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World We Want
More and more, as the globe turns into a billboard for corporate propagation, the nature of citizenship is becoming skewed. For the cellphone-brandishing inhabitants of a world carved up into markets and territories determined by production and consumption, transcending the traditional boundaries of nation-states, what does it mean to be a citizen?
272 pages, Paperback
First published November 27, 2001
5 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
About the author
Mark Kingwell
62 books57 followersMark Gerald Kingwell B.A, M.Litt, M.Phil, PhD, D.F.A. (born March 1, 1963) is a Canadian philosopher who is currently professor of philosophy and associate chair at the University of Toronto's Department of Philosophy. Kingwell is a fellow of Trinity College and a Senior Fellow of Massey College. He specialises in theories of politics and culture.
Kingwell has published twelve different books, most notably, A Civil Tongue: Justice, Dialogue, and the Politics of Pluralism, which was awarded the Spitz Prize for political theory in 1997. In 2000 Kingwell received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, for contributions to theory and criticism. He has held visiting posts at various institutions including: Cambridge University, University of California at Berkeley, and City University of New York where he held the title of Weissman Distinguished Professor of Humanities.
He studied at the University of Toronto, editing The Varsity through 1983 to 1984 and the University of Toronto Review from 84-85. He received his BA degree from the University of St. Michael's College with High Distinction in 1985, his MLitt degree from Edinburgh University in 1987, and both his M.Phil and PhD degrees from Yale University in 1989 and 1991 respectively. He was married to Gail Donaldson in 1988. The marriage ended in divorce in 2004.
Kingwell is a contributing editor to Harper's Magazine, the literary quarterly Descant, the political monthly This Magazine and the Globe and Mail books section. He was also a drinks columnist for the men's magazine Toro. He was formerly a columnist for the National Post, and a contributing editor of Saturday Night. He frequently appears on television and radio, often on the CBC, and is well known for his appearance in the documentary film The Corporation. He has delivered, among others, the George Grant, Harold Innis, Marx Wartofsky and Larkin-Stuart memorial lectures.
Kingwell’s work has been translated into ten languages, and he lectures to academic and popular audiences around the world. From 2001 to 2004, he was chair of the Institute for Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum. His work on philosophy, art, and architecture has appeared in many leading academic journals and magazines, including The Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Forum, Ethics, Political Theory, and the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, the New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, Utne Reader, Adbusters, the Walrus, Harvard Design Magazine,Canadian Art, Azure, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, and the National Post.
Kingwell is one of two University of Toronto professors teaching a first year philosophy course entitled Introduction to Philosophy. Kingwell teaches his class in Victoria College's Isabel Bader Theatre, with a class size of around 700 students. He has also been part of the University of Trinity College's TrinityOne program, for which he taught a seminar class entitled Ethics and the Creative Imagination.
He describes himself as a social democrat and a "recovering Catholic". According to the Canadian Who's Who 2006, he also enjoys running, baseball, basketball, jazz, films and pop music. He has two brothers: a younger brother named Sean Kingwell and an older brother named Steven Kingwell.
Kingwell has published twelve different books, most notably, A Civil Tongue: Justice, Dialogue, and the Politics of Pluralism, which was awarded the Spitz Prize for political theory in 1997. In 2000 Kingwell received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, for contributions to theory and criticism. He has held visiting posts at various institutions including: Cambridge University, University of California at Berkeley, and City University of New York where he held the title of Weissman Distinguished Professor of Humanities.
He studied at the University of Toronto, editing The Varsity through 1983 to 1984 and the University of Toronto Review from 84-85. He received his BA degree from the University of St. Michael's College with High Distinction in 1985, his MLitt degree from Edinburgh University in 1987, and both his M.Phil and PhD degrees from Yale University in 1989 and 1991 respectively. He was married to Gail Donaldson in 1988. The marriage ended in divorce in 2004.
