Kosmopolites — World-Citizenship
This week you are going to learn about kosmopolites (pronounced koz-mo-POL-ih-tez), a Greek word meaning "citizen of the world." The Stoics used it to describe a person who recognizes that their deepest allegiance is not only to their family, city, or nation, but to the whole of humanity. That does not mean you stop caring for the people nearest to you; it means you understand that your circle of genuine concern does not stop at any border, and that understanding changes how you treat every person you meet.
Passage
Then, too, there are a great many degrees of closeness or remoteness in human society. To proceed beyond the universal bond of our common humanity, there is the closer one of belonging to the same people, tribe, and tongue, by which men are very closely bound together; it is a still closer relation to be citizens of the same city-state; for fellow-citizens have much in common — forum, temples colonnades, streets, statutes, laws, courts, rights of suffrage, to say nothing of social and friendly circles and diverse business relations with many. But a still closer social union exists between kindred. Starting with that infinite bond of union of the human race in general, the conception is now confined to a small and narrow circle.
— Cicero, On Duties 1.53
Reflection
Cicero now gives you a more detailed map of the same territory Hierocles sketched. Yes, there are many overlapping bonds: shared language, shared city, shared laws. These closer bonds are real and they do carry special weight. Kosmopolites does not ask you to pretend those differences do not exist or that closeness is meaningless. What it insists on is that the universal bond is the foundation on which all the smaller bonds rest. You are a fellow human being first, and a neighbor, colleague, or countryman second. The particular relationships get their moral force from the universal one, not the other way around.
Go deeper
In a relationship where you feel a strong particular bond, such as with a family member, colleague, or friend, how does remembering that person's universal humanity change the way you think about a current tension or disagreement with them?
Practice
Universal Before Particular
Before your next significant interaction today, whether a meeting, a phone call, or a conversation, take two minutes to say silently to yourself: 'This person is first a human being, and second whatever role they play for me.' Notice whether that thought changes anything in how the interaction unfolds.