What is a Cosmotarian, anyway?

Definitions are objective.  Interpretations are subjective.  As far as I can tell, urbandictionary.com is the only source out there with a definition for cosmotarian.  It is:

A cosmopolitan libertarian; a libertarian who holds socially liberal personal opinions about abortion, homosexuality, race, and other social issues. Compare to paleotarian.

So there you have it: a definition.  The following is an explanation of that definition, and my interpretation of it.  Cosmotarian is a portmanteau which blends the words (and, subsequently, definitions) cosmopolitan and libertarian.  Cosmopolitan: a worldly citizen, an internationalist, who tends to be culturally open-minded and curious, and therefore typically socially liberal.  Libertarian: a political ideology which advocates for limited government intervention and against coercion or violence.  


Libertarianism hitherto has not had a support base substantial enough to warrant any sort of divide worth noting.  The catalytic rise of Ron Paul has helped create a base of support which appears to be substantial enough at this point to warrant categorization.  That is, "libertarian" is no longer a sufficient descriptor to understand where that individual stands or what he or she believes.

The most significant divide within libertarianism is this: the individual's personal worldview on social issues.  Personally, I divide this into three camps: socially accepting, socially tolerant, socially intolerant.  Most libertarians tend to fall within the two former camps, as being socially intolerant usually does not lead one to support freedom for those of whom they are intolerant.   Socially accepting people are those who genuinely do not care about the differences in others.  Socially tolerant individuals are those who are bothered to varying degrees by certain differences they have with others, whether that be race, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, et cetera, but will tolerate the differences.  Their worldview can be summarized as "I don't agree with it, but it's not my place to say you can't do it," or something along those lines.

Those who are socially accepting tend to be cosmopolitan, and would fit into the cosmotarian category.  The socially tolerant can either fall into being socially liberal, moderate, or conservative; but, generally, in my experience, they would not fit into the cosmotarian spectrum.  Instead, they would be defined as paleotarian.    This portmanteau combines the words paleoconservative with libertarian.  It describes the more right-leaning libertarian movement promoted by Dr. Ron Paul.  I would generally describe them as paleoconservative with a few libertarian positions, but who am I to tell someone they aren't libertarian?

As the urbandictionary.com pointed out, the main points of contention between the two camps are over social issues, but it expands further than that for some into foreign policy and even economics.  It seems that the difference stems from a more fundamental divide: consequentialism vs. moralism.  The consequentialists are more utilitarian in approach, believing that  liberty is the best means of achieving utility (or happiness), whereas the moralists ardently defend the principles of liberty on principle, because they believe it is right.

This blog is dedicated to the advancement of the cosmotarian cause.  Cosmotarianism is only one term for it.  Consequentialism is similar, as is bleeding-heart libertarianism. To me they are all terms which describe a similar if not the same thing.  As we believe in markets, the best term will eventually win out.  I'm not particularly married to cosmotarianism as the best descriptor, so who knows? Maybe I'll change the title one day.

So, what is a cosmotarian?  He or she is a socially accepting, consequentialist libertarian; to wit: the future of country.