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No, it doesn't. It might be unambiguous in some cultures or some circles, but it's not globally unambiguous. For example, I didn't even think of it until you p

No, it doesn't. It might be unambiguous in some cultures or some circles, but it's not globally unambiguous. For example, I didn't even think of it until you pointed it out. I disagree with a lot of the sentiment in Vektorceraptor's comments, but I immediately grasped their meaning behind "rootless cosmopolitan". Maybe it's because I hail from the same region. I was born in what was Yugoslavia back then and is now Serbia, and I left when I was 20. I spent 14 years in South America, and another 10 here in the US, and I guess that makes me one of Vektorceraptor's "rootless cosmopolitans": someone who has been exposed to different cultures and can live in them, but doesn't really feel at home in any of them. So no, "rootless cosmopolitan" might sound to you like a dog whistle for "Jew", but it doesn't have to mean that on a culturally diverse site like this one. EDIT: It might be worth reflecting on the fact that English is not a native language for everyone here. When picking words, some of us might make a suboptimal choice. Ask yourself whether you would have had the same reaction if Vektorceraptor had picked "uprooted" instead of "rootless".

tptacek 3y ago
It's not a western dog whistle, but rather a Russian one.
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  Something similar did happen in Communist Yugoslavia https://www.pismenica.rs/danilo-kis-o-nacionalizmu/ https://www.pismenica.rs/danilo-kis-o-nacionalizmu/
  - CodeMage 3y ago
    Something similar to what? I'm confused. Thomas was asserting that "rootless cosmopolitan" was an antisemitic slur that Vektorceraptor deliberately applied to Kenarov. I asserted that the knowledge and usage of that expression is not nearly as universal as Thomas claimed. Thomas clarified that it's a Russian dog whistle. I've just finished reading the essay you linked there. How does it fit in this discussion?
    - Vektorceraptor 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - selimthegrim 3y ago
        Kiš (who was of Jewish descent) was piled on by people in the Communist intelligentsia who were ostensibly criticizing him and his literature for being exactly that term and stirring up "fake accusations of nationalism", but when the masks came off in 1988-91 turned out to be exactly the sort of nationalists they called him (and ended up praising people like Milorad Pavić who really were what they seemed on the tin). Kiš's essay has to be situated in that context. When he talks about the "national key" he is calling out the Communist party policy of ethnic parity via rotation as being an eyewash because the apparatchiks are closet people "who see themselves only in others"
        Vektorceraptor 3y ago
        I'm sorry. I don't know any Kis or any of his essays. And I don't see the connection with my posts... Or are you accusing me of secretly lying?
        CodeMage 3y ago
        The connection with your posts is tenuous and based on pedantry. When I objected to @tptacek's assertion that the meaning of the expression you used is globally unambiguous, I did so on the grounds that not everyone comes from the same cultural milieu and I used my own as an example, mentioning that I'm originally from Yugoslavia. This provided @selimthegrim with the opportunity to use Danilo Kiš as an alleged example of how the expression was also used in Yugoslavia, not that I can find anything to verify that claim. Suffice it to say that I don't know anyone from my generation who has even heard this expression, much less used it, and it's certainly not part of the cultural milieu in which my generation grew up. Like I said, it's just pedantry, and not of the good, informative kind we can see in sibling threads, where the interesting background and nuances of the expression are highlighted for purposes of enlightening the readers. Rather, it's terse, opaque kind of pedantry whose purpose I fail to understand, unless it's to stubbornly double down on the claim that the expression you used is universally unambiguous and instantly recognizable to everyone.
