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Global Dialogues: Is peaceful co-existence possible after polarization?
October 3, 2016 - October 4, 2016
| Buenos Aires, Argentina
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The diversity among human beings and the diversity of cultural expressions of our humanity is the most important heritage that must be cared for. This assumption requires developing societies that care for the “other”, in particular the “other” who lives and thinks differently. Such care is the indispensable step for generating a type of public culture that privileges a form of social interaction that can be called “learning in difference.” It is not enough to tolerate, a word that carries a sense of distance and closure in the face of the ideas and practices of the “other.” A society is culturally poorer if the possibility of dialogue, of sharing and learning from those who are different, is closed off.
The recognition of the other as an interlocutor and the openness toward his or her reasons become necessary practices. How can they be achieved in societies polarized by conflict? How can we find points of encounter when different visions of the world clash? What are the best practices of dialogue and reconciliation? The conference will tackle these questions, exploring patterns of intercultural dialogue that can build bridges between groups as well as the elements of extremism that render impossible recognition of, and openness to, the other.