Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism's Beginnings in Ancient Greece

Cosmopolitanism's roots are in Cynicism, a school of philosophy whose followers rigorously challenged the norms and values of ancient Greece and classical Rome. The best representative of this position from the Cynics is Diogenes of Sinope. From his point of view, drastic measures were needed to push humanity beyond the intellectual and moral vacuum he perceived. He directed his [Page 147]efforts toward defacing culture, which he believed to be meaningless. Diogenes and the Cynics found unacceptable anything that could not be justified through reason —a line of thought picked up and carried forward by the Stoics immediately after the Cynics. Both schools believed that cultural norms and traditions—indeed, the whole concept of societies whose boundaries were drawn along arbitrary so-called cultural foundations—were unreasonable and therefore untenable.

Diogenes of Sinope acted individually to call attention to the irrational nature of cultural customs, believing it was his life's calling to do so. Little is known about him; the only source on his life is the biography written by Diogenes Laertius, who is also a shadowy character in ancient Greece. A legend about Diogenes of Sinope states that one of the oracles (versions of the story vary between the Delphic oracle and the Apollonian oracle) spoke to Diogenes about “defacing the currency.” Diogenes and his father worked for a time minting coins, and evidence suggests that Diogenes accepted the oracle's directive literally by defacing the money for which he was responsible. However, the significance of the legend also dictates that Diogenes took it upon himself to deface the political and cultural currency through philosophical commitment and practical action.

Diogenes enacted his philosophy in ways that may be considered extreme today. Believing that all cultural norms were arbitrary, unreasonable, and meaningless, he behaved in ways entirely opposite to those norms. From what is written in Laertius's biography and from other references to Diogenes the Cynic, his actions have been considered either profoundly thought-provoking or certifiably insane. Diogenes “the Dog” (Cynic) lived in a “tub,” or rain barrel, which was also the typical dwelling place of refugees from the Peloponnesian War. In that sense, his lived habits announced two important facets of his philosophy: first, that men ought to consider themselves to be citizens of no particular place, but of every place. In coining the term cosmopolitan, he was literally announcing a citizenship of the universe, a defacement of the idea of “citizen” in general. This was not meant to imply the ease of movement from place to place, multiple citizenships or affinities with other places, or comfort within the world. On the contrary, the second facet of his philosophy that the “tub dwelling” announces is his conviction that men needed very few material comforts in order to live. By living this way, he wanted to expose to other people the absurdity of their cultural identities.

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