the
“world of readers.”He
strongly opposes
the idea of a “permanent religious constitution
not to be doubted
publicly by
anyone and thereby, as it were, to nullify a
period of time in the
progress of
humanity toward improvement
and make
it fruitless and hence detrimental to posterity.”
(Kant, 1966, para 6)
In other words, Kant’s
citizenship is not a fact but a process, no less
than the question
regarding
“whether we at present live in an enlightened
age” whose answer is “No, but we do live in an age
of enlightenment." (Kant, 1966,
para. 7)
In
the second opusculum,
"What
Does It mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?"
(Kant, 1975b), Kant
mentions (again) the
basic condition
for being a free citizen participating at the
“Republic of Letters”
namely the
“freedom of thinking” which implies the “freedom
to communicate”
publicly one’s
thoughts” (“die Freiheit, seine Gedanken
öffentlich mitzuteilen”).
There is
not freedom of thinking without freedom of the
media through which
thoughts are
exchanged. According to Kant, such freedom is
opposed, firstly, to the
“civil
compulsion” (“bürgerliche Zwang”) coming from a
political
authority, secondly,
to the “moral compulsion” (“Gewissenszwang”)
coming from a religious
authority,
and, thirdly to any kind of laws, excepting the
ones reason gives itself.
I call this second Kantian concept of citizenship,
communicational
citizenship. [23]
Finally
I would like
to briefly mention what I call metaphysical
citizenship. According to Kant, humans are
of dual nature, namely
natural (homo phaenomenon) and
"noumenal" beings
(homo noumenon). The latter is for
Kant the source of morality. As noumenal or
“intellectual beings”
(“vernünftige
Wesen”) (Kant, 1977) we are members of the
“kingdom of ends” (“Reich
der Zwecke”). The members of
such a “kingdom” have a “dignity” (“Würde”) and
not, as all other
beings, a
“price” (“Preis”). “Dignity” means being an “end
it itself” and obeying
only
one’s own laws, i.e. being autonomous.
The
community consists of members who have a
“duty” (“Pflicht”) with regard to such laws
following the moral maxim
of
universalizability. The community has also a
“head” (“Oberhaupt”) who
is not
subject to “duty” and remains completely
independent (Kant, 1974). [24]
I call this Kantian concept of intellectual beings
belonging together
to the
“kingdom of ends” metaphysical
citizenship. This dual view of human nature
echoes, in the context
of
Kant’s critical philosophy, Augustine’s difference
between the “city of
God”
(“civitas dei”) and the “earthly city” (“civitas
terrena”).
Citizenship
in the
Digital Age
Habermas
criticized Kant’s dual system of world citizenship
vs. nation states
from the
perspective of two hundred years (Habermas, 1995).
With
regards to communicational citizenship, Kant,
according to Habermas,
could not
foresee the “structural change” of a transparent
public sphere of
literary
educated, rational, bourgeois citizens
(“bürgerliche
Öffentlichkeit”) into a
public sphere “dominated by semantically
degenerated, full of images
and
virtual realities of electronic mass media." [25]
If
Kant could not
foresee mass media, Habermas was not able to see
the impact
of the Internet and the structural change of the
public sphere that was
already
happening as he wrote this essay.[26]
According to Habermas, Kant could
also not foresee that the two other
conditions that he discusses as necessary for
perpetual freedom, namely
the
republican form of government and the “spirit of
commerce,” would
degenerate
into nationalisms and war among democratic states
and that free trade
would
lead to imperialisms of different kinds, global
capitalist exploitation
and
civil wars. But Kant, however, was well
aware of issues of his time that are
not very dissimilar to the present situation, two
hundred years later.
The
following text is worth quoting in full length::
But to this
perfection compare the inhospitable
actions of the civilized and especially of the
commercial states of our
part of
the world. The injustice which they show to lands
and peoples they
visit (which
is equivalent to conquering them) is carried by
them to terrifying
lengths.
