Introduction 9in which the individual can feel intimately connected to his or her
environment without the distorting effects of technology and other
modern interferences.
Heidegger’s theoretical formulations have had a great influence on
contemporary philosophy, particularly in Continental Europe, but
also in the more unlikely sphere of postcolonial thought. As Harvey
points out, Uday Singh Mehta draws on Heidegger in his critique
of John Stuart Mill’s dismissal of local conditions and knowledge
systems (particularly those in postcolonial contexts).^26 H e i d e g g e r ’ s
postulations are also adopted by Bill Ashcroft in his celebrated work
(and staple of early postcolonial theory), The Empire Writes Back ,
when discussing the disorienting effects of migration.^27 O f c o u r s e ,
postcolonial criticism is, like cosmopolitanism, far from a unified
field of theoretical inquiry, and the examples above do not represent
the entire theoretical discipline. However, the fact that Mehta and
Ashcroft both use Heidegger in such a manner is of particular inter-
est and value to this book because it helps bring into sharper focus
some of cosmopolitanism’s defining theoretical features, which,
in contradistinction to Heidegger, include aversions to essentialist
notions of belonging and identity.
T he second stra in of cosmopolita n t houg ht t hat Ha r vey exa mines
concerns the field’s close association with universal human rights.
He argues that a number of high-profile cosmopolitan scholars have
sought to define the field’s sociopolitical remit entirely within a
liberal human-rights framework. Three theorists who come under
fire for this particular offence are Held, Ulrich Beck, and Appiah,
whom Harvey maintains are all too eager to reduce the problems
confounding the realization of cosmopolitan conciliation in the real
world to simplistic notions of cultural and religious intolerance. For
Harvey, the principal obstacles to universal cosmopolitan concilia-
tion are rooted in the large material (economic) disparities existing
within and between the majority of the world’s societies—obstacles
he charges Appiah with overlooking. He maintains that by fram-
ing the cosmopolitan discussion within such restricted parameters,
Appiah, in particular, “ends up supporting the liberal and neolib-
eral imperialist practices that reproduce class inequalities, while
soothing our nerves with respect to multicultural differences.”^28 F o r