In this talk, recorded live in New York City, Dr. Jason D. Hill speaks about the negative effects of tribalism (defined as the personal identification with a group, culture, or race, joined with the belief that that group, culture, or race is superior to all others) on the evolution of modern society. In our post-modern culture, tribalism exerts its negative influence in the form of racism, nationalism, sexism, and ethnocentrism. More than just causing one human or group to dehumanize another, such unexamined attitudes deeply distort our understanding of right and wrong and have resulted in harm to humans and human culture on a par with the enormous ecological destruction brought about by the industrial age.
Hill's original antidote to this outmoded form of social organization is what he calls moral cosmopolitanism. At its heart, moral cosmopolitanism is a radical commitment to profound engagement with the “other”, and the understanding that our higher development as human beings literally hinges on our ability, individually and collectively, to cultivate, maintain—and be transformed—by such engagement. His authentic and original thinking come across with compelling urgency and eloquence in this Unbound presentation.
BIO
Jason D. Hill was born and raised in Jamaica and migrated to the United States in 1985 at the age of 20. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Purdue University in 1998. He is Associate Professor of philosophy at De Paul University in Chicago. His areas of specialization are in ethics and political philosophy, with a special passion reserved for human rights and cosmopolitanism.
He is the author of Becoming a Cosmopolitan: What it Means to be a Human Being in the New Millennium, an academic nonfiction book for a general readership published in 2000 by Rowman and Littlefield. Dr. Hill is also the author of numerous articles published in Salon, The Detroit News, Issues and Views, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, and Destiny Magazine. He has appeared on several radio and television programmes including Wisconsin, New York, Toronto, and Chicago public radio and NBC's Today Show as a commentator with host Mike Leonard.
Dr. Hill has extensive experience in writing for a large audience. His training has its roots in the harsh realities of international political journalism in Jamaica. After graduating from high school he began work there as a reporter at the largest newspaper in the Caribbean, The Gleaner. There he wrote feature stories, theatre, book and art reviews, hard news, and, when time permitted, he did some court reporting. As a result he has a no-nonsense, down to earth approach to writing. At the same time, this concreteness is always tempered by his passion for ideas and reverence for coherent theory. He has just completed his second book on cosmopolitanism, and is also working on another novel.