America, the lands inhabited by the Negro, the
Spice Islands, the Cape,
etc.,
were at the time of their discovery considered by
these civilized
intruders as
lands without owners, for they counted the
inhabitants as nothing. In
East
India (Hindustan), under the pretense of
establishing economic
undertakings,
they brought in foreign soldiers and used them to
oppress the natives,
excited
widespread wars among the various states, spread
famine, rebellion,
perfidy,
and the whole litany of evils which afflict
mankind.
China and
Japan (Nippon), who have had experience with such
guests, have
wisely refused them entry, the former permitting
their approach to
their shores
but not their entry, while the latter permit this
approach to only one
European
people, the Dutch, but treat them like prisoners,
not allowing them any
communication with the inhabitants. The worst of
this (or, to speak
with the
moralist, the best) is that all these outrages
profit them nothing,
since all
these commercial ventures stand on the verge of
collapse, and the Sugar
Islands, that place of the most refined and cruel
slavery, produces no
real
revenue except indirectly, only serving a not very
praiseworthy purpose
of
furnishing sailors for war fleets and thus for the
conduct of war in
Europe.
This service is rendered to powers which make a
great show of their
piety, and,
while they drink injustice like water, they regard
themselves as the
elect in
point of orthodoxy.
Since
the narrower or wider community of the peoples of
the earth has
developed so
far that a violation of rights in one place is
felt throughout the
world, the
idea of a law of world citizenship is no
high-flown or exaggerated
notion. It
is a supplement to the unwritten code of the civil
and international
law,
indispensable for the maintenance of the public
human rights and hence
also of
perpetual peace. One cannot flatter oneself into
believing one can
approach
this peace except under the condition outlined
here [Kant, n.d.b.,
Section 2, para. 17-19]
Emmanuel
Lévinas and Jacques Derrida have developed an ethics
of
hospitality that echoes in some regard the Cynic,
Stoic, Christian and
Kantian traditions of cosmopolitanism (Wikipedia,
2013b). [27] These
traditions culminate in the 20th
century with the
creation of the
United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and
international
law, and corresponding institutions. Governmental,
inter-governmental
and
non-governmental organizations and initiatives
look for different kinds
of
answers to global challenges such as the
ecological crisis, the
religious wars,
the crisis of capitalism, world hunger, poverty
and diseases together
with the
devastating experiences of two world wars and the
crimes against
humanity
before, during and after these, and the following
present wars.
What
makes a difference to Kant’s cosmopolitanism is
not only, as Habermas
states,
the rise of mass media but particularly the rise
of the Internet. Peter
Sloterdijk (1998) has pointed to three global or
spherical projects in
European
history, starting with the globalization of
reason in Greek philosophy
that
culminates in Hegel’s spherical metaphysics.
According to Sloterdijk,
next
modernity brings about a second global project,
bursting the
metaphysical
dreams. It is a physical project aiming at
discovering and dominating
the earth
starting with its circumnavigation. The third
globalization project is
the
present digital one with predecessors in the
Middle Ages (Raimundus
Lullus,
Nicholas of Cusa) and Modernity (Pascal,
Leibniz). [28]
In a recent article, Rod Beckstrom, Chief
Security Adviser for Samsung
Electronics
USA and Chair of the World Economic Forum’s
Global Agenda Council on
the Future
of the Internet writes:
The
hard part of
the connectivity explosion is not building
capacity, but how it should
be
managed. We
must answer
profound questions about the way we live. Should
everyone be
permanently
connected to everything? Who owns which data, and
how should
information be
made public? Can and should data use be regulated,
and, if so, how? And
what
role should government, business, and ordinary
Internet users play in
addressing these issues? At the same time, we must
guard against
over-regulation or government control. This might
require us to phase
out the
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority to prevent it
from falling under
the
control of an inter-governmental body, as some
states have demanded.
Governments certainly have an important part to
play. But too much
control
would almost certainly stifle innovation, increase
costs, and probably
exclude
important anti-establishment voices. A better
approach, and one that
would
enhance public trust in the system, would be to
establish diversified
stewardship with multiple stakeholders.
