Carnifex

just around the corner.

The world is a vastly better place because it contains people whose only fault is the desire to make all people as good and reasonable as they themselves are.

—Lee Harris[17]

Respectfully, I disagree. For the world to be better the cosmopolitans would have to have some good effect. At a minimum one would hope that things might stabilize at a level no worse than we now have. Can they? What chance?

A cosmopolitan might say, 'Look, if people can be educated and trained to die for artificial, even abstract, constructs like nations, surely they can be educated and trained to live for natural, concrete humanity.'

It's not a bad argument, up to a point. Unfortunately for cosmopolitanism, that point comes quickly.

Nations, and especially first class and hyper-powerful ones, have many advantages in training and education that the Family of Man simply lacks. We typically share a common, or dominant, language and a common, or dominant, culture that is, in broad terms, knowable and comfortable to most citizens and legal residents of the nation. Where is Man's common language? Not Davos Man's, which is English, but Man's? Where is his common culture? Not Davos Man's, which is money, but Man's. Where is the history upon which Man can agree is important? Who are the heroes, the role models? They do not exist. They would all have to be created or recreated and imposed.

Nations have three kinds of neighbors and peers: different and potentially hostile, different and probably hostile, and different and positively hostile. These, the foreign difference and the hostility, can draw together very tightly even such linguistically differing folk as the Swiss. It is not clear that anything else can. It is unclear that cosmopolitanism can do what it would need to, in the absence of the sort of external threat that binds the citizens of a nation together. There is obviously a down side to all that hostility; I offer this only as an element of evidence that there are some educational advantages even an artificial construct like a nation has that cosmopolitanism is unlikely to be able to match.[18]

Additionally, a nation can give its people a sense of superiority, even if utterly unwarranted,[19] to all others that further binds them together. What, after all, binds the intellectual class of Europe and the Colleagues of the EU together if it isn't their hate for the United States and all things American?

Perhaps the chief problem with cosmopolitanism is that, while Kant may have envisioned it and Nussbaum may preach it, both are powerless to overcome those human default states of 'me' and 'mine,' that narrow focus that allows people not only to join their efforts and affections to others, but to derive the emotional support and sense of belonging they need.

So, yes, cosmopolitanism can undermine nations but, no, it cannot then substitute for nations the Family of Man or Mankind.

There's another problem, too, a worse problem, and it's our problem. Cosmopolitanism is unevenly spread. Really, it exists only in the West and the West's institutions, including, of course, the corrupt dictatorships of the Third World and the World Bank and the NGOs that shunt them their graft.

True, Islam has a different version of it, but that version is exclusionary. In a sense, it is ultimately exclusionary, as there are certain human types, atheists and gays come to mind, which Islam cannot accept but, rather, must destroy. Still others—women and those not of the Islamic faith, for example—must be subjugated. Communism, too, is a kind of cosmopolitan philosophy. Yet it draws a circle around and excludes, then usually kills, anyone who does not fit the communist cosmopolitan ideal.[20]

Being, then, a fairly local phenomenon, what can true cosmopolitanism do? It can't make cosmopolitans of tribalists. It can't make true cosmopolitans of Moslems. It can't stop the Chinese Communist Party cadres from looting or letting their children loot the people's wealth. It can't even get Kos not to put his family first.

But it can, where it is strong and accepted as logical and legitimate, undermine the faith of peoples, nations and cultures in their own worth, undermine their will to defend themselves, and leave them open to enslavement by those who still have that faith and that will. I mentioned in the beginning that cosmopolitanism feels as good as sex and drugs. Like those, it helps transmit a kind of disease. Cosmopolitanism, because it is a local phenomenon, that weakens, locally, is a sort of societal HIV, a disease that does not kill, of its own, but destroys the resistance of those who acquire it to those things that do kill. Cosmopolitanism—whatever the ideals or motives of the cosmopolitans—is doing so as I write.

Acknowledgments:

Special thanks to the many people who helped with this, from concept to copy editing: Yoli (who puts up with me), Matt Pethybridge, Sam Swindell, Bill Crenshaw, Mr. William Dunnell, Mo Kirby, Barbara Johnson, Isabelle Andrews, Genie Nickolson, Sue Kerr, my brother John, Scott C, Dr. Jakob van Zyll, Toni Weisskopf and, of course, Jim Baen.

And OZ, including the crew and the design, modification and refit team of the Dos Lindas and the classis, in no particular order: Charlie Prael, Sean Newton, Peter Gold, Mike Gilson, Tommie Williams, Dick Evans, Dave Levitt, Mike Fagan, Bill Lehman, Jeff Wilkes, Bob Hofrichter, Jon Thompson, Al Hattlestad, Phil Fraering, Dave Dwyer, Conrad Chu, Dan Neely, Fionn Ryan, Mickey zvi Maor, Jason Long, Andy Stocker, Leonid Panfil, Chris French, Mark Turuk, Neil Frandsen, Gordon Gailey, Steve Stewart, Dean Sutherland, Paul Gustafson, Justin Bischel, Jose Clavell, Dexter Guptil, Alex Stace, Alex Swavely, Steve St. Onge, Andrew Gill, Rodney Graves, and Dick Atkinson. If I missed you, so far, I'll kill you off as opportunity presents. I promise.

If I've forgotten anyone, chalk it up to premature senility.

Appendix A: Glossary

AdC Aide de Camp, an assistant to a senior officer

Ala Plural: Alae. Latin: Wing, as in wing of cavalry. Air Wing in the Legion. Similar to Tercio, qv.

Amid Arabic: Brigadier General

Antania Plural: Antaniae, Septic mouthed winged reptilians, possibly genengineered by the Noahs, AKA Moonbats

BdL Barco del Legion, Ship of the Legion

Bellona Moon of Terra Nova

Bolshiberry A fruit bearing vine, believed to have been genengineered by the Noahs. The fruit is intensely poisonous to intelligent life.

Cazador Spanish: Hunter. Similar to Chasseur, Jaeger and Ranger. Light Infantry, especially selected and trained. Also a combat leader selection course within the Legion del Cid

Classis Latin: Fleet or Naval Squadron

Cohort Battalion, though in the Legion these are large battalions.

Conex Metal shipping container, generally 8' x 8' x 20' or 40'

Consensus When capitalized, the governing council of Old Earth, formerly the United Nations Security Council.

Dustoff Medical evacuation, typically by air

Eris Moon of Terra Nova

Federated States Drachma. Unit of money equivalent in value to 4.2 grams of

silver

Hecate Moon of Terra Nova

Hieros Shrine or temple

Roman number one. Chief Operations Officer, his office, and his staff section

Ia Operations officer dealing mostly with fire and maneuver, his office and his section, S- or G-3

Ib Logistics Officer, his office and his section, S- or G-4

Ic Intelligence Officer, his office and his section, S- or G-2

Adjutant, Personnel Officer, his office and his section, S- or

G-1

Ikhwan Arabic: Brotherhood

Jaguar Volgan built tank in legionary service

Jaguar II Improved Jaguar

Jizya See Yizya

Karez