Pierce: The Historical Significance of 'Cosmopolitan' as an Insult

[Hekate]

32. I caught that, too, and it floored me. "Rootless cosmopolite" goes back way before Stalin, iirc...

Last edited Thu Aug 3, 2017, 01:25 PM - Edit history (1)

It is an anti-Semitic insult rooted in the old "blood and soil" identity that plagued Europe for untold centuries, and was a backhanded way of pointing out that Jews, who were not legally allowed to own land, congregated in cities.

When people start waxing poetic and misty-eyed about the Fatherland and the Motherland, they are talking about who "really" belongs and who, by Heaven, does not. It's only a short step from that sweet sentimentality to a vodka-fueled pogrom.

I was furious when Dubya introduced "the Homeland" into the American lexicon, because while the earliest line of my family got here about 1620, we've been well-endowed by later immigrants all along the way. This is America, land of immigrants. My family is proud of that -- I used to believe my country was too.

Who handed "Homeland" to Dubya? I really don't think he has that kind of malice in him. I don't think he knows the company it keeps. The term "Homeland Security" makes my flesh crawl.

But I know who does have that kind of knowing malice: Steve Bannon and the alt-right, and now that self-hating Jew, Stephen Miller.