[Beckstrom, 2013, para. 2]
Asking
about “the rights of the digital man” means
asking about the nature of
digital
cosmopolitanism. It concerns issues of
international control and
governance of
the Internet by private corporations such as the
Internet Corporation
for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Above all,
it is a question of
freedom and
responsibility on the basis of rules of fair
play and solidarity.
Backstrom
(2013) writes:
At
the heart of
this debate is the need to ensure that in a
world where many, if not
all, of
the important details of our lives – including
our relationships –
exist in
cyber-perpetuity, people retain, or reclaim,
some level of control over
their
online selves. While
the world
of forgetting may have vanished, we can reshape
the new one in a way
that
benefits rather than overwhelms us. Our
overriding task is to
construct a digital
way of life that reinforces our existing sense of
ethics and values,
with
security, trust, and fairness at its heart [para.
13].
Social
processes in the Internet go across the boundaries
of nation-states and
international groups of states that remain the
basis of the modern
political
idea of citizenship. It is apparent that the
cyberworld is not a kind
of
independent world as proclaimed by John Perry
Barlow in 1996 .
The rights and duties in the
cyberworld cannot be isolated from the rights and
duties in the
physical world.
The cyberworld makes the processes of cultural
hybridization and social
interaction no less than that of mutual isolation
(Turkle, 2011). The
case of the National Security Agency provides the
evidence surrounding
global digital citizenship's transformation into
global surveillance,
under the
paradoxical premise that at the moment where all
digital citizens
should be
considered as equal with regards to rights and
duties, they are
separated
between U.S. citizens, that according to U.S. law
should not be object
of
digital surveillance, unlike the rest of the
world, paying no regards
to the
laws in other countries. From this
perspective, the concept of digital global
citizenship turns into the
opposite
of the ideals of the Enlightenment. The danger of
homogenizing the
world
population does not only consist in its control
and manipulation but
also in
the exclusion of different groups and, more
generally, on the
disrespect of cultural
differences, individual histories and
contingencies that are the basis
for the
uniqueness and richness of human individuals and
societies (Dabag,
2000). The opposite dystopia to such a
homogenization is the
mutual political,
economic or cultural isolation of individuals and
societies, as well as
their
disregard of any kind of responsibility for the
common welfare and
sustainability of the physical and digital world.
This
is the reason why we, in the digital age, need a
transcultural ethos
with
democratic components that actively promotes
intercultural experience,
and an
international treaty for the cyberworld on which,
following Kant’s
proposal,
the different stakeholders freely agree. They, the
ethos and the
treaty, need
to be flexible with regard to unforeseen
developments and situations,
and
therefore require sustainable academic research on
intercultural
information
ethics devoted particularly to the analysis of
cultural differences
that
underlie implicitly or explicitly the customs and
behavioural rules in
the
physical and in the digital world. [29]
Such
an ethos and treaty (or declaration) aims at
protecting the freedom of
peoples'
exchange of thoughts freely – a new version of
Kant’s “Republic of
Letters” as
a communicational world citizenship in the
digital age. Public policy
might
provide the opportunity for citizens to meet
freely in digital public
spaces
without the constraints and misuses of the
commercial social networks
that, in
theory and practice, become more and more
dystopian examples of free
digital
citizenship. The same can be said with regard to
the reality of
political
surveillance in the digital and physical world
in Western democracies,
contrary
to what Kant suggested. If public policy and the
civil society
capitulate or
leave the field of free communicational
citizenship to be shaped alone
by market economy, then the
concept of citizenship in the digital age might
become, and is
becoming,
dystopian with opportunities opened by the
Internet being partly lost.
Individuals and societies in the cyberworld
should be legally protected
but not
paternalistically over-protected, or even
subject to total control
without any
kind of legal agreement on the necessity and
limits of such measures.
The same
can be said with regards to commercial global
players in the
cyberworld, as
they take no notice of the rights of individuals
as they conceal and
reveal
what they want to whom they want. A commercial
social network turns
into a
(golden) cage or, in the case that users and
shareholders become aware
of it,
it ends in bankruptcy.
