Their FW is anti-cosmopolitan – commitment to openness requires evaluating consequences and rejecting the frame of mutual exclusivity

Cosmopolitanism requires people to risk the disapproval of their own groups, and to try and act as bridges between groups, even though they risk being misunderstood on both sides with resulting exile or violence. This is a lot to ask. The solidity of the social categories in play may need to be challenged as, in reality, there may be considerable fuzziness, overlap, intermarriage and so on, which may weaken desired social categories if recognised. This is again difficult to do without offence, as it may challenge ingroup status and relationships. In a company you might break the silos, as Tett states (2015, pp. 246ff.), by moving people between them, but that is difficult in a democratic society, with no recognised neutral actors, and may be interpreted as an attack on culture, which it could well be. Similarly, it will be difficult to set up any information coordination between groups, or to keep boundaries between groups permeable and flexible, if groups have been busy separating.

Peckham implies (1979) that some of these problems can be overcome by people working together on a material project. Material nature and consequences can force people to check whether their intended meaning has been received, and to learn how to correct misunderstandings. Relative equality, so counter information is not penalised, may also help. Perhaps, as suggested by Sloman & Fernbach (2017) it can be useful to ask people to explain how various policy ideas would actually work as this helps open people to their relative ignorance, and can soften political extremism and certainty. It might also be useful to deliberately explore the unintended consequences of policies and actions. An understanding of complexity may also prove useful in stopping expectations that there will be an end to the processes of communication, action, change and cosmopolitan action.