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A world citizen (or citizen of the world) is a person who wishes to transcend the geopolitical divisiveness inherent in the national citizenships of the various sovereign states and countries. In this respect the concept differs from internationalism, which is still based on the idea of nations. By refusing to accept a patriotic identity dictated by any national government, world citizens assert their independence as citizens of the Earth, the world, or the cosmos.
Overview
The first people to identify themselves as "world citizens" were the Stoic philosophers (see Zeno of Citium).
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
- and/or
- wish to identify themselves first and foremost as human beings and then by any groupings to which they may seem to belong.
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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
- and/or
- 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
Promoting world citizenship
The World Service Authority promotes world citizenship today.
- Promotion of the concept and its implications in public schools among students toward their building a sense of world identity and building support among them for the development of and progressive adherence to justly constituted global institutions and international law, just as national identity and loyalty has historically been promoted in most if not all countries
- Advocacy of the concept in media, drawing attention to the perceived inadequacy of attempts to rally people together sustainably solely under a national flag or identity
Famous world citizens
Some famous people who have identified themselves as world citizens:
- Socrates
- Zeno of Citium
- Diogenes of Sinope
- Erasmus
- Thomas Paine
- Bertrand Russell
- Noam Chomsky
- Linus Pauling
- Lord Boyd Orr
- Eugene V. Debs
- Albert Einstein
- Jules Verne
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Charles Chaplin
- Bahá'u'lláh
- Cyrano de Bergerac
- Bruce Lee
See also
- Anationalism, a Esperanto-based movement for the suppresion of nationalism.