Cosmopolite (pronounced koz-mop-uh-lahyt)
(1) A person cosmopolitan in their ideas, lifestyle, etc;
one who is at home in every place; a citizen of the world; a cosmopolitan
person.
(2) In biology, an animal or plant of worldwide
distribution; having a wide geographical distribution.
(3) An alternative word for cosmopolitan (now rare to the
point of being probably misleading).
(4) In lepidopterology, the painted lady butterfly (Vanessa
cardui); the use restricted mostly to the US.
(5) In cultural anthropology, oriented, exposed to or open to ideas and influences outside one's own social system or group.
1590-1600: From the French cosmopolite (man of the world; citizen of the world), from the Latin cosmopolītēs from the Koine Greek κοσμοπολίτης (kosmopolítēs), (citizen of the world), the construct being the Ancient Greek κόσμος (kósmos) (world) + πολίτης (polítēs) (citizen (the pólis a “city or state)) + -ītēs (the noun forming suffix denoting adherence to someone or some school of thought. The -ite suffix was from the French -ite, from the Old French, from the Latin -ītēs, from the Ancient Greek -ῑ́της (-ī́tēs). It had a wide application including (1) the formation of nouns denoting the followers or adherents of a individual, doctrine or movement etc, (2) the formation of nouns denoting descendants of a certain historic (real or mythical) figure (widely used of biblical identities), (3) the formations of demonyms, (4) in geology the formation of nouns denoting rocks or minerals, (5) in archeology, the formation of nouns denoting fossil organisms, (6) in biology & pathology to form nouns denoting segments or components of the body or an organ of the body, (7) in industry & commerce to form nouns denoting the product of a specified process or manufactured product & (8) in chemistry to form names of certain chemical compounds (historically especially salts or esters of acids with names with the suffix -ous. Cosmopolite and cosmopolitism are nouns; the noun plural is cosmopolites.
Cosmopolite was in common use in the seventeenth century
but faded from used until a revival in the early 1800s though the use then was
often derogatory (in the sense of hinting at a lack of patriotism towards one’s
own state), a sense which has endured in instances such as comrade Stalin’s
(1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) description of the Jews as “rootless cosmopolitans”
and the critique of elites by those of the anti-globalist movement (and others)
as “anywhere” people (as opposed to “somewhere” people” with a specific
attachment to a nation-state.).
In the milieu of the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) which
convened to re-establish the primacy and stability of the nation-states after
Napoleon’s Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic
1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815) supra-natural
project was thwarted, the adjective cosmopolitan emerged in 1815. It convey the sense of “one free from local,
provincial, or national prejudices and attachments” and was an explicit
development of cosmopolite (citizen of the world) on model of metropolitan (one
who lives in a city). In academic use
(notably the embryonic discipline of sociology), by 1833 it meant “belonging to
all parts of the world, limited to no place or society” and this was extended
in political discourse by 1840 to “composed of people of all nations; multi-ethnic”
although it seems to have been racially exclusive in application, the notion of
a cosmopolitan then usually white. The
adoption as the title of the US women's magazine in 1886 was capitalism using
the word in the elitist sense the publication’s buyers would thing a positive
association.
Modern cosmopolite Lindsay Lohan wandering our little spot in the cosmos: Istanbul, Nice, Los Angeles & Mykonos (top row), Dubai, Athens, London & Tokyo (middle row) and Washington DC, Melbourne, New York & Venice (bottom row).
Although the idea of radical cosmopolitanism is assumed
by many to be a modern concept and one associated with the implications of
globalism and neo-liberalism, its antecedents long pre-date the thoughts of
comrade Stalin or even the nineteenth century nationalists. Cosmopolitanism as an expression of human
unity was a feature of the philosophy of the Stoics of Antiquity, from Cleanthes
(circa 330-circa 230 BC) & Seneca the Younger (circa 4 BC–65) to Cicero (106–43
BC) but long before them, there were the Cynics. Diogenes the Kynic (from kyon & kynos (dog))
(circa 404-323 BC) was the founder of school and identified as a kosmopolitē on
the basis of a rejection of the vanities of life: wealth, luxury and all that
was not essential for mere survival. The
cosmopolism of the Cynics was an expression that the earthly, natural world
provided all that was needed for a simple, satisfied life, thus Diogenes,
except for his own existence, commanded nothing and owned nothing, living
(according to the legend) in an upturned storage jar. The life of the Cynics was thus simple but as
unappealing to most Greeks as it would be to modern tastes, Diogenes’
explanation that the ability to manifest a non-coercive, emancipatory power
(the power to control oneself) was a gift attainable only if worldly goods and
ambitions were forsaken persuaded few.
Diogenes (1860), oil on canvas by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904).
Diogenes here is depicted in his “home” (an upturned earthenware
tub in the Metroon, Athens). He’s lighting
the lamp in daylight with which it was his habit (later abandoned as futile) to
wander the streets looking for “an honest man”, his companions the dogs which
became emblematic of the Cynic’s (from the Greek kynikos (dog-like)) philosophy of an austere existence.
In his time though, he was a celebrity philosopher and
though the tale may be apocryphal, the historian Plutarch claimed even an intrigued
Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great, 356-323 BC), no stranger to the
lure of wealth and power, sought a meeting.
When he visited Diogenes at Corinth, Alexander offered to grant the
(doubtlessly scruffy and even dirty) Cynic any wish he’d care to make, the king receiving the famous reply: "Move away, you're blocking my sun". That’s always been thought a
demonstration of the striking autonomy enjoyed by the Cynics, “sovereign
spirits” living an authentic life free from the intimidation and coercion of
others or even their own unworthy desires.
Asked where it was from which he came, Diogenes is said to have replied:
“I am a cosmopolite, a citizen of the cosmos”. From that fragment of Cynical thought came not
only the word cosmopolitan but the core of its meaning which endures still, the
individual around whom moves the world from which the individual takes what he
needs, the assertions of kings, nations and states that their sovereignty exists
over spaces through which an individual may travel either unnoticed or ignored
as irrelevant. However impractical as a
mode of existence in a civilized society, the internal logic is perfect because,
the cosmopolite being a citizen of the cosmos (the universe), it’s possible to recognize
it’s only the universal which deserves priority.
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