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A Vision for the Third Millennium the Age of Global Dialogue Dialogue Or Death !

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A Vision for the Third Millennium the Age of Global Dialogue Dialogue Or Death ! LEONARD SWIDLER A Vision for the Third Millennium the Age of Global Dialogue Dialogue or Death ! 1. A Radically New Age hose thinkers who early in the twentieth cen tury with great historical/sociological analysis In his article «A Vision for the Third Millennium, The Age T of Global Dialogue: Dialogue or Death», Swidler attempts predicted the impending demise of Western to show that humankind is in a crucial transition from a Civilization were clearly mistaken. After World War I, stage where monologue is the chief characteristic of rela- in 1922, Oswald Spengler wrote his widely acclaimed tions, to one where dialogue is the chief characteristic. 1 Because of technological advances, dialogue is both more book, The Decline of the West . After the beginning of possible than ever before and also more necessary than World War II Pitirim A. Sorokin published in 1941 his ever before. The change from monologue to dialogue is a likewise popular book, The Crisis of Our Age2 . Given the change from a way of interacting modeled on confronta- massive, world-wide scale of the unprecedented de- tion to one modeled on listening. The change is being caused by a number of important parallel shifts, such as struction and horror of the worlds first global war, an increased awareness of the tenacity of knowledge and 1914-18, and the even vastly greater of the second glo- the shrinking of the world to a «global community». But bal conflict, 1939-45, the pessimistic predictions of while Swidler characterizes the change from monologue to dialogue as «the most fundamental, most radical and these scholars and the great following they found are utterly transformative of the key elements of the newly understandable. emerging paradigm,» he warns that this change is not a In fact, however, those vast world conflagrations guaranteed event. With the great technological advances were manifestations of the dark side of the unique that make dialogue more possible than ever come new opportunities for technological abuses. Therefore, he breakthrough in the history of humankind in the mod- LEONARD SWIDLER warns, we are faced with two choices: dialogue or death. ern development of Christendom-become-Western www.geocities.com/ s_c_i_r_i/swidler.htm JSRI No. 1/Spring 2002 6 Civilization, now becoming Global Civilization. Never ethical, religious, spiritual. A world with clashing, or po- before had there been world wars; likewise, never be- tentially clashing, cultures, religious, ethnic groups-civi- fore had there been world political organizations lizations-is the world of the End of the Second, Begin- (League of Nations, United Nations). ning of the Third Millennium. The prophets of doom were correct in their under- However, that is not all it is. In the midst of our standing that humanity is entering into a radically new current, and essential, War on Terrorism, the very an- age. Early in the twentieth century the nay-sayers usu- tithesis of the Clash of Civilizations is likewise a reality, ally spoke of the doom of only Western Civilization, and an increasing one. Humanity is also in the midst of but after the advent of nuclear power and the Cold a deep evolutionary shift towards a higher, communal, War, the new generation warned of global disaster. This and dialogical way of life. This evolution of religions emerging awareness of possible global disaster is a an- and cultures points towards a process essential to heal- other clear, albeit negative, sign that something pro- ing the deep problems that inhere in all aspects of our foundly radically new was entering onto the stage of human cultures and even threaten our very survival, human history. namely: the awakening of humankind to the power of In the 1990s professor Samuel Huntington of dialogue.4 Harvard University named a central contemporary real- There have been a number of scholarly analyses ity when he argued that with the fading of the Cold other than that of Huntington pointing to the emer- War, in its place was the rising of a Clash of Civiliza- gence of a radically new age in human history. I will tions;3 fundamentalisms of all sorts, Christian, Muslim, deal with two of them. The first is the concept of the Hindu, nationalist, ethnic, tribal, were tearing at the Paradigm-Shift, particularly as expounded by Hans fabric of the New World Order even as it was being Küng5 . The second is the notion of the Second Axial woven. At least we thought we understood the other Period, as articulated by Ewert Cousins6 . Then, includ- side in the Cold War, whether we admired, respected, ing these two, but setting them in a still larger context, I tolerated or despised it. But in the nineties we entered shall lay out my own analysis, which I see as the move- into a state of cacophonous confusion and