Conclusion
Beng-in-the-cyberworld
is no less fragile than being-in-the-world,
sharing a common earth and
being
responsible for each other. What is at stake
with regard to the issue
of
privacy in the digital age is no more and no
less than the question of
freedom
at a local and global level (Capurro et al.,
2013). Following
Aristotle’s dictum “being said in
many ways," [30] the
concept of citizenship in general and of
global and digital citizenship
in
particular is no less ambiguous.
Cosmopolitanism as
world citizenship has been a “combat term”
(“Kampfbegriff”) for
different schools of thought (Zons, 2000),
with
ambivalent connotations until today. The
reason for this ambivalence
lies in
the tension between the historical situation
and physical embodiment of
human
existence on the one hand, and its openness to
the common world sharing
a
common earth on the other hand. This
ambivalence emerges in the
cyberworld with
new forms of polarization between new
authentic forms of being-together
across,
and beyond, physical boundaries and their
customary, legal fixations
and
inauthentic ones where human freedom almost
disappears, being
instrumentalized
for political or economic interests. The
result is not always some kind
of
fragile freedom in the cyberworld but
different kinds of cyber warfare.
An
analogical use of the concept of citizenship
based on its modern use in
the
physical world translated into the cyberworld
might lead to some new
kind of
digital Enlightenment, but it might also create
a homogenized world
society. A
world Leviathan that can take the shape of a
league of nations freely
agreeing
on rules of fair play and mutual support in
order to overcome what has
been
called the digital divide, but it can also
support the creation of all
kinds of
monopolies on the basis of norms and regulations
in order to increase
the
profit of a company with disregard for the
privacy of users as well as
for the
common good of society.
Individuals
like Edward Snowden, being confronted with the
blatant contradictions
of Western
democracies that are proud of their liberal and
civic traditions no
less than
of their defence of human rights, feel
themselves under the ethical
imperative
of unveiling such contradictions. Such
individuals are an authentic
example of
digital citizenship. They do not necessarily
proclaim a utopian world
state on
the basis of digital transparency of all
citizens under its power but,
quite
the contrary, they are well aware that the basic
democratic rule in the
physical world and the cyberworld must be one
that respects the
difference
between public and private, which is the freedom
of individuals to
decide what
they want to conceal and reveal about who they
are (Capurro et al.,
2013). The disrespect of this civic freedom
leads toward different
kinds of
totalitarian situations and forms of economic
and cultural exploitation
that
are not dissimilar to the ones described by Kant
in the 18th
century.
The
debate on global and local interests permeates
not only European
history and
the history of ideas in the last three hundred
years but also the
present
debate on the current and future shape of the
cyberworld. What shall we
(who?)
want to consider as a common rule for everybody
in the cyberworld, as
well as
in the relationship between the cyberworld and
the physical world? Who
is
dealing or should deal with these issues at a
theoretical and practical
level?
Which forms of mediations should we (who?)
establish? Such questions
are not
originally technical but philosophical and
particularly ethical. They
address
the transformation of the relationship between
human beings and the
world in
the digital age. I call this transformation
digital ontology.[31]
Who
are we when we look at ourselves (and our
selves) as well as all things
in
the world as digitalizable? If this
understanding of being turns to be
perceived as the true one, digital ontology
turns into digital
metaphysics or,
in political terms, into digital ideology
(Capurro et al, 1999).
New
forms of togetherness and commonness degenerate
into technological
dystopias of
a global monoculture with digitalized citizens.
The tension between the
physical and the digital world is lost and with
it also the interplay
of human
freedom concerning different forms of concealing
and revealing who we
are in
both worlds. We (who?) come even to the idea of
identifying ourselves
(and our
selves) with our data that are, as any other
form of reification, a
basis for
economic exchange. In this case, digital
economy, having lost its
awareness of
human freedom and the social interplay in a
common physical and digital
world,
mutates into a world panopticon.
