As we move into the next
millennium a new set of values emerges which show great promise, but
also threaten to impede effective progress.
These concern the dignity of persons and
peoples, their creative freedom, and most concretely the cultures
they develop thereby. These reflect the deepest exercise of personal
and social life. If they can be harnessed and promoted they promise
a great revival of peoples everywhere.
Historical experience shows that the sense
of personal identity and social self-understanding have not only
positive but negative meanings as well, giving rises to the
alternative of violence or tolerance. Unfortunately, in contemporary
society discord and conflict multiply more quickly than they are
solved. The notion of a crime against humanity achieves special
prominence in the second half of the XXth century and a clash of
civilization is said to be a prospect for the future.
We face then a twin challenge. On the one
hand, there are increases in the sense of personal self-awareness,
of cultural uniqueness and hence of diversity. On the other hand,
there is expanded interchange between peoples and civilizations. In
this situation of new challenges for contemporary society, an old
question about peace takes on new meaning : what are forms or ways
of coexistence between peoples belonging to different cultures and
traditions, especially East and West?
Tolerance as a philosophical imperative has
two related meanings for interaction between human beings. On the
one hand, a negative tolerance allows people to live their own lives
and to share in the common welfare. But this may not be enough
because it is passive and associated with social atomism, individual
independence and isolation. History often shows how passive
tolerance can slide into conflict and chaos.
On the other hand, a positive and active
tolerance raises a number of tasks. First, the supposition that
civilizational paradigms are simply incommensurable and by
implication conflictive must be critically reevaluated. Second, it
is necessary to look not only for a passive or negative tolerance,
but for active bonds of shared and mutual concerns, building upon
the need to face concrete common challenges. Third, philosophical
and religious bases for positive mutuality must be sought. Fourth,
whole new and especially aesthetic dimensions of human consciousness
appear needed in order to handle the combination of newly heightened
sense of diversity with the expanding, even global, interchange.
This is rendered concrete not only by commerce and communication,
but by massive and urgent displacements of people.
All this calls for renewed attention to
tolerance as a virtue that is not only negative and passive, but
positive and active. There are resources for this in both Western
and Eastern cultures which have not been adequately explored. It is
important to look into the resources of Islamic and of Christian
civilizations for the bases for the cooperation required for the millennium
now dawning.