- pvg 3y ago
  A Soviet one, to pedant it up a notch. Edit: Also, I don't really know whether Kenarov is in any way Jewish but it's not hard for me to imagine someone using the term satirically but not intending to (at least, not strongly) evoke its antisemitic aspect. I don't think that really works in English and aimed at a Western audience but people do irony-recycle the old slogan tropes quite a bit and it's a linguistic theme throughout the piece.
  - stickfigure 3y ago
    Even more backstory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan
    - pvg 3y ago
      Yeah that's a good page and covers the weirdness of the term well. You read 'rootless cosmopolitan' in English and think 'ah yes, Soviet antisemitism and Stalin's abortive final purge'. And that's not at all wrong! But the term as used by the Soviets is not a simple euphemism like, dunno, 'urban youth' is in the US. The ideological terms where picked fairly carefully with an eye towards 'ideological soundness' and had multiple purposes. 'Rootless cosmopolitan' was an antisemitic dogwhistle, it was also part of a deliberate effort to shift to a more Russia-centric Soviet ideology. In a way it was also a Russian dogwhistle so tptacek was kind of right after all, completing the pedanticircle.
      - tptacek 3y ago
        I'm just kicking back waiting for y'all to resolve this. I regret (and did even at the time) using the words "dancing around" --- I was just waking up (let's not discuss the unhealthiness of "commenting on HN" being one of the first things I did after regaining consciousness) and even as I wrote it was thinking "this conveys more intentionality than I mean to". So for that bit, I apologize! People still should aggressively avoid the term. I only saw this thread because I've been on a sort of comment bigotry scavenger hunt with "rootless cosmopolitan" as one of the items.
selimthegrim 3y ago
Maybe you read Tomb for Boris Davidovich or Anatomy Lesson?
- CodeMage 3y ago
  Nope. I see you're a fan of Kiš. I haven't read his stuff, apart from the essay you linked in another comment. I'm still trying to figure out what you're trying to say, though. If your point is that there was plenty of bigotry in old Yugoslavia, then yeah, I know that. It's still alive and well in the remnants of it. The casual bigotry and rampant nationalism are part of the reason why I'm still "rootless", because I wouldn't fit in with my compatriots anymore. But none of that was really the point here. The point is that a phrase might be very well recognized by some people here and totally unknown to others who might stumble into using it by accident. I mean, I don't actually know if Vektorceraptor was being deliberately antisemitic or not. Maybe Vektorceraptor did know it and its antisemitic connotations and used it like that on purpose. Or maybe not, maybe it meant what I read from it and described in my reply. Yeah, it's fascinating to read the history of that expression, and to find out it's not a "Western", but a Soviet expression. But I'd like to offer a gentle reminder that the countries that comprised the Soviet Union are one set, and the countries that used to be in the Soviet sphere of influence is another set, and they're not the same set.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    I don't know either: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38725778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38725778 The simpler, calmer point to make is: just don't non-ironically use the term "rootless cosmopolitan" on HN.
    - CodeMage 3y ago
      Yep. As I replied there, I appreciate both the clarification and the opportunity I've had to learn about a phrase to avoid.
      - selimthegrim 3y ago