If this
diagnosis is correct, we, as
thinkers, should make a leap back into the
history of the concept of
citizenship and how we came to ask ourselves
about it in the digital
age. We
should also think prospectively about who are
the beneficiaries and who
are
excluded from it. Who is misusing or exploiting
individuals and whole
societies
in the cyberworld is no less problematic than in
the physical world. If
a
Leviathan misuses its power ad
intra
and/or ad extra, and some tough
whistle-blowers
unveil such contradictions, what kind of
international mechanisms
should be
created in order to deal with these issues, in
order to avoid the
mechanisms of
cynicism? Not only political diplomacy but all
kinds of bottom-up
initiatives
of the civil society, like the Centre
for Global Citizenship Education
and
Research at the University of Alberta,
[32]
have an opportunity to be
effective and efficient, particularly in the
field of
education,[33] when based on a
common ethos of civility in the
cyberworld, as well as on
international legal agreements.
Both
must be aware of the fragility of human freedom
and of the common earth
as the
ground for both, the physical and the
cyberworld. This is the reason
why the
question of digital ecology is crucial in order
to create a sustainable
physical environment for the cyberworld, in
order to become aware of
all kinds
of social exploitation on a local and global
scale around the issue of
electronic waste (Capurro, 2010).
Some
digital citizens might follow Diogenes, others
will prefer Chrysippus;
both
provide fresh insights into the task of keeping
alive the tension
between the
physical and the digital world.
A
phenomenology of messages and messengers as
awareness of the hidden positive and negative
dimensions of
being-in-the-(cyber)-world
opens paths of thinking for present and coming message
societies [34] where
global and local citizenships are intertwined
and the abyssal dimensions
of freedom and liberty do not become invisible
under the digital veil. [35]
Eventually, we do
not live in two sepaate worlds. this distinction
could be misunderstood as a new kind of
platonism. We live in one
common world shaped more and more by digital
technology.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The
author would like to thank John and Michael Holgate
(Sydney) for their
criticisms and fresh ideas. Some of them are quoted
in this text.
NOTES
1. See Wikipedia entries
Netizen
and Digital
citizen
3. On the concept of whoness
see Capurro et al.
(2012a) and Capurro et al. (2013)
4. See Rolfe (2005) and Coenen et al. (2012)
"Through
which we also
steer... what, whom? Maybe the 'cyber' concept
of control and steering
we
inherited from the Macy Conferences, cybernetics
and the top-down
mathematical
dominance of Wiener, Shannon, von Neumann, von
Foerster et al. needs to
be
thrown overboard at last. The new wave of
digilectuals since the 1990’s
and the
Internet is more about devolution of control
back to the individual
netizen
than conforming to the cyber
agendas of Big Data whose ideological bastion is
based on control,
money, power
and surveillance. Floridi’s infosphere
is just a different flavour of this panoptic
agenda. Our digital
experience is
emergent and phenomenologically beyond “copulating
bit strings”
[Michael
Eldred] and ones and zeros – the digital/virtual
way of
being-in-the-world is
and should be heteronomic rather than hegemonic.
What we need to do now
is map
the spheres of this new world in all its variety
of phenomena – social
media,
hacktivism, cybersex, online gaming, Bitcoin
finance, electronic
publishing,
Ebay, Skyping etc – as if it were another,
different civilisation –
then
approach it with a thorough phenomenologcal
analysis. Kant (or Jesus or
Aristotle) can’t walk a mile in our cybershoes. It
seems we can’t 'go
home
again' to the land of traditional ethics as the
paradigms and
parameters (as
per Thomas Kuhn) have changed and are constantly
changing. i.e.
netiquette is of
a different informational order/category to real
world etiquette.
Snowden’s
‘theft' is of a different order to the felony of
pilfering material
property.
Wikileaks activity is, from within the cyberworld,
not stealing secrets
but
enabling access and devolving control – a positive
social and communal
and
informational good." [M. Holgate,
personal communication,
January 15, 2014]
19.“Yes 'earth' has become
the focus rather
than 'cosmos' or 'galaxy' or 'universe' – linking
cosmopolitanism with
nature
(as the Stoics did) and world allows an
environmental activism grounded
in
shared bios, psyche,
nous and being.