Kingwell is a contributing editor to Harper's Magazine, the literary quarterly Descant, the political monthly This Magazine and the Globe and Mail books section. He was also a drinks columnist for the men's magazine Toro. He was formerly a columnist for the National Post, and a contributing editor of Saturday Night. He frequently appears on television and radio, often on the CBC, and is well known for his appearance in the documentary film The Corporation. He has delivered, among others, the George Grant, Harold Innis, Marx Wartofsky and Larkin-Stuart memorial lectures.
Kingwell’s work has been translated into ten languages, and he lectures to academic and popular audiences around the world. From 2001 to 2004, he was chair of the Institute for Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum. His work on philosophy, art, and architecture has appeared in many leading academic journals and magazines, including The Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Forum, Ethics, Political Theory, and the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, the New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, Utne Reader, Adbusters, the Walrus, Harvard Design Magazine,Canadian Art, Azure, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, and the National Post.
Kingwell is one of two University of Toronto professors teaching a first year philosophy course entitled Introduction to Philosophy. Kingwell teaches his class in Victoria College's Isabel Bader Theatre, with a class size of around 700 students. He has also been part of the University of Trinity College's TrinityOne program, for which he taught a seminar class entitled Ethics and the Creative Imagination.
He describes himself as a social democrat and a "recovering Catholic". According to the Canadian Who's Who 2006, he also enjoys running, baseball, basketball, jazz, films and pop music. He has two brothers: a younger brother named Sean Kingwell and an older brother named Steven Kingwell.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 3, 2018
My first reading of this book was just after it appeared, but I have been induced to read it again by the bizarre situation we find our world in today, and some of the events that flow from this, events that were unimaginable just a few years ago.
The World We Want is an astonishing and uplifting analysis of a world most of us will recognize only too clearly, populated by people referred to as ‘citizens’ but who might individually not have a clear idea of the meaning of that term, and who collectively might have very different understandings of it. The book deals, on several levels, with politics, virtue, and expectations. These relate to the world we have and the reasons why we find ourselves in that world. But they also relate to the world we want, the concepts that define that world and what it might look like, and the constraints that prevent us from going there. The book’s subtitle indicates that a good deal of the discussion in the text centres on the roles of individuals in bringing about and inhabiting the world we want.
Along the way, Kingwell examines the views of some important heavyweights who have been concerned, during their times, with a world nearer the heart’s desire. These people include Plato, Aristotle, Montaigne, and Machiavelli. Kingwell does an admirable job of analysing the views of these individuals, identifying where those views are applicable to the complex Western democratic societies of today, where they are not applicable and why.
A number of the areas Kingwell discusses are worth noting at some length.
In his discussion of “citizen”, Kingwell lists seven ‘roles’ that any “citizen” will necessarily adopt, in some way and at some level. These are:
Inquirers: seeking the truth about our lives and the universe in which we live
Moral Agents: seeking to discern, do, and defend what we consider the right thing
Householders and Consumers: involved in a daily round of eating, dwelling, and entertaining
Workers or Economic Agents: engaging in the labour that makes dwelling possible
Cultural Beings: who enjoy the fruits of human creativity in everything from staged performances and recorded music to the pictures we hang on our walls or the television we watch and books we read
Intimates: creators of love and emotional connection in our relationships with our friends and families.
Then there is the seventh role, which could be defined as
Politics: something that pervades every aspect of life as lived by a citizen.
The discussion of vices and virtues is central to the book, and as well as the worthies already mentioned, Kingwell calls on the views of more modern and very distinguished philosophers, particularly Walter Benjamin, John Rawls, Alasdair MacIntyre and Judith Sklar. All the views of these various people come together in the discussion of the three kinds of challenge that Kingwell envisages in the context of The World We Have and The World We Want. Kingwell states that these challenges must be acknowledged and dealt with if we are to make specific political virtues viable. The challenges are:
1. The temptation to ask too much of citizens, by identifying private and public virtue too closely. He calls this the Aristotelian Challenge.
