Empathy as Pragmatism: Facing the Challenges of Globalization in a Polarized World
I am not predisposed to scholarship written in an idealistic register. For many contemporary thinkers—in most any field—greater insight into modern political trends gravitationally pulls one toward cynicism. Some of this very cynicism encircles debates in international law that question whether idealism itself has been unwittingly complicit in bringing about the world of ever-growing inequality and retreating democratization now often centerpiece in global legal scholarship.
As such, I was not predisposed to like Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters. I had long read with interest the scholarship of its two authors, Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp, whose previous work has rarely been overtly optimistic about the international legal order. But Six Faces is an idealistic book to its very core and premise. Moreover, in working through a book of great ambition and intellectual agility, it is invariable to find points of disagreement, even discomfort, among its diverse insights. Yet, what is most striking about Six Faces is that throughout you can feel the authors’ dedication to finding a constructive way to be publicly facing international academics when most public spaces are thoroughly polarized and rife with contempt. It is in this reading that I found it both provocative and challenging. Continue reading "Empathy as Pragmatism: Facing the Challenges of Globalization in a Polarized World"
