Cit
Term: Cit
Method: Expansion
"Cit: A Citizen of London" (from Francis Grose, The Vulgar Tongue (1785)).
The term citizen was once closely tied to townsman, i.e. the inhabitant of a "city" (Furetiere (1696), Johnson (1755)). As I am an inhabitant of a "village" does this mean I have no city-zenship? Am I a lost soul? It certainly feels that way sometimes. I certainly don't feel like a member of my village's community, if indeed such a thing exists. And in this I am not alone - few people have the experience of geographic community anymore. Instead we find academic community or virtual community or activist community or professional community. And as local community has collapsed, national community has soared, thus it is impossible to remove one's self from American-ness - its symbols from massive flags to red, white and blue ribbons on every car to patriotic country music - are inescapable.
Or, perhaps, not. At the other end of citizenship are the citizens of the world, a term made famous by Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Can one be a citizen of the world? Does that status detach her/him from national citizenship? While some may be rejected if they try to return, it seems hard to believe that one can truly stop being American. Look at Lee Harvey Oswald. Or Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali. Or Hanoi Jane.
And how do we choose citizenship? Yes, we are born into certain kinds of citizenship. Others we move into by geography, by profession, or by accident. Can we deny citizenship? Legally, we are permitted to renounce citizenship but does this really detach us from our past? In short, how much citizenship can I have and how much can I leave behind?
Method: Expansion
"Cit: A Citizen of London" (from Francis Grose, The Vulgar Tongue (1785)).
The term citizen was once closely tied to townsman, i.e. the inhabitant of a "city" (Furetiere (1696), Johnson (1755)). As I am an inhabitant of a "village" does this mean I have no city-zenship? Am I a lost soul? It certainly feels that way sometimes. I certainly don't feel like a member of my village's community, if indeed such a thing exists. And in this I am not alone - few people have the experience of geographic community anymore. Instead we find academic community or virtual community or activist community or professional community. And as local community has collapsed, national community has soared, thus it is impossible to remove one's self from American-ness - its symbols from massive flags to red, white and blue ribbons on every car to patriotic country music - are inescapable.
Or, perhaps, not. At the other end of citizenship are the citizens of the world, a term made famous by Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Can one be a citizen of the world? Does that status detach her/him from national citizenship? While some may be rejected if they try to return, it seems hard to believe that one can truly stop being American. Look at Lee Harvey Oswald. Or Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali. Or Hanoi Jane.
And how do we choose citizenship? Yes, we are born into certain kinds of citizenship. Others we move into by geography, by profession, or by accident. Can we deny citizenship? Legally, we are permitted to renounce citizenship but does this really detach us from our past? In short, how much citizenship can I have and how much can I leave behind?
posted by Definer at 5:07 AM
2 Comments:
You figure the answer to that last question out, you let me know: it'll be the brilliant intervention of my diss.
Oh, and I disagree: local community is not dead. It may be tied to church communities or mutual concern over the education of children, but it's just as real (and sometimes more so) than an abstract sense of American identity. Maybe you don't feel it, but think about the posts you took down and why. Was that just a temporary twinge of conscience or was it something more?
I'd actually love to hear more about what you think on this matter.
j
Not to beat a dead horse, especially with you being such an animal lover, as well as a connoisseur of metaphors, but I talked to Viahavta (since we're sticking with pseudonyms) and her suburban community is very much a community. She says she still talks to the folks that have moved away, as well as dog-sitting, baby-sitting and general neighborly chatting with the folks still in the neighborhood. It’s not where one is; it’s how much effort one puts into knowing those around us.
j
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