conse- ment of humankind out of a multi-millennia long Age quently were floundering, or even foundering: e.g., of Monologue into the newly inbreaking Age of Dia- Rwanda, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, the logue, indeed, an inbreaking Age of Global Dialogue. Middle East-and then the most shocking blow of all: September 11. But these outbreaks of violence are only the most visible flashpoints of the contemporary mal- aise. The problems run much deeper. They are cultural, JSRI No. 1/Spring 2002 7 2. Dialogue: the Way Forward prehensive, so all-inclusive, it is the most fundamental area in which The Other is likely to be different from The future, I submit, offers two alternatives: Death or us-and hence possibly seen as the most threatening. Dialogue (if you will, the Samuel Huntington or the Again, this is not over-dramatization. The current cata- Leonard Swidler view). This statement is not over-dra- logue of conflicts which have religion as a constituent matization. In the past, all of us talked only with our- element is staggering, including such obvious neuralgic selves, that is, with those who thought as we did-or flashpoints as Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Israel, Sri should! Until the edge of the present era, we humans Lanka, Kashmir, Pakistan, India, Tibet, Afghanistan, lived in the Age of Monologue. That age is now pass- the Sudan, Armenia/Azerbaijan, Nigeria-and now Is- ing. We are now poised at the entrance to the Age of lamist Terror. Dialogue. We travel all over the globe, and the globe Hence, if humankind is to move from the Age of comes to us. Our streets, businesses, and homes are Monologue into the Age of Dialogue, the religions filled with overseas products. Through our Asian-made must enter into this movement full force. They have in television sets we invite into our living rooms myriads fact begun to make serious progress along this path, of people of strange nations, cultures, and religions. though the journey stretches far ahead, indeed. Most terrifying of all, World Terrorism has struck us in our own front yard. We can no longer ignore The Other, but we can 3. Dialogue: close our minds and spirits to them, look at them with A Whole New Way of Thinking fear and misunderstanding, resent them, and perhaps even hate them. This way of encounter leads to hostility Dialogue, especially dialogue in the religious area, is not and eventually war and death. Today nuclear, ecologi- simply a series of conversations. It is a whole new way cal, or terroristic devastation lies just a little ways fur- of thinking, a way of seeing and reflecting on the world ther down the path of Monologue. It is only by strug- and its meaning. When we speak of Adialogue, we do gling out of the self-centered monologic mindset into not mean just another conversation. We mean an expe- dialogue with The Other that we can avoid such cata- rience of encountering people of different fundamental clysmic disasters. In brief: We must move from the Age convictions in such a way that each one's assumptions of Monologue to the Age of Dialogue. come to light, and that all can move ahead in reciprocal What we understand to be the Aexplanation of the learning. Dialogue means strengthening and affirming ultimate meaning of life, and how to live accordingly, is our fundamental beliefs and practices, but transforming what we call our religion. Since our religion is so com- them as well. JSRI No. 1/Spring 2002 8 4. Dialogue: Its Meaning 5. Dialogue: Reasons for Its Rise Dialogue is conversation between two or more persons There are the many external factors that have appeared with differing views, the primary purpose of which is in the past century and a half which have contributed to for each participant to learn from the other so that s/he the creation of what we today call the global village. All can change and grow. Of course, in addition both part- these externals have made it increasingly impossible to ners also share their understanding with their partners, live in isolation. But underlying, and even preceding, but we enter into dialogue primarily so we can learn, the external forces opening the way to dialogue is a change, and grow, not so that we can force change on shift in consciousness that has been taking place for the the other. past two centuries. We call this shift in consciousness a In the past, when we encountered those who dif- Paradigm-Shift in how we perceive the world. fered from us in the religious sphere, we did so usually either to defeat them as opponents, or to learn about them so as to deal with them more effectively. In other 6. A Major Paradigm-Shift words, we usually faced those who differed with us in a confrontation- sometimes more openly polemically, Thomas Kuhn revolutionized our understanding of the sometimes more subtly so, but usually with the ultimate development of scientific thinking with his notion of goal of overcoming the other because we were con- paradigm shifts.
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