UPSC CSAT : Reading Comprehension Home Exercise- 16 PASSAGE B

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Monday, 30 March 2015

Reading Comprehension Home Exercise- 16 PASSAGE B

 “ Rootless cosmopolitans” was the belittling label that Stalinists applied to Jewish intellectuals during the Soviet purges; and although the American academy is neither Stalinist nor anti- Semitic, there ahs  for the past twenty  years been a good deal of argument between the enthusiasts for roots and the defenders of cosmopolitanism. Writers such as Harvard’s Michael Sandal and the London School of Economics’ John Gray have contrasted the  rootless condition of cosmopolitan liberalism with the rootedness of traditional societies elsewhere in the world and of our own society at various times in the past, invariably to the disadvantage of liberalism.  

Secptics have thought the contrast was overdone, and historically minded skeptics
Have pointed out that Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill would have been deeply astonished to be told that a concern for community was incompatible with a concern for individuality. If asked whether they wanted us to have deep attachments- to our friends, families, towns or villages , resigns, and nations, with their particular histories and quirks- or whether they wanted us to pursue our individual intimations of the good life, drawing on the resources of the whole world and the whole of human culture, they would certainly have answered “both” .

The Ethics of identity offers a defense of the “rooted cosmopolitanism” that Anthony Appian thinks that liberals are really committed to. It does a great a great deal more than that, but its central theme is that no sane person supposes that a commitment to liberal individualism implies that we are to construct our lives of absolutely nothing, any more than a sane person supposes that poetic originality requires that the poet should abjure the use of all known languages when she sets out to write. Conversely, the liberal individualist is cosmopolitan to the extern that she thinks that we can find the ingredients for an interesting life in more than one place, more than one culture and that a decent respect for what we have one place, more than one culture, and that a decent respect for what we have inherited is consent with a wish to do something novel with it.

“cosmopolitanism” is in many ways a slightly inapt term to cover everything that is at stake; one need to think of oneself as a citizen of the entire world in any literal sense to believe that what people should do with their lives should not be dictated- morally, logically or physically- by where, and into what family, ethnos, or nation, they were born. Nor does the fact that one thinks that different persons families, cultures, and nations can learn from one another imply that such lessons should be imposed by brute force upon the unwilling. Still, cosmopolitanism in by no means a wholly inapt term in a world of contending nationalism, where it is far from easy to persuade either citizens or their leaders that  nations have much to learn from one another.

Nobody is better placed than Anthony Appiah to make the case for rooted cosmopolitanism. His father, Joe Appiah, was a leading figure in the independence movement that saw the former Gold Coast colony become Ghana in 1957; within a few years his father was in jail along with most of President Nkrumah’s former allies. Anthony Appiah’s mother, Peggy Cripps, is the daughter of the famously austere sir Stafford Cripps- a barrister like his son-in-law jow and the Labour Bertrand Russell. Anthony Appiah is the child of aristocratic radicals and, like Russell; he acquired not only the habit of intellectual independence but an enviable intellectual elegance into the bargain.

He was a child in Ghana, a teenager at an English boarding school, an English boarding school, an undergraduate and graduate student at Cambridge. His career thereafter has been in the United States; at Cornell, Duke, Harvard, and Princeton. In short, he is a man of multiple identities; by nationality Ghanian and British, and an American citizen, by profession not only a philosopher but a novelist: he is more literally an African-American than most people to whom that label is applied but politically much less inclined to identify with the label- or any other label- than many of his colleagues in Afro- American Studies. He is also gay. If anyone should have something interesting to say about identity, it is he.

5.       It can be inferred from the passage that
A.      John Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville had great concern for the society.
B.      Both John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville had great concern for the individual
C.      Both 1 and 2
D.      Neither 1 nor 2

6.       The author is primarily trying to discuss
A.      His review of a particular book
B.      The idea of rooted cosmopolitanism.
C.      His notion of cosmopolitanism
D.      The ethics of identity.

7.       Cosmopolitanism, as per the author ,is
A.      To some extent an inappropriate them.
B.      A degrading term for individual liberalists
A.      A  and B
B.      Only B
C.      Neither A nor B
D.      Only A

8.       What is the central theme of “The Ethics of identity?”
A.      Our commitment to liberal individualism does not imply that our lives will resolve around a vacuum.
B.      Poetic originality requires the creation of a new language.
C.      Either 1 or 2
D.      Neither 1 nor 4

9.       The author believes that
A.      Anthony Appiah is an interesting personality.
B.      Anthony Appiah is well- placed to write on identity.
C.      Anthony Appiah was responsible for popularizing the idea of cosmopolitanism
D.      Rooted cosmopolitans was an idea made hugely popular by the Stalinists

Answer:


5.       C     “…. They would certainly have answered “both”. Please refer back to the last few lines of the second paragraph.

6.       A     The opening lines of the third paragraph, along with the fact that the words are italicized amply support the idea.

7.       D      Please read the fourth paragraph to answer the question.

8.       A   “…. But its central theme is need that no sane person supposes that a commitment to liberal individualism implies that we are to construct our lives out of absolutely nothing…”

9.       B   Refer to the last line of the last paragraph.
 

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