Seems to me that the right/wrong discussion needs to start with an agreement to
maintain basic respect for each others' viewpoint.
I'm happy to start there. But that already assumes something I think is not universally accepted. For example, how many of the Talbian leadership could start with an agreement to maintain basic respect for the viewpoint of any woman?
The more I look at the world today, the more I read and think about it, the more I realize that there are fundamental and, I fear, unbridgable chasms which separate major cultures. In my training as a mediator, one thing I was taught was to start with basic principles all the parties can agree on, and work from there. But when I look at some of the cultures of the world, I can't see even a single basic principle to agree on to start from.
Maybe I'm too negative, or too cynical. Or maybe not.
Was it "The End of History" which postulated that Western Liberalism (using the term in its sociological, not political, sense) had won out, and that the great struggle between Liberal and non-Liberal thought was over? If so, I think the thesis was fundamentally wrong. |
