Diogenes

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Becoming a World Citizen Diogenes, a 400 BC Greek philosopher and a founder of the Cynic philosophy, is often referred to as the first person to declare himself a citizen of the world. But what would Diogenes think if he was to look at today’s culture? Most people, whether they want to or not, are connected to the rest of the world in some way. Diogenes had the ideas and philosophy behind being a citizen of the world, but only with today’s technology and interconnected life can we begin to see what an earth full of world citizens might actually look like. In this essay I will break down what Diogenes might think about our current world, as well as his opinions on the writings of Kwame Anthony Appiah, Ian Hacking, Leo Cabranes-Grant, and other …show more content…

The idea is that, “we can borrow good ideas from all over the world, not just from our own society. It is worth listening to others because they may have something to teach us. It is worth their listening to us because they may have something to learn” (Appiah). No one person knows everything there is to know, just like no society has all the answers on how to live. I think the world today is too caught up with competing with each other and trying to be the best country, and I think Diogenes would agree with me. He would say that if we are truly trying to be world citizens, we have to think about trying to be the best world we can be. He wouldn’t judge our accomplishments by country, but by the total accomplishments the world has. To put it into a metaphor, think about a group school project. Say you and 3 others are assigned this project but no one can agree on how to do it, so you all do your own project. When it comes time to present, you realize your individual projects pale in comparison to the other group’s combined effort. Even though your project might be impressive for one person, it still wasn’t as good as what others did collectively which is how it’s judged. Diogenes would look at what has been accomplished by single countries in the world and say “That’s okay, but imagine if you had been working together this whole time. Think of all that you could have …show more content…

If everyone followed his concept of being a world citizen, society would be much further along. Unfortunelty as history has shown, this isn’t the case. Humans divide things into categories to understand them better. These divisions strike deep into our mind and effect our thoughts, actions, and the way we view the world. I think if Diogenes was to view the world today he would be disappointed, but see the seeds of world citizenship. If we can learn that we are more successful working together and finding similarities rather than differences, I think we can adopt some of the principles that Diogenes was trying to preach over two thousand years

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