Cosmopolitanism

As a lifestyle, cosmopolitanism embraces, participates in, and combines the customs of several different cultures. The cosmopolitan is not tethered by local or national habits and prejudices. Rather, he or she welcomes encounters with those from different regions and aspires to fluidly navigate from one cultural context to another.

Cosmopolitanism has been achieved in disparate historical and geographical settings. The Ottoman Empire of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries encouraged the mingling of Northern African, Iberian, and Middle Eastern peoples. In the medieval period, Islamic scholars incorporated the works of ancient Greeks into their learning. Cities such as Istanbul became centers of trade and cosmopolitanism, even housing Freemasonry lodges in the nineteenth century.

At times, people may adapt a cosmopolitan way of life out of necessity as opposed to ideological conviction. Daniel M. Swetschinski's study of Portuguese Jews in the Netherlands of the seventeenth century recounts an historical setting in which members of a displaced ethnic group incorporated the customs of others. These "reluctant cosmopolitans," as Swetschinski calls them, became part of the flourishing Danish mercantilism. Landing in ports all throughout the Atlantic and Mediterranean, they interacted with multiple cultures while maintaining a Jewish identity.

Certain social groups are almost always associated with cosmopolitanism. Intellectuals, diplomats, creative artists, the wealthy, and merchants each to a certain extent maintain a lifestyle that might be described as cosmopolitan. Certainly since the time of the Enlightenment, academia has extended beyond local influence. Intellectual communities, in both the humanities and the sciences, collaborate and compete along disciplinary lines rather than national borders. Diplomats, by the very nature of their profession, must be charming in midst of profound cultural difference. Adaptability to unique settings and a thorough understanding of distinct worldviews qualify political emissaries. Visual, literary, and performing artists, as well as their patrons, have long displayed a fascination with exotic subjects and media. International movements within the arts often indicate the merging of traditionally distinct ideas and people-groups. Historically, though, one need not display any of the aforementioned skills to live a cosmopolitan life. A person might become a world citizen by possessing the means to travel extensively. By journeying to distant climes, speaking foreign languages, and acquiring and displaying exotic goods, the wealthy could be included among the ranks of other cosmopolitans.

However, perhaps more than any other social group, merchants have both exemplified cosmopolitan lifestyles and prompted others to do the same. With the emergence of global capitalism, traders and business people are regularly in contact with multiple cultures and ethnic groups. Transnational enterprise demands its participants be capable of interacting with diverse populations. Moreover, through the commodification of goods produced in foreign lands, merchants encourage consumers to desire nonindigenous wares.