tptacek 3y ago

It's not a western dog whistle, but rather a Russian one.

selimthegrim 3y ago
Something similar did happen in Communist Yugoslavia https://www.pismenica.rs/danilo-kis-o-nacionalizmu/ https://www.pismenica.rs/danilo-kis-o-nacionalizmu/
- CodeMage 3y ago
  Something similar to what? I'm confused. Thomas was asserting that "rootless cosmopolitan" was an antisemitic slur that Vektorceraptor deliberately applied to Kenarov. I asserted that the knowledge and usage of that expression is not nearly as universal as Thomas claimed. Thomas clarified that it's a Russian dog whistle. I've just finished reading the essay you linked there. How does it fit in this discussion?
  - Vektorceraptor 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - selimthegrim 3y ago
      Kiš (who was of Jewish descent) was piled on by people in the Communist intelligentsia who were ostensibly criticizing him and his literature for being exactly that term and stirring up "fake accusations of nationalism", but when the masks came off in 1988-91 turned out to be exactly the sort of nationalists they called him (and ended up praising people like Milorad Pavić who really were what they seemed on the tin). Kiš's essay has to be situated in that context. When he talks about the "national key" he is calling out the Communist party policy of ethnic parity via rotation as being an eyewash because the apparatchiks are closet people "who see themselves only in others"
      - Vektorceraptor 3y ago
        I'm sorry. I don't know any Kis or any of his essays. And I don't see the connection with my posts... Or are you accusing me of secretly lying?
        CodeMage 3y ago
        The connection with your posts is tenuous and based on pedantry. When I objected to @tptacek's assertion that the meaning of the expression you used is globally unambiguous, I did so on the grounds that not everyone comes from the same cultural milieu and I used my own as an example, mentioning that I'm originally from Yugoslavia. This provided @selimthegrim with the opportunity to use Danilo Kiš as an alleged example of how the expression was also used in Yugoslavia, not that I can find anything to verify that claim. Suffice it to say that I don't know anyone from my generation who has even heard this expression, much less used it, and it's certainly not part of the cultural milieu in which my generation grew up. Like I said, it's just pedantry, and not of the good, informative kind we can see in sibling threads, where the interesting background and nuances of the expression are highlighted for purposes of enlightening the readers. Rather, it's terse, opaque kind of pedantry whose purpose I fail to understand, unless it's to stubbornly double down on the claim that the expression you used is universally unambiguous and instantly recognizable to everyone.
pvg 3y ago
A Soviet one, to pedant it up a notch. Edit: Also, I don't really know whether Kenarov is in any way Jewish but it's not hard for me to imagine someone using the term satirically but not intending to (at least, not strongly) evoke its antisemitic aspect. I don't think that really works in English and aimed at a Western audience but people do irony-recycle the old slogan tropes quite a bit and it's a linguistic theme throughout the piece.
- stickfigure 3y ago
  Even more backstory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan
  - pvg 3y ago
    Yeah that's a good page and covers the weirdness of the term well. You read 'rootless cosmopolitan' in English and think 'ah yes, Soviet antisemitism and Stalin's abortive final purge'. And that's not at all wrong! But the term as used by the Soviets is not a simple euphemism like, dunno, 'urban youth' is in the US. The ideological terms where picked fairly carefully with an eye towards 'ideological soundness' and had multiple purposes. 'Rootless cosmopolitan' was an antisemitic dogwhistle, it was also part of a deliberate effort to shift to a more Russia-centric Soviet ideology. In a way it was also a Russian dogwhistle so tptacek was kind of right after all, completing the pedanticircle.
    - tptacek 3y ago
      I'm just kicking back waiting for y'all to resolve this. I regret (and did even at the time) using the words "dancing around" --- I was just waking up (let's not discuss the unhealthiness of "commenting on HN" being one of the first things I did after regaining consciousness) and even as I wrote it was thinking "this conveys more intentionality than I mean to". So for that bit, I apologize! People still should aggressively avoid the term. I only saw this thread because I've been on a sort of comment bigotry scavenger hunt with "rootless cosmopolitan" as one of the items.

selimthegrim 3y ago

Maybe you read Tomb for Boris Davidovich or Anatomy Lesson?

CodeMage 3y ago
Nope. I see you're a fan of Kiš. I haven't read his stuff, apart from the essay you linked in another comment. I'm still trying to figure out what you're trying to say, though. If your point is that there was plenty of bigotry in old Yugoslavia, then yeah, I know that. It's still alive and well in the remnants of it. The casual bigotry and rampant nationalism are part of the reason why I'm still "rootless", because I wouldn't fit in with my compatriots anymore. But none of that was really the point here. The point is that a phrase might be very well recognized by some people here and totally unknown to others who might stumble into using it by accident. I mean, I don't actually know if Vektorceraptor was being deliberately antisemitic or not. Maybe Vektorceraptor did know it and its antisemitic connotations and used it like that on purpose. Or maybe not, maybe it meant what I read from it and described in my reply. Yeah, it's fascinating to read the history of that expression, and to find out it's not a "Western", but a Soviet expression. But I'd like to offer a gentle reminder that the countries that comprised the Soviet Union are one set, and the countries that used to be in the Soviet sphere of influence is another set, and they're not the same set.
- tptacek 3y ago
  I don't know either: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38725778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38725778 The simpler, calmer point to make is: just don't non-ironically use the term "rootless cosmopolitan" on HN.
  - CodeMage 3y ago
    Yep. As I replied there, I appreciate both the clarification and the opportunity I've had to learn about a phrase to avoid.
    - selimthegrim 3y ago