Who are you calling cosmopolitan?

I'm glad someone has finally mentioned it. In her column today, Lysiane Gagnon has explained why it's a little creepy for the Conservatives to be waving around the word "cosmopolitan" as an attack term.

Before it was associated with martinis or magazines,   Gagnon notes: "the word 'cosmopolitan'  has some pejorative connotations, depending on the context. In France, the word cosmopolite is used by anti-Semites as a code word for Jew."

We have Josef Stalin to thank for that, I believe. 

I'm sure it's just accidental that the Conservatives have taken a Stalinist term and updated it to apply to their Liberal rivals. They trotted out the word frequently when they were attacking Stephane Dion too. But I'm just saying -- I don't know that old Joe is the best political role model.

Comments

[Wassim]

I am surprised Lysiane Gagnon would write that - as she herself has used the word "cosmopolite" to describe André Boisclair. At the time, critics used to say the word "cosmopolite" was a code word for homosexual.

http://lequebecois.actifforum.com/ici-on-parle-d-actualite-f1/lysiane-gagnon-le-parti-d-une-generation-t3217.htm

"Trop urbain, trop cosmopolite, trop ouvert aux minorités... et c'est sûr que son homosexualité et les histoires de cocaïne n'allaient pas l'aider dans les milieux séduits par l'ADQ."

[Critical Reasoning]

This post is stupid beyond belief. "But I'm just saying -- I don't know that old Joe is the best political role model." What moronic tripe.

[Wascally Wabbit]

I'm sure it will stick about as much as a tar baby in a briar patch...
The lack of subtlety and imagination of the CPC would amuse - if it wasn't so nasty.
They don't get it - to the point that they probably haven't a clue who "Peter Pepper" is...

[woods]

I somehow missed the Conservatives using cosmopolitan 'against' Dion too. When I saw the CPC ad, it didn't make much sense. I think of cosmopolitan as a positive and wondered if they were trying to use it as an example of Ignatieff flattering himself, but the whole message of the ad seemed to be that Ignatieff wasn't Canadian enough.

Now I find out how others in history have used cosmopolitan as a negative. This does not reflect well on the Conservatives.

[Gabby in QC]

"I'm sure it's just accidental that the Conservatives have taken a Stalinist term and updated it to apply to their Liberal rivals. They trotted out the word frequently when they were attacking Stephane Dion too. But I'm just saying -- I don't know that old Joe is the best political role model."

I expected better from you, Ms. Delacourt, despite your very obvious Liberal partisanship. Your political leaning or affiliation is your own business, just as it is mine, and we are both free to express it.
But to suggest that the Conservatives are using Stalin as a role model is beyond the pale, regardless of whether Mme Gagnon initiated it and you merely ran with it.

This is just one more example why the media is currently experiencing such difficulties. Snide repugnant insinuations like the one made here only serve to erode further the media's already severely damaged credibility and increasing irrelevance.
“Fire and swords are slow engines of destruction, compared to the tongue of a Gossip.” Richard Steele

[Dave Granton]

Hold on folks --- aren't we just getting a little carried away here?
Now the word cosmopolitan is off limits? I think that is a more than just a hyper-sensitive stretch. So is reading the magazine Cosmopolitan now the same as posting on Storm Front? Isn't there a whole new channel on TV fashioned after the magazine?

Just asking - because I can't keep up with the morphing of our language anymore. It seems to me that whenever people are looking to justify their being offended, all it takes it circling one word on a page and linking it to an out of context meaning that is conveniently "anti-" this or that.

[Platty]

Susan, why do you think it is that the Conservatives are running these ads? It is because of the MSM refuse to report the facts about Ignatieff.

These ads are simply telling Canadians what the MSM in this country refuse to tell them, the ads are full of facts Susan, take a minute and check it out. But then, I'm sure you already have, only to find that everything said in the ads about Ignatieff is indeed true.

Which would explain why you choose to ignore the substance of the ads, making every attempt to deflect your readers attention away from the truth with insinuations that are, to be completely honest, in extremely poor taste.

Your readers would be better served if you would just state the following at the beginning of each of your "columns".

Conservatives = Bad

Liberals = Good

==

[woods]

Harper and the CPC *should* be taken to task for trying to conjure up negatives from the word cosmopolitan. Susan Delacourt is not saying the CPC are knowingly using Stalin as a role model. The CPC appear to have unwittingly followed his lead on using this term as an attack. But if you can give us a better example of who the CPC are (unwittingly or otherwise) following in associating cosmopolitan=bad, please let us know.

[woods]

Dave Granton, cosmopolitan is considered a positive term. Here we are talking about politicians who want to try to turn it into a negative term.

Cosmopolitan=good needs no explanation and no one, CPC, LPC, NDP, nonpartisan, or whatever, has objected to that common use. Cosmopolitan=bad is a whole other game. The CPC stand alone (in Canada) on that front.

[Dave Granton]

Respectfully woods, I disagree.

As a word, cosmopolitan conveys neither good or bad. It is only a description, meaning worldly, travelled, or having many varied influences. My fumbled attempt at humour was an attempt to point out that people like to hijack the meanings of words when their efforts at reasoned and well founded rebuttal leave them with little to offer.

Say whatever you like about the CPC, but anyone who thinks their use of cosmopolitan in the referenced ads was a veiled sneer of ant-Semitism is just looking for reasons to be offended. That's the hyper-sensitivity to which I referred.

If anyone is making the veiled sneer, it's Delacourt:

"I'm sure it's just accidental that the Conservatives have taken a Stalinist term and updated it to apply to their Liberal rivals. They trotted out the word frequently when they were attacking Stephane Dion too. But I'm just saying -- I don't know that old Joe is the best political role model."

Now that is an example of smug pomposity. Does she really think the Harperites are walking around asking themselves, "Gee, what would Stalin do?"

[jayn cobal]

from ezra levants blog, clarifies that it was Ignatieff who refered to himself as cosmopolitan:

"Page 7 of his book, "Blood and Belonging", to be precise. "If anyone has a claim to being cosmopolitan, it must be me," he wrote. That's not hard to find -- it's sourced right there on Ignatieff.me."

[woods]

Dave, I certainly don't think the Conservative ad is "a veiled sneer of ant-Semitism" and I don't think anyone else does either.

What I do think is that the Conservatives hope to get some negative reaction to Ignatieff being cosmopolitan and Susan Delacourt is simply pointing out a historical fact about that word and having your loyalty to a country questioned.

The Conservatives likely had millions of words or phrases to chose from. Everyone knows that Ignatieff has written and said a lot of words. The CPC chose to put the word "cosmopolitan" together with the message of not caring about your country or fellow citizens.

[CV]

Susan,

You either haven't done your research or you are being blindly partisan. Ignatieff bragged that he is a cosmopolitan - not Harper. The Conservatives are simply using Ignatieff's own words - unedited and in context - against him.

So which is it:

(a) You didn't research the facts; or
(b) You are being blindly partisan???

[woods]

CV, what is your point? Ignatieff is well travelled and has lived in, worked in, become known in, studied and written about a variety of countries and cultures. He is cosmopolitan. That is not the point. The point is why was that selected and put in an attack ad saying that he doesn't care about Canadians? The point is that the CPC is trying to draw a connection between being cosmopolitan and saying you are cosmopolitan and not caring about Canadians or Canada.