Cultural Identities, Arrogance or Dialogue                              

The process of globalization produces a crisis in cultural identities. On the one hand, they seek to defend themselves from excessive homogenization caused by the dominant globalization of the Occidental type; on the other, they find themselves inevitably forced to confront other unknown ones, and for that reason they suffer an always painful surprise that produces understandable fears.

Two strategies are spelled out to face that challenge: the self centered strategy of turning inward within oneself, and the strategy of dialogue. There are identities that to affirm themselves appeal to traditions, to religions and to the glories of their cultures, struggling as much as possible against the consequences of globalization.  They often clearly define who are the enemies and who are the friends, much in keeping with what Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), one of the modern political philosophy theorists, said: "The essence of the political existence of a people rests in their capacity to define the friend and the enemy."   The well known contemporary political philosopher, Samuel P. Huntington, also says so in his Clash of Civilizations: "Enemies are essential for peoples that are searching for their identities and are reinventing their ethnic group, because we only know who we are when we know who we are not and, many times, when we know whom we are against."

That perspective, if understandable, is impracticable in the modified conditions of globalized history.  Because, how can the others be considered enemies if now we are compelled to live together in the small common space that is our planet?  Actually, there is no other way.  Moreover, a new collective and planetary identity is slowly being formed as a result of the fact that we all are coexisting with all.

Meanwhile, the identity affirmed by opposition to the other is what is being proposed by the hegemonic power, the United States, when it imposes on all countries that sinister alternative: either they are with the United States, and thus, with civilization, or they are with the terrorists, and consequently, with barbarism.   That is the life of arrogance.

The other strategy is dialogue, because it is the only efficacious one.  Globalization offers the opportunity of dialogue of all with all, at all levels. It calls for an exchange and with that, a collective enrichment such as has never happened in human history.

Dialogue demands the mutual recognition of the speakers, the renunciation of any desire by one to dominate the other, and the guarantee that all can take part. Dialogue tries to identify the common points from where a minimum consensus arises and to set aside, as secondary, the differences that separate us.  And, above all, dialogue presupposes a consciousness of the gains and losses that always occur.  Identity is not an immutable structure, set in stone, but a gathering of relationships, starting with a base experience, always in action and in the process of creation, that incorporates new elements without losing its fundamental base identity.  It is through dialogue, as inclusive as possible, that a new collective identity for humanity as humanity rather than as nation-states is in formation.  We do not yet know its profile, but it will certainly be a humanity that will be understood as a moment in a process of the evolution of the universe, of the Earth and of life, with the ethical responsibility to care for and to further the co-evolution of this inheritance with the celebration of the mystery of our existence.