2. The temptation to hold politics to a perversely negative standard, as in some forms of nasty political realism. This he calls the Machiavellian Challenge.
3. The temptation of aloof moral purity, which simply rules political necessity out of moral court. This is the Christian Challenge.
In addition to this, Kingwell describes a problem and a dilemma.
The problem he calls Machiavelli’s Problem, and he describes it as “the relation between gentleness and integrity, virtues in the private lives of persons, and the hardness and deceit that seem to be necessary in government and in the retention of power and effectiveness in public affairs”.
The dilemma he calls Plato’s Dilemma, which he characterizes as “the dire choice between accepting rule by those less worthy and taking on the difficult business of ruling oneself”.
A good deal of time is spent in the book on the vices and virtues of politicians versus those of citizens. There is some overlap but there are many differences and Kingwell tries to characterize this situation using two provisional lists, one for citizens, and one for politicians. The characteristics in these lists are reproduced here.
Citizen Politician
love of self love of honour
civility courage
decency prudence
fairness compromise
limited self-interest opportunism
suspicion appropriate ruthlessness
tolerance charisma
reasonableness unsentimentality
sensitivity sensitivity
respect respect
The differences between these two lists is significant, as is the fact that the last two entries in both lists are identical.
The main Sections 2, 3, and 4 in the book lead up to the final section, in which Kingwell writes more specifically about “the world we want”. Sections 2, 3, and 4 represent a vigorous and invigorating revue over a couple of millennia of ideas on citizenship, the people who promoted various of those ideas, and which are relevant to us today and why. In the final Section 5 of the book, Kingwell moves to his finale. Those hoping for any sort of paint-by-numbers formula on how to get to the world we want, will be disappointed. The route Kingwell has chosen is really the only one possible. He spends the majority of the final section writing about things that deliver value, and things that don’t, and given that the book was published in 2001 the information cited is somewhat dated. But that doesn’t matter. The book ends in a handful of suggestions that Kingwell describes as “neither banal nor unrealistic”, and these suggestions propose some actions everybody can take and which will operate to deliver the sorts of everyday value that can lead to the world we want.
“The World We Want” can be read at a fairly high level, it can be read closely, or it can be studied minutely. A great deal of information has been compressed into the text, while keeping that information accessible. “Accessible” here does not mean that things have been dumbed down to the point where a casual scan will allow one to tank up on the wisdom of the ages. Nothing important is that simple. So any reading of “The World We Want” needs to be intelligent and focused. Approached on that basis, I expect that anybody will be able to find insights on practically every page. As I write this (2018), there has perhaps never been a time in recent decades when the need for material of this sort has been more acute, or when there has been greater urgency for understanding what being a citizen involves.
The World We Want is an astonishing and uplifting analysis of a world most of us will recognize only too clearly, populated by people referred to as ‘citizens’ but who might individually not have a clear idea of the meaning of that term, and who collectively might have very different understandings of it. The book deals, on several levels, with politics, virtue, and expectations. These relate to the world we have and the reasons why we find ourselves in that world. But they also relate to the world we want, the concepts that define that world and what it might look like, and the constraints that prevent us from going there. The book’s subtitle indicates that a good deal of the discussion in the text centres on the roles of individuals in bringing about and inhabiting the world we want.
Along the way, Kingwell examines the views of some important heavyweights who have been concerned, during their times, with a world nearer the heart’s desire. These people include Plato, Aristotle, Montaigne, and Machiavelli. Kingwell does an admirable job of analysing the views of these individuals, identifying where those views are applicable to the complex Western democratic societies of today, where they are not applicable and why.
A number of the areas Kingwell discusses are worth noting at some length.
