Left in the comments of one of the various social media feeds that these posts are shared via, was someone who liked my use of the word "Kosmos". I am tickled by this as it suggests that I am not alone and that there are other logophiles out there. Language is one of those things that can be picked apart, examined, played with, rearranged, and put back together, as though it was a delightful plaything. I really really like words.
The English Language, that bastard child of unknown parents, that vulture who came from the rainy isles and when she grew her wings flew out into the world and stole from everywhere, is in its own way a pretty thing. Had those islands not been subject to wave after wave of invasion, then the Anglish English which would have developed, would have been as pretty as rapid fire from a machine gun. Instead, she was able to steal jewels and threads from other places and lined her nest, and fashioned into a technicolour laugh riot explosion.
English stole (was given?) the word "Kosmos" from Greek. Greek and Latin became fashionable to steal words from during the enlightenment, when it was thought appropriate to rob the past in order to coin words for the future. I find more than a hint of irony in that the languages of superstition, of myth, and of classic epic, became the source of words for science and technology.
So why use the word "Kosmos" when other words will do? Not only do I like what I like but I think that various words are better served to do different functions. I have a personal mindmap and wordcloud which has been infected with some classical Latin and Greek; so tend to like words from these source languages. However before I get to why and how I use the words "Kosmos", I want to try to excuse why I do not use other perfectly good words to do that same job.
"Earth"
The Earth is a thing. Specifically the earth is a spinning rocky planet that rotates once per day; which is how we define a day. The Earth is the physical stuff from which the other stuff is made from. When you put a spade into the ground, you dig into the earth and maybe even pile up a heap of earth. Things that are made out of the clay of the earth are even called 'earthenware' for that very purpose.
If I am going to use the word "Earth" then I am almost always referring to the physical stuff of the thing in question. The Earth has an atmosphere and seas which we are polluting and slowly damaging. The Earth has a limited amount of stuff which we can dig up and use. It is for use to remember that we are made of the stuff that the earth is made from and when Grimaldi Reaper comes knocking on the door to collect his dues then, Taxo! We pay.
"World"
The World is a place. It is a big place and it is an amazing place but a place is semantically different to a thing. If the Earth is the "what" then the World is the "where". Events happen in places. Events happen to things.
A sense of place is akin to having the theatre of where a sense of purpose happens. Insofar as we are a bunch of awkward humans, who carry around the impossible expectations of a past that never was towards a future that might not be, this implies that whether inherent, invented or derived, that there is some kind of purpose to peoples' existence. If there is no purpose whatsoever, then we are reduced to being objects within space and time. A sense of place if nothing else, lends theatre to the narrative of existence.
"Kosmos"
The Kosmos is a system. It is a big system and it is a complex system but it is nevertheless a system in which the many myriad of components are connected and have their being. The Kosmos includes all of the interactions between all of the actors as well as their interactions with all of the things and stuff and all of the places.
The Ancient Greeks, who had no real idea that the Earth was a rock which is suspended upon nothing and hurtling through empty space at more than a million miles a day, could cope with the Earth being a thing but their idea of the heavens and the gods was included the concept of the Kosmos. The gods in their estimations could and did interact with people, sometimes helpfully and sometimes capriciously.
This is why I like the word "Kosmos" when talking about the systems of the world, of nations, and of power. The supercapitalists of the world, the egomaniacs, the business people, the politicians, the lawmakers, the lawbreakers, and the fabric from which the cloth of decisions is cut from, is definitely within the "kosmos" and not within the "world" or the "earth.
All of the arguments of people's values, over the cruelty, over the niceness or nastiness of the world, are played out in the field of the kosmos. These are fights over systems and ideas. If the only physical things which have existed since the beginning of time are the stuff that is in, on, and under the ground, and the people who live there, then maybe geography and the world plays some part, but it is the decisions in the kosmos that matter.
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