This chapter examines cosmopolitan patriotism in the context of an early twentieth-century discussion about American civic identity among a cohort of liberal intellectuals, which have been divided into three ideal types, that is, “universalists,” “pluralists,” and “cosmopolitans.” Universalists denied the importance of national and cultural associations for individual development, while pluralists viewed culture as sine qua non of human life. Cosmopolitans rejected this dichotomizing, in conflict that life comprised endless negotiation between local, national, and international allegiances....

This chapter examines cosmopolitan patriotism in the context of an early twentieth-century discussion about American civic identity among a cohort of liberal intellectuals, which have been divided into three ideal types, that is, “universalists,” “pluralists,” and “cosmopolitans.” Universalists denied the importance of national and cultural associations for individual development, while pluralists viewed culture as sine qua non of human life. Cosmopolitans rejected this dichotomizing, in conflict that life comprised endless negotiation between local, national, and international allegiances. Beneath the universalist rhetoric of Deb lies a sympathy for local allegiances and national belonging that brought him in practical terms closer to Addams's and Dewey's cosmopolitanism than to the formulaic universalism of orthodox socialists.