In his discussion of “citizen”, Kingwell lists seven ‘roles’ that any “citizen” will necessarily adopt, in some way and at some level. These are:
Inquirers: seeking the truth about our lives and the universe in which we live
Moral Agents: seeking to discern, do, and defend what we consider the right thing
Householders and Consumers: involved in a daily round of eating, dwelling, and entertaining
Workers or Economic Agents: engaging in the labour that makes dwelling possible
Cultural Beings: who enjoy the fruits of human creativity in everything from staged performances and recorded music to the pictures we hang on our walls or the television we watch and books we read
Intimates: creators of love and emotional connection in our relationships with our friends and families.
Then there is the seventh role, which could be defined as
Politics: something that pervades every aspect of life as lived by a citizen.
The discussion of vices and virtues is central to the book, and as well as the worthies already mentioned, Kingwell calls on the views of more modern and very distinguished philosophers, particularly Walter Benjamin, John Rawls, Alasdair MacIntyre and Judith Sklar. All the views of these various people come together in the discussion of the three kinds of challenge that Kingwell envisages in the context of The World We Have and The World We Want. Kingwell states that these challenges must be acknowledged and dealt with if we are to make specific political virtues viable. The challenges are:
1. The temptation to ask too much of citizens, by identifying private and public virtue too closely. He calls this the Aristotelian Challenge.
2. The temptation to hold politics to a perversely negative standard, as in some forms of nasty political realism. This he calls the Machiavellian Challenge.
3. The temptation of aloof moral purity, which simply rules political necessity out of moral court. This is the Christian Challenge.
In addition to this, Kingwell describes a problem and a dilemma.
The problem he calls Machiavelli’s Problem, and he describes it as “the relation between gentleness and integrity, virtues in the private lives of persons, and the hardness and deceit that seem to be necessary in government and in the retention of power and effectiveness in public affairs”.
The dilemma he calls Plato’s Dilemma, which he characterizes as “the dire choice between accepting rule by those less worthy and taking on the difficult business of ruling oneself”.
A good deal of time is spent in the book on the vices and virtues of politicians versus those of citizens. There is some overlap but there are many differences and Kingwell tries to characterize this situation using two provisional lists, one for citizens, and one for politicians. The characteristics in these lists are reproduced here.
Citizen Politician
love of self love of honour
civility courage
decency prudence
fairness compromise
limited self-interest opportunism
suspicion appropriate ruthlessness
tolerance charisma
reasonableness unsentimentality
sensitivity sensitivity
respect respect
The differences between these two lists is significant, as is the fact that the last two entries in both lists are identical.
The main Sections 2, 3, and 4 in the book lead up to the final section, in which Kingwell writes more specifically about “the world we want”. Sections 2, 3, and 4 represent a vigorous and invigorating revue over a couple of millennia of ideas on citizenship, the people who promoted various of those ideas, and which are relevant to us today and why. In the final Section 5 of the book, Kingwell moves to his finale. Those hoping for any sort of paint-by-numbers formula on how to get to the world we want, will be disappointed. The route Kingwell has chosen is really the only one possible. He spends the majority of the final section writing about things that deliver value, and things that don’t, and given that the book was published in 2001 the information cited is somewhat dated. But that doesn’t matter. The book ends in a handful of suggestions that Kingwell describes as “neither banal nor unrealistic”, and these suggestions propose some actions everybody can take and which will operate to deliver the sorts of everyday value that can lead to the world we want.
“The World We Want” can be read at a fairly high level, it can be read closely, or it can be studied minutely. A great deal of information has been compressed into the text, while keeping that information accessible. “Accessible” here does not mean that things have been dumbed down to the point where a casual scan will allow one to tank up on the wisdom of the ages. Nothing important is that simple. So any reading of “The World We Want” needs to be intelligent and focused. Approached on that basis, I expect that anybody will be able to find insights on practically every page. As I write this (2018), there has perhaps never been a time in recent decades when the need for material of this sort has been more acute, or when there has been greater urgency for understanding what being a citizen involves.
Displaying 1 of 1 review