cosmomasturpolitanism
Diogenes was a 4th century b. c. (died ca. 320 b.c.) Greek philosopher we depict as a scrawny white-hair and long-white-beard old man in a white cloak (as we generalize ancient Romans, Greeks, Arabs and other Semitic, Asiatic and African races) wandering around holding a lit lantern also in daylight, trying to find "MAN" (that is, a genuine human being with attributes and virtues worthy of the ideal "man" designation).
That is a censured and
sterilized version of how he really impressed the Greek public: he exposed
himself in the act of
masturbating ostentatiously in front of the most prominent place of an "agora" (public Greek
plaza) in crowded daylight time.
Asked why he dared such a lunatic display, he answered that masturbation was better for its
purpose than the
hope of curing the pang of hunger by just rubbing the belly.
He called himself a "cynic" philosopher, from "kynos" (Greek for "dog").
It was Diogenes' way of saying
that he wanted man to be a
truthful individual, as independent and not-affiliated to any community or group, such as
country, town, family, as a stray dog would be; and just as free to do whatever he pleased,
without fear.
Like stray dogs, men should also be without commitment to to anyone (individual,
group, organization, country...) free to gratify sexual and any other needs
without seeking approval or privacy. "Cynical": like dogs.
The true man was thus a world or universe ("cosmos") citizen ("polytikos"), a cosmopolitan by intention and default, with all the unforeseen and unintended unreal (utopian) consequences for generations and centuries to come...
Cosmopolitanism promises to be multicultural and therefore ideally "liberal", according to believers...
It would be the realization of the peaceful coexistence of the most disparate cultures, customs and beliefs, as it was in Rome for at least 1300 years, from the eighth century b. c. to at least the fifth a. d. and beyond...
The German Immanuel Kant (1724-1804 a. d.), considered as the watershed between the "old" (Aristotelian) and the "modern" philosophy, came up with the discouraging conclusion that cosmopolitanism was a chaotic utopia of hopeless collisions between the most contradictory and murderously opposing customs, religions, ideals, ethnic postures and interests, most fighting to the death and total destruction of the opponents (or vice versa).
We are experiencing now one of
the most serious clashes in human history: presumably the finally open confrontation
between Islam and the West, which could be justly defined as the fateful
confrontation between barbarism and civilization.
It menaces to be a death/life
struggle, which can no longer be hidden
behind euphemisms.
But then, how could the Romans have made the impossible possible by making a multicultural and multi-religious empire last far over a millennium?
Simple after-the-fact : the different cultures and ethnic groups were unified in three common
traits:
(1) Roman citizenship after assimilation, (2) common worship of the
"goddess" Roma (which later was substituted by Christianity) by adherents to any other
religion (all religions were allowed in Rome, as long as they were not anti-Roman) in full freedom, without renouncing their own
faith, and (3) Latin as the common legal, bureaucratic, commercial and
diplomatic language and "lingua franca" even after the fall of the
West Roman Empire) until well into the 15th or 16th century a. d.
The first serious episode of
incurable incompatibility with the Roman unifying system was the bellicose
defiance of the Jews of Judea (approximately where Palestine is today) from the
Masada (Hebrew for "fortress") 600 by 300 meter impregnable fortress, on top of
a very steep cliff emerging 450 meters above the Dead Sea on one side and 100
meters above the terrain on the opposite side.
In 66 a. d., a group of Jewish rebels attacked and occupied the Masada Roman
garrison. Soon thereafter, approximately 1000 zealots (religious fanatic Jewish
militants) and their families took possession of the place and started raiding
the Romans for 2 years from there, until the Roman governor Flavius Silva sent
the Tenth Legion to reoccupy the Masada in 73 a.d.
The siege was difficult and long, with heroism and slaughter on both sides.
In the spring of 74 a. d., the Romans finally overran the fortress, but found that the zealots and their families, led by Eleazar ben Ya'ir, had committed an organized mass suicide (that is still 0nly an assumption, because no archeologic investigation found more than 30-40 bodies), rather than surrender (surrender was all that the Romans wanted).
The Jews were utterly unable or unwilling to partake in the general advantages of the Roman
Empire community primarily because of three characteristics of their religion:
(1) their first Commandment could not allow them to worship also other gods, such as Dea Roma; (2) their non-proselytizing rules isolated them from any other
community as the odiously prejudiced "chosen people": (3) their ruthless rule,
"tooth for a tooth, eye for an eye" allowed the Jews to consider any
unfriendly activity by
non-Jews as an unforgivable offence that required and justified any vengeance in
cycles without end for generations and generations....
The Muslim religion was also a
Semitic folklore-conditioned faith that fit in the endless cycles of violence
and war endemic in the nomad Arab Bedouin tribes.
The rule of killing or
enslaving any "infidel" who didn't convert to Islam was just as arbitrary and
ruthless as fit on warlike predatory desert cameleers.
The Christian "love thy enemy" became (at least ideologically) the solution to break any cycle of
vengeance, no matter how guilty any party was...
[under construction]
Please click here to send a comment or suggestion
040425