World citizen: Encyclopedia II - World citizen - Overview

World citizen - Overview

The first people to identify themselves as "world citizens" were the Stoic philosophers (see Zeno of Citium or Diogenes of Sinope). They coined the term cosmopolis or "universal city" from which is derived the English word 'cosmopolitan'. Stoicism was a major philosophy in the Roman Empire, which hoped to create this cosmopolis.

The perspective of a world citizen has affinities with an existentialist philosophical outlook in that world citizens:

• do not want to be categorized by any artificially imposed categories

• wish to identify themselves first and foremost as human beings and then by any groupings to which they may seem to belong.

Some world citizens may also:

• work for a reformed, strengthened, yet sufficiently decentralized United Nations which represents and responds to the will of the people of the world, more than to intergovernmental hagglings, and adheres to the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, similar to a federal system on the national scale

• work toward other developments to strengthen a common identity and harmony between their fellow world citizens on the planet, while respecting local and national loyalties and diversity.

World citizens are not limited to any specific faith or ideology, but will often adhere to the following:

• freedom from all national, ethnic, racial, and religious prejudices
• belief in the basic equality of all sexes

and support

• democratic globalization
• elimination of poverty
• international auxiliary languages
• uniform system of weights and measures
• universal currency
• universal education
• universal health care

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Overview", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki