Culture and Dialogue, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2013, pp. 1-2

Editorial

Volume 3 Number 2 of Culture and Dialogue focuses on the theme of “identity and dialogue.” The question of identity formation is a very sensitive one, very often because it is misunderstood or intentionally misused. The idea of identity is too frequently used as a political weapon for cultural domination. In other circumstances, however, it can simply be a means for recognition and therefore for survival under the threat of the dominant culture. Thus, the difficult question is not so much What is identity? but rather What should we do with identity? Or, to put it in more philosophical terms, Shouldn’t questions appertaining to the metaphysics of identity give way to questions about its ethical condition? In a sense, identity is no more than a device that enables us to come close to perceiving the unperceivable, the in-itself of things, or, simply, the inner self. We assume that this perceptual device is as identical as one can possibly imagine to the inner nature of things or the inner self of persons. Hence, the too often misguided argument against any attempt to work out what identity is: as inner selves and things in-themselves cannot be grasped since they are no more than forms of motivation, desire, or will – the argument goes – it is pointless to seek to pin identity down. Still, if identity amounts indeed to no more than wrapped up emptiness, life without identity amounts to emptiness without form – in other words, meaninglessness. There is no inner nature of identity, only lenses that enable us to see more clearly what is in-itself blurred or unsubstantial, what is felt density or dilation, or, even further, emptiness. In actual facts, the only possible in-itself is emptiness, and human beings have found different ways to handle the matter. The worst-case scenario shows individuals, groups, or even nations impose their own lenses onto others to be seen more clearly, or simply for everyone to identify the same thing. The alleged wonders of cultural identity as such for the sake of particularity, homogeneity, or communicative harmony become the will to power at work, thus ignoring the mutually enriching relational dynamics between Self and Otherness. This is where metaphysics becomes irrelevant and gives way to ethics. To use cultural identity as a means for an end is always the symptom of an unbalance between differences. Opulence and survival become, in this case, the two poles of the struggle for identity – the latter very often ensuing from the former. In any respect, what human beings have been capable of in the course of history for the sake of identity is quite baffling. The drive has been either to achieve sameness, or else to preserve uniqueness – in many cases with destructive effects. There is no meaningful life without identity, but unless we understand that the existence of identities depends on our ability and willingness to be renewed from each other, in dialogue, there will be coercion, intolerance and conflicts. Needless to say, this dialogical way needs time to be learned and practised, an increasing challenge for all of us in a techno-world where speed and forgetfulness leave little room for memory, protension, and therefore attentiveness.

This number of Culture and Dialogue brings together a variety of essays addressing issues of identity with concrete examples and from different perspectives, be they art, philosophy, politics, religion, gender, or ethnic studies. All essays describe and question the relational element at work in identity formation within different cultural contexts, such as Japan, America, Corsica, Mongolia, Norway, Australia, Italy, and Ireland. Hiroshi Yoshioka offers a topical critique of what lays behind the fashionable self-portrait of Japanese cultural identity as Cool Japan in all its uniqueness. Sandra Wawrytko addresses the sensitive issue of gun culture in American identity by resorting to Mahāyāna Buddhist conceptions of failed interconnectedness. Dominique Verdoni discusses cultural identity formation with particular reference to the Corsican language and literature against the background of more dominant or regulating cultures. Angelika Böck shows how art practice can disclose the processes involved in any attempts to represent otherness, including when different groups such as Mongolian herders, Sami singers, and Australian Aboriginal hunters use other cultural codes and perspectives. Francesca Pierini critically reflects upon culturally biased ways Anglo-American literature has traditionally portrayed Italian culture – an orientalised imagined identity. The selection of essays closes with Hannah Hale’s study on a very specific aspect of gender identity formation: how eating and drinking habits shape the development of masculinities within a community of students. All essays, in one way or another, disclose how identity formation is conditioned by, or emerges from, relationships between self and otherness, inside and outside, or minor and dominant cultures. As paradoxical as it may seem, the more we relate to each other the more identity becomes an issue.

I would like to thank all the contributors to this number on identity and dialogue for the richness of their interpretations and for the variety of perspectives they have brought in. I am also grateful for their responsiveness and reliability, two increasingly rarefied human characteristics. Furthermore, the Journal is pleased to welcome our new Assistant Editors, Loni Reynolds and David Beirne, as well as our new Copy Editor, Rachel Coventry. As the Journal grows in strength and size more support is naturally needed; our new editors have kindly accepted to offer their help, thus adding to the precious expertise that our existing Editorial Assistant, Jon Shaw, is already providing. The work that our editorial team as a whole has already achieved for this particular number – whether in the form of critical comments, suggestions, corrections, or formatting – can only be praised.

1                Editorial

Editorial

 

Vol.3, No.1 of Culture and Dialogue is a Special Issue in many ways.

This issue marks the takeover by a new publisher. Because of contractual constraints and practical reasons the decision was made to continue our journey with Cambridge Scholars Publishing, whose great enthusiasm foreshadows a bright future for the journal. Our words of thanks, however, must also go to Airiti Press without which the journal would not have seen the light of day. We are indebted to Airiti Press for having invested into the launch of a new journal, with all the risks entailed, and for their dedicated hard work. We are most grateful for this. 

The Journal was officially launched in March 2011 and has since produced four issues, all of which focusing on a particular facet of dialogical practice within the field of culture, be it philosophy, art, or politics. Forthcoming issues will offer platforms to explore how dialogue impacts on the shaping of identity, aesthetic meaning, and historical significance. One issue will also de devoted to how dialogue manifests itself in language. This brings us to autumn 2015, after which other pressing themes will, no doubt, be proposed and treated.         

In whatever case, the thread remains the cultural forms of dialogue; many of us know how critical ignorance about the nature of the dialogue can be, in all fields, at all levels. Argentinian poet Antonio Porchia once wrote that “To be someone is solitude.” Any self-felt genius or world-leading mortal will identify with this. The solitude at stake is that of the one who fails to link with others, or an Other, by denying the possibility to relinquish some of him or herself. In fact, the true someone is never alone; the true someone never leads. This is the message Culture and Dialogue is striving to convey, express, or analyse in its various forms across the humanities, the arts, and the social sciences. Beside, the Journal has always sought, when possible, to preserve a certain spirit of writing in addition to academic rigour and creativity – a spirit that is undeniably fading in the midst of the publish or perish ethos adopted by advanced techno-capitalist systems of education in some parts of the world.

Vol.3, No.1 is a Special Issue devoted to the theme of “religion and dialogue.” Cosimo Zene, of the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, kindly accepted our invitation to be the Guest Editor, and our words of thanks must first go to him. Cosimo has managed to bring together a range of outstanding essays of which the Journal can only be proud. To various degrees and in different ways all essays discuss dialogue and religion, or show dialogue at work in religious studies. We are most grateful to all the authors who generously contributed to this Special Issue and therefore to the life of the Journal; in alphabetical order, T.H. Barrett, Stephen Chan, Jan-Peter Hartung, Sîan Hawthorne, Catherine Heszer, Tullio Lobetti, Theodore Proferes, and Cosimo Zene.

Finally and as ever, many thanks to our Assistant Editor, Jon K. Shaw, for the great work he did, his attention to detail, and above all his reliability.

Gerald Cipriani

Contents

Editorial

“We have a double responsibility: to explore the consequences of a radical nihilism, and to try to recover the nostalgia for unity, justice, and earth. On the whole, more artistic and philosophical effort has been spent on the first, and too little on the second.”

    Thus spoke Ralph Harper in The Seventh Solitude (1965). Whether the plague of radical nihilism has affected us equally all over the world is obviously questionable; whether there have ever been unity and justice in this world also remains to be seen. But there is some truth in Harper’s saying. Insofar as we understand unity as a binding in the making between differences and not as a totality of sameness; insofar as a just world means a place where we do all we can to eradicate absolute suffering; and insofar as to recover the nostalgia for earth means to be attentive again to what we belong, then, yes, there is perhaps nothing wiser than to acknowledge that we do have that responsibility. 

    In a democracy of some sort it is not only up to politicians and decision makers to create the right conditions that guaranty responsible freedom. Those who believe – or are made to believe – in a Guide who holds the key to resolving the problems of a broken world, injustice and the environment are either dangerous actors or innocent victims. The history of humanity and the present world are unfortunately replete with such examples. It is for each of us to act concretely by way of an innocence that overcomes the horror of the self and yet lets the person breathe; it is for each of us to find ways of channeling those energies without destroying the place where we live. No individual or politician has the power to create the best of all possible worlds. To believe so is simply to misunderstand what it means to be a person who lives in a community. The best of all possible worlds, as Vladimir Jankélévitch once wrote in Le Pardon (1967), is the least bad. It must be a world made for better things; it must be a world where people relate to each other as persons willing to relinquish part of themselves to be enriched by otherness; it must be a world where communities learn from each other, not in order to preserve themselves, but to be renewed by what will no longer be perceived as unwelcome or even simply unfamiliar. Needless to say, one of the conditions for such a world in the making is mutual trust, which itself very much depends on how life in the community is organized, or how communities are made to relate to each other. This is the stuff of political life to which, in an ideal world, every single person should be given the chance to contribute without fearing the diktat of correctness or being subdued by coercive force in whatever form and at all levels.

    The theme of Vol. 2 No. 2 is “politics and dialogue.” All essays touch upon political life from different angles and in different ways, directly or indirectly. Sadly, before the issue was released we lost one of our highly esteemed contributors, Goutam Biswas. Professor Biswas served as Dean of the School of Philosophy at Assam University, India. He was a renowned scholar of Rabindranath Tagore and Martin Buber, and was indeed well aware of what dialogue can do to improve existence, let alone preserve it. He was acquainted with Buber’s translator Maurice Friedman who, in a sad coincidence, also died in the autumn of this year. Goutam Biswas was also aware of the need to develop understanding across the narrow boundaries to which academic disciplines, be it philosophy, anthropology, or the arts, are too often confined. His Art as Dialogue, published in 1996, is certainly a major contribution in the field. The essay that he kindly wrote for the journal reminds us with great insight of the centrality of “dialogicality” when it comes to envisioning knowledge of humans by humans, including in the “realm” of socio-politics. Overlooking the way we relate to other people, communities, or even civilizations, can indeed lead to misunderstanding or, in the worse case, conflict.

    Günter Wohlfart’s lecture text shows the way by bringing face-to-face interpretations of peace and war from different philosophical horizons. Neither Immanuel Kant’s idea of “eternal peace” nor Heraclitus’ conception of war as “father of things” will save us from the predicament caused by conflicts. Neither “all-too-good pacifism” nor “outright bellicosity” is the way forward. Rather, we should learn how to relate to the “enemy” without fighting, as Sunzi’s Art of War suggests; a sharp topical lesson for international politics to bear in mind. 

    If it is clear that naïve pacifism can in the long run pave the way for more destruction and misery, the question of whether installing the ethos of dialogue by force could be justified in communities that do not have such a tradition is far from being straightforward. In other words, interventionism may not always be the best means for the good cause. And as far as political dialogue is concerned, the reasons may be historical, cultural, or even civilizational. What Yingchi Chu and Horst Ruthrof show in their essay is that “obstacles to the emergence of political dialogue in China” are not only due to the practice of the political regime of the time; they also and more profoundly find their origin in the cultural tradition of Confucianism and its belief in some form of obedience and normativity. Moreover, this rich essay raises the complex issue of the cultural justification of political practices that are un-dialogical.

    Acceptability or condemnation of practices in the name of universal value or cultural customs is precisely one of the fundamental issues that Ian Fraser addresses in his powerful critique of Amartya Sen’s interpretation and use of Adam Smith’s “impartial spectator” as moral regulator. Whether privileging the universalizing “distant voices” of conscience or “cultural relativism” is a question that cannot be answered by either “one-sidedness” or “ambivalence.” A better world, Fraser suggests, would be one where people listen to those “distance voices” … “but not to the detriment of a dialectical interplay between the different forms of the spectator.” This is perhaps what may be called a dialogical conscience that would be attentive to cultural particularities through constant questioning and self-questioning for the sake of our “common humanity.”

   The relational element is also at the heart of Nicole Hassoun’s and David B. Wong’s proposal for a better understanding and handling of cultural formations. They highlight a real problem that has too often shaped politics and therefore the ways cultures are seen. The decision to preserve a culture on the basis of some obscure (or too simplistic) idea of immutable and authentic essence is indeed a monological conception of culture that is generally politically motivated by self-interest, in other words for the wrong reasons. Hassoun and Wong acknowledge that, in the context of globalization, efforts to preserve particular cultures “against threats” can be justified. But it is equally vital to recognize that “the boundaries and the content of culture can and do change over time.” Their idea of “cultural conservation” does justice to motivations and elements that can be both internal and external to a particular culture. The concrete examples discussed offer wonderful evidence of how dialogical understanding can contribute to the “conservation” of cultures in formation.

    Lastly, I would like to thank all the authors who have made this issue of Culture and Dialogue possible and who have indeed creatively contributed to the conservation of the journal. As ever, many thanks to our Assistant Editor Jon K. Shaw for his faithful commitment as well as to our Copy Editor, Anita Chen, and the team at Airiti Press. Each of us has the responsibility to keep the dialogue alive, not for its own sake, but for a better life.

Gerald Cipriani

Contents

Editorial

          Vol. 2 No. 1 marks the first year anniversary of Culture and Dialogue. The number focuses on art, a world that is dialogical par excellence, even though, from time to time, forgetfulness justifies reminders.

        Artistic experience can be seen in many ways to be an affair of appeals and responses. The words of the poet or the sounds of the musician emerge from the invisible backgrounds of history, culture, and society to resonate both against and with the world of the one who is willing to listen. This resonance is the response that throws light on the words and sounds whose worlds become thereby apparent. In this sense, dialogue is the place of artistic experience. Even more, dialogue is what makes history, culture and society appear in a slightly different way each time the work of art calls for our readiness to be transformed by it. This availability, however, comes at a price; Nicholas Davey suggests in Unquiet Understanding (2006) that what we should be willing to risk in becoming open to each other, and therefore to other worlds, also implies that we accept to put ourselves in a difficult position. This is indeed a fundamental condition for dialogue to be a renewing experience. But for dialogue to remain healthy, it must rely on a principle of reciprocal freedom and trust – the only shields against coercion and meaninglessness. Moreover, some have seen in dialogue nothing but a good will hiding a disguised form of instrumental reason. This is perhaps the crux of the misunderstanding, for the prose of the world is the voice of dialogue.

           The resonance at stake is first expressed in Sonia Weiner’s essay that brings into dialogue Daya Krishna’s alternative conception of knowledge against postmodern trends and Vikas Swarup’s novel Q & A, published in 2005. Weiner’s insightful study shows how the thinker’s reflection can speak through the writing of the novelist, and vice versa. The second essay by Robert Clarke describes with beautiful words how a non- dual conception of dialogue between theory and practice can depict the flowing stream of artistic creativity. Feng Su’s study on cloud imagery in the Mao Zedong era offers another revealing example of the vital need to understand the creative nature of dialogue – and the way it can be manipulated by ideology – in this case between painting and historical tradition. Paul Gladston’s idea of polylogue between international postmodern thought and Chinese contemporary culture proves with impressive scholarship how multiple dialogical resonances do not need to degenerate into a cacophony of meaningless relativism. Erkki Huovinen puts forward in sharp conceptual terms the innovative idea of dialogical anthropology of art that allows for the human significance of art to emerge from the interfaces between artists and their worlds. Finally, Giuseppe Patella reminds us in critical terms how relevant the dialogical openness is between cognitive cultural practices – including aesthetics – in contemporary life.

            My words of thanks go to all the authors who have generously accepted to contribute to this number as well as to our Assistant Editors, Anne-Marie McManus and Jon K. Shaw, and to our Copy Editor, Anita Chen, for all the painstaking work they have done. Lastly, I am indebted to Nicholas Davey without whom I would have never discovered the spirit of dialogical hermeneutics.

Gerald Cipriani

Contents

    

     1               Editorial

                      Gerald Cipriani

     3               Dialogue as Art – Reading Vikas Swarup’s Q & A with Daya Krishna 

                      Sonia Weiner

     15             Play It Again Schumann – Towards a Non-dual Conception of Theory and Practice in Creativity

                      Robert Clarke

     33             Restricted Dialogue – On the Interpretation of Cloud Imagery in the Mao Zedong Era (1942-1976)

                      Feng Su

     53             Problematizing Contemporaneity – Towards a Polylogue between International Postmodernist and 

                      Chinese Contemporary Art Theories

                      Paul Gladston

      81            Dialogical Anthropology of Art

                       Erkki Huovinen

      107           Aesthetics, Culture, Dialogue

                       Giuseppe Patella     

Editorial

       This second issue of Culture and Dialogue focuses on philosophy. The principle of the Journal is that each issue will approach “dialogue” from different cultural perspectives. Issue No.3 will consider the role played by dialogue in art, followed by issues on religion, politics, and education. This brings us to September 2013 and subsequent issues will likely reflect on dialogue within the fields of science, language, and environmental studies. More specific themes could equally be included in the future such as dialogue and cinema, power, or cultural identity.

        From a philosophical standpoint, any suggestion that such an undertaking inexorably smacks of essentialism is simply too grotesque for words. There is no attempt at building an ideology of dialogue as if the ability to grasp its essence could bring some kind of salvation. Any idea of promised land of dialogue would lead to disillusions, frustrations and ultimately conflicts – in other words, precisely the opposite to what the practice of dialogue strives to achieve. Each time the Journal gives authors the chance to publish on the topic of dialogue or to write in a dialogical fashion, we become more aware of what dialogue can do as well as of its limitations. Each time dialogue takes place it leaves a trace that contributes to the shaping of what some might call the essence of dialogue. The essentialist, on the contrary, is the one who does not want to accept that essences ought to be thought in retrospect. The essentialist is the one who thinks in terms of essences prior to looking at their traces. The essentialist does not see that the concrete particularity of the trace is a place that allows essences to manifest themselves, implying constitutive reciprocity by the same token. Far from being innocent, the essentialist does not allow the trace to renew the essence that is thought to be sempiternal. In other words, the essentialist seeks to preserve what is wrongly seen as the immutable universal dimension of essences to which individuals should be subsumed. Like all practices in the making dialogue does not follow a guide; nor does it seek to impose itself by shouting Listen to me! I know where to go! The life of dialogue is about meeting, as it was for Martin Buber.

        As the Editor of the Journal I cannot obviously speak for our contributors, but one thing is certain: each contribution is part of a working field without immutable fences. Each contribution does not tell us which way to take, but rather shows us how to find a way to a better life in a world made of differences and similarities. Clearly, the way of dialogue can take an infinite number of shapes as evidenced by the rich variety of contributions. This is not to suggest that those instances of dialogue taking place from different spatial and temporal perspectives are inexorably aimed at a synthesis of identification enabling us to work out some apodictic awareness of dialogue. Far from being a dice-throw, this method would run against the dialogical spirit of the Journal.

      The opening essay of this issue by Hans Köchler highlights one of the fundamental problems that the international scene faces with the “civilizational paradigm.” A true dialogue between “civilizations” should rest on principles of equality, dialectics and mutuality, instead of mere self-affirmation sourced from “civilizational nostalgia.” Above all, Köchler’s acute argument locates the possibility of “co-existence” precisely in reciprocal curiosity and engagement. It is this kind of understanding of dialogical relationship that is undoubtedly lacking at the levels of persons, communities, nations and civilizations.

