Description
Book SynopsisLove discovers the reality' of individual human beings, wrote Iris Murdoch; love deifies' the person, wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. This book proposes love as a kind of civic virtue: that loving recognition' might function as a universal form of ethical engagement and inclusion. Loving recognition' is proposed as a civil practice that enshrines the individuality of human identity, overcoming the labels and classes of ethnicity, nationality, religiosity and social status.A particular understanding of love is suggested. Love as civic virtue is described as a complex comprising emotional attraction to a human being, together with discernment of the individual specificity of that human being, and also respect for that specificity: in a loving' engagement, the individuality of the other person is let be', given the space to subsist and encouraged to fulfil itself. Who is this beloved' other human being? It is Anyone. Loving recognition is universalizing. It not only insists on a human species-
Trade ReviewThis is a thoughtful and deeply passionate book about the civic virtues of mutual recognition. Through a series of nuanced reflections on cosmopolitanism, individuality and society, Rapport proposes to consider love as the principle virtue necessary for establishing a compassionate space for otherness. As such, Cosmopolitan Love and Individuality is classic Rapport but with a twist. With a novel-like prose, the book eloquently captures the conceptual, political and existential components of a cosmopolitanism that is anchored in the distinctive specificity of the Other. Rapport takes this discussion onto a new level, however, by boldly proposing that an integrative society of equals can only be formed through the emotional and compassionate engagement of love. -- Morten Nielsen, Denmark’s National Museum
Cosmopolitan Love and Individuality is the intellectual successor to Rapport’s 2012 Anyone, The Cosmopolitan Subject of Anthropology. In it, he rehearses what might be the motivation for taking up his formerly described politesse as general practice and for recognizing its virtue: the loving look. This book has all the hallmarks of Rapport’s intrepid thinking, chief of which is his dissatisfaction, even anxiety, over the entrapment we anthropologists tend to make of ourselves in classificatory thinking. Having long been one of our bravest thinkers, this book is a quest to loose ourselves from the classifications we all too often take to be realities of ‘culture,’ challenging us to look beyond our borders, and inviting us to visit with the promise of the loving. -- Simone Dennis, Australian National University
Table of ContentsChapter 1: Love as an answer? Chapter 2: An anthropology of love Chapter 3: Voices in a wider debate on love Chapter 4. The ontology of individuality and the symbology of society Chapter 5: Taking stock: Love, vision, category, moment Chapter 6: Empirical investigations: On Stanley Spencer and Phil Ward Chapter 7: Three possible ways to a universalized love Chapter 8: The British National Health Service Chapter 9: Historical overview Chapter 10: Contemporary treatments: Love today Chapter 11: Love’s devices Chapter 12: Loving recognition as a program
