"The individual whose vision encompasses the whole world often feels nowhere so hedged in and out of touch with his surroundings as in his native land"
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A mind that has learned to think beyond borders cannot help noticing how small the circle of home can feel. The wider the horizon, the more provincial the rituals, expectations, and loyalties of the homeland appear. The native land promises natural belonging, but it also exacts conformity: the shared myths, the unquestioned hierarchies, the sanctioned enemies. To see the whole world is to acquire comparisons, to sense alternatives, to recognize that what is presented as destiny is only one arrangement among many. That awareness makes the local fences sharper, the tacit demands of sameness heavier. One feels hedged in because the room for dissent grows narrow precisely where belonging is presumed to be effortless.
Emma Goldmans life embodies the tension. Born in the Russian Empire, remade as an American radical, deported to Soviet Russia, and then alienated by Bolshevik authoritarianism, she moved through nations while refusing their claims on her conscience. Her critique of patriotism as a menace to liberty and her advocacy for free association set her at odds with the very idea that a homeland should command unquestioned loyalty. When one refuses the bargain of belonging in exchange for obedience, the native land becomes the least hospitable place, because there the pressure to recite its creed is most intense and the penalties for deviation most personal.
There is no simple contempt here for origins or community. The line registers a sorrowful paradox: home is most dear when it is free to be questioned, but questioning often marks one as suspect. The cosmopolitan sensibility does not erase love of place; it widens love to include other places, other people, and that expansion strains the old bonds. In an era of easy travel and digital intimacy across borders, the sensation is familiar. The language of nations can feel too small for a conscience educated by the world.
Emma Goldmans life embodies the tension. Born in the Russian Empire, remade as an American radical, deported to Soviet Russia, and then alienated by Bolshevik authoritarianism, she moved through nations while refusing their claims on her conscience. Her critique of patriotism as a menace to liberty and her advocacy for free association set her at odds with the very idea that a homeland should command unquestioned loyalty. When one refuses the bargain of belonging in exchange for obedience, the native land becomes the least hospitable place, because there the pressure to recite its creed is most intense and the penalties for deviation most personal.
There is no simple contempt here for origins or community. The line registers a sorrowful paradox: home is most dear when it is free to be questioned, but questioning often marks one as suspect. The cosmopolitan sensibility does not erase love of place; it widens love to include other places, other people, and that expansion strains the old bonds. In an era of easy travel and digital intimacy across borders, the sensation is familiar. The language of nations can feel too small for a conscience educated by the world.
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