        Engaging with different cultures is precisely what Helen Verran and Michael Christie have undertaken with Yolnu Aboriginal Australians. Their way of research is fundamentally dialogical in the sense that “doing difference” through togetherness is what precedes concept formation. A garma philosophical dialogue lies at the root of their empirical enquiry and the marvellous story that starts the essay, far from being anecdotal, embodies the truly postcolonial spirit at work. If there was a hopeful counterexample of what Köchler argues against, we might find it in this essay.

        Questions of civilizational identity are obviously at the core of what justifies dialogical approaches. By reflecting on “what it means to be an American today” through powerful albeit delightful images such as the “salad bowl” and the “tomato soup,” Peter Atterton discloses the fundamental problems that stem not only from the “originating violence” supposedly justified for the sake of a “social contract,” but also from monological orientations whose self-affirmative nature is equally and paradoxically justified on the basis of democratic principles. We are then brought to reflect on the idea of the “melting pot” and on the possibility of healthy co-existence that can indeed only rest on reciprocal engagements, whether within America or with the outside world.

        At the same time, Katerina Reed-Tsocha warns us in sharp conceptual terms that “conversation of mankind” as radically conceived by Richard Rorty is bound to defeat its allegedly liberating purpose. Interestingly, the ensuing “anti-essentialist and anti- foundationalist” radicalism that Reed-Tsocha describes as “missed potential” in Rorty’s proposition echoes in may ways what was previously suggested as regards to essentialism and the quest for apodicticity: they all run in different ways against the spirit of dialogue. Inevitably, they prevent meaningful “interdisciplinary exchange” of the kind that engages with – instead of ignoring or in the worst case destroying – boundaries such as those left by “historicities.” In other words, they prevent conceptual renewal through dialogue.

        Thorsten Botz-Bornstein gives us another telling example of what the concreteness of dialogical approaches can do. As a European “outsider,” if I may say so, Botz-Bornstein brings face-to-face two forms of “hyperrality,” one from contemporary Confucian China and the other from consumerist America. What emerges from this very rich and daring essay is no less than a questioning of what constitutes “culture” or “civilization,” depending on the context within which the “endless reproductions of fundamentally empty appearances” take place. In more abstract terms, the dialogical element in this study brings to light similarities and differences that would have otherwise remained unnoticed, and by doing so contributes to calling for mutual engagement and curiosity on a global scale.

        This issue of the Journal devoted to “philosophy and dialogue” ends with a strong argument against any conception of the mind or the sense of self that ignores its relational nature. Madhucchanda Sen shows how the problems that stem accordingly from Cartesian philosophy are echoed in the analytical tradition of so-called “Representationalism.” Sen endeavours to challenge this overlooking by bringing the phenomenological conception of “embodiment” into play. Sen’s compelling critical stance becomes apparent as soon as Representationalism is exposed to phenomenology, partly through carefully selected quotes.

        All these essays have contributed in their own philosophical ways to creating a dialogical working field to help enabling co-existence – and the aim is not to maintain differences aloof, but to renew them through mutual understanding. Issue No. 3 will let art speak in its own voice for more calls and more responses to be heard within our field and ways beyond.

        Finally, I would like to thank our new Assistant Editors, Anne-Marie McManus and Jon Shaw, as well as our Copy Editor Ying Ying Lee, for the marvelous work they all did.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Gerald Cipriani

Contents

1	Editorial Gerald Cipriani
5	The Philosophy and Politics of Dialogue Hans Köchler
21	Doing Difference Together – Towards a Dialogue with Aboriginal Knowledge Authorities Through an Australian Comparative Empirical Philosophical Inquiry Helen Verran and Michael Christie
37	What It Means to Be an American Today: Democracy “To Come” Peter Atterton
63	Mortal Vocabularies vs. Immortal Propositions – Richard Rorty and the Conversation of Mankind  Katerina Reed-Tsocha
79	America against China – Civilization without Culture against Culture without Civilization? Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
109	The Self and the Other, The Inner and the Outer: Dissolving Binaries Madhucchanda Sen