We have access to social, cultural and spiritual
affinities as well as
to the
resources of ‘the planet’. Today the dummification
of our mental world
is as
much of a threat to civilisation as the pollution
of our physical
earth.” (J. Holgate, personal communication,
January 15, 2014).
20. I have used the English
translation by Mary J. Gregor (Kant, 1996).
For the German text
see Kant 1975a, 9.
21. For the German Text see Kant 1975b, 5.
22.
“This opens up the
role of reading (as individuation) and the
psyche, privacy and individualism which is the
Renaissance legacy.
Digital
epistemology adopts scanning and browsing and
non-linear apprehension
as its
modus operandi rather than the traditional
communion with print books
and texts
– once the mark of the cosmopolitan scholar. Is
computer and
information
literacy now a prerequisite for digital
cosmopolitanism? Are desktop
dexterity,
multitasking and parallel processing required
skills of the Digital
Renaissance
Man? The World of Readers has become what? A list
of subscribers to
Amazon or
Google Books? And the digital divide is not just
between people but is
located
within our own brain hemispheres as we switch
between print and online
forms of
'reading' experience.” (J.
Holgate, personal communication, January 15,
2014).
I
would like to
add that the role of writing and
the
writing experience change no less dramatically in
the cyberworld. See
note 36.
23. "Your descriptin of universal hospitality and
cosmopolitan
law/citizenship is very similar to he sole impetus
of the TOR project:
The ability to write without fear of repression,
the invention of a
space uncensorable to any state" (J. Holgate,
personal communication,
January 15, 2014). See https://www.torproject.org/
24. For the
relation
among "intellectual beings" Kant uses different
words such as
"systematische Verbindung,", "Verknüpfung,"
"Beziehung" as well as
"Glied" (member, link). the word "kingdom of ends"
("Reich der Zwecke")
is built in parallel to the "kingdom of nature"
("Reich der Natur").
25. Habermas, 1995, p. 11 (my translation).
26. See Capurro (2003).
27. The Good
Samaritan parable
summarises Christian
cosmopolitanism. The opposing forces of national
sovereignty, nimbyism,
racism
and greed (particularly in Australia towards
foreigners arriving by
boat) tend
to control the agenda. Is the digital world of
cyberspace and social
media
intrinsically any more 'sharing caring' or
hospitable than the 'real
world' in
its emphasis on networking connectivity and
sharing of resources (Open
Source,
EFF, Linux etc.)? Or are its denizens lost in
solipsistic code-cutting,
online
gaming, Ipod music, cybersex and Facebook selfies
like the Eloi, the
childlike narcissistic
hippies of Wells' Time Machine who prove powerless
and unable to be
hospitable
to or protect the Internet Traveller? Meanwhile
the
Morlocks control the global economy (J. Holgate,
personal
communication, January 15, 2014).
28. See also Capurro (2007).
29. See Capurro (2007, 2008a), Capurro et al.
(2012a and 2013) and
Hongladarom & Ess (2007).
30. Aristotle, Met. VII, 1028a ("to on legetai
pollachos").
31. See Capuro (2006, 2008b) and Capurro et al.
(2012a and 2013).
32. See http://www.cgcer.ualberta.ca/. See also
Gasser and
Zittrain (2013).
33. For Shultz (2013) the concept of global
citizenship is a code for
thinking decolonizing educational relationships. See
UNESCO 2013 and
Grossmann (2013) and the Centre for Governance and
Citizenship. The
Hong Kong
Institute for Education. See also the concepts
of smart cities and
smart citizens (Rack 2013).
34. Capurro & Holgate (2011): "Yes but
third-order phenomenology
emphasising experiencing and communicating
angeletically beyong
hermeneutic interpretation. We must throw ourselves
into the 'Abrund
der Digitalität' [abyss of digitality] and
experience its forms of
'be-ing' in that world. WE have to walk (and
sometimes run) along the
paths of thinking to discover the open spaces" (J.
Holgate, personal
communication, January 15, 2014).
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