The Universal Foundations for the Cooperation of Civilizations
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I. What Is the Future of Humankind: Clash of Civilizations or Cooperation?
The greatest change in the international political situation in the late 20th century was the end of the cold war resulting from the disintegration of the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact Organization as well as the transformation of systems in these countries. The end of the cold war has brought about a sharp decline of the previous attraction and cohesion of ideologies. And the significance of the international confrontation and conflict based on the opposition between different ideologies has inevitably declined too. Various local conflicts, however, stand out against the fading ideological background unexpectedly. These conflicts include both domestic and international ones between different (or within the same) races, nationalities, religions and civilizations. Therefore, how to understand and grasp the reality in a post-cold war world, how to meet the challenge and tackle the problems in the contemporary international politics, how to anticipate and guide the development of human civilization in the future, in a word, what is the future of the humankind, naturally becomes the common concern of the political and academic circles in every country of the world.
It was just on this background that professor of politics at Harvard Samuel P. Huntington puts forward his theory of clash of civilizations. In The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order he predicates that after the end of the cold war all the countries and various political forces around the world will re-muster according to civilizations, whether they ally according to their commonly identified civilizations, or split due to different civilizations. He also contends that the fault lines between different civilizations will become bloody fields of the wars of civilization, that the 21st century will be the time of the clash of civilizations.
First of all, we would acknowledge that Huntington¡¯s theory partly reflects the reality of world politics after the end of the cold war. Reviewing the modern history of the world, the theme of worldwide politico-economic struggle has at least undergone three shifts. First, from the French revolution to the end of World War II and later, the theme of the times was the struggle for national independence and equality. Second, from the industrial revolution to the end of the cold war, the theme of the times was ideological opposition and class struggle for social equality. Third, from the end of the cold war to the present, some of the recent struggles can no longer be explained only by national struggle and class struggle, and have begun bearing relatively evident hues of cultural and religious struggles. The cultural and religious identification and difference have begun to affect the division and reorganization of various social groups within and between countries. The split and religious wars in former Yugoslavia is one of the evident instances. This indicates the struggle between civilizations will gain more importance in world politics in the new times. At the same time, we should not overemphasize its importance so as to neglect the remaining national and class struggles overlapping it.
Although Huntington¡¯s theory reflects to some extent the reality of world politics in our time, his theory still has major defects. First of all, another phenomenon in post-cold war world politics is gradually becoming more important, that is, the politico-economic gap and contradiction between the developed and less-developed countries. This sort of worldwide gap and polarization between the rich and the poor will most likely lead to new division and reorganization among different countries and regions. It will further condition and restrict the union and struggle between them, consequently affecting the politico-economic structure and situation of the world in the 21st century profoundly. The most convincing example is the contrast between Japan and Russia. The traditional culture of Japan is a variation of Chinese culture but not Christian culture; however it allies with the Western countries and was admitted into the ¡°club of the rich¡± ¡ª the Group of Seven. This is mainly because Japan is a developed country and has the common interests with the other Western countries, and not because it is a democratic and Christian country. Democratized Russia, however, had been refused by the Group for a long time mainly because its economy had not reached the standard of the Western developed countries. One of the major obstacles to reunification between mainland China and Taiwan also consists in the difference of economic development but not that of culture. Of course, the problem of the economic gap between countries and regions cannot be solved through struggle or war, but should be solved mainly through dialogue, adjustment, cooperation and development. In the world of the future, the economic difference between the rich and the poor countries perhaps will be more fundamental and important than the difference of civilizations, but Huntington does not pay sufficient attention to it.
Secondly, whether national, class or civilization struggles are merely superficial phenomena and forms of expression, even though important, yet they are not final causes of various conflicts. The ultimate cause leading to these struggles and conflicts is the contradiction and conflicts of interests. Huntington correctly points out the phenomena of civilization conflicts, but he fails to further investigate their roots. As a matter of fact, people choose their allies and enemies according to the importance and priority of their own diverse interests, just as the 19th century British Prime Minister Henry Palmerston said that we had neither permanent allies nor permanent enemies, we had only permanent interests. As long as people still take their own interests as the criterion for distinguishing friends and enemies, as long as the world is still in the state of anarchy, this maxim will remain true. In the present world, there are many conflicts not resulting from the differences of civilizations. Even for conflicts between different civilizations, we can find the real conflicts of interests underlying the civilization clash. For example, the Gulf War appeared to be a conflict between the Western and Islamic civilizations, but its origin was the dispute of territory and petroleum within the Islamic world. The involvement of the West was out of the consideration of important interests for protecting its petroleum resources, and the alliance between the United States and Kuwait, Saudi Arabia is obviously a trans-civilization alliance. As another example, the war between Israel and Arabian countries is indeed a war of civilizations, but its origin and substance are still a dispute of territory not that of religion (which Huntington denies). And the way of settling this dispute can only be ¡°to trade land for peace¡± but not ¡°to trade Judaism for Islam¡±. If we carefully examine various conflicts in the world, we can find that in the final analysis almost all the conflicts happening under different names (including civilization and religion) have been caused by contradictions in interests. On the basis of these contradictions or after the conflicts have happened, the difference and identification of civilizations or religions can intensify the split, union and conflict of civilizations. Since world history stepped into the modern times of religious freedom and tolerance, it is hard to imagine conflicts caused merely by the difference of religion or civilization. I doubt whether we can find the pure religious war or civilization conflicts even in the medieval times when the religious persecution and religious war prevailed. In modern times and in medieval and ancient times, contentions for territory, fortune, dominance and hegemony often hid behind religious wars and civilization conflicts.
Thirdly, Huntington asserts that people need enemies. The reason is that there will be no friends without an enemy, and there will be no identification of us without alienating them. Even if they have no enemy they will or must make one. Here he discloses an intolerant and unequal ¡°master-slave¡± logic (Could this be called ¡°political correctness¡±?), and uses this specious reasoning to deny the possibility of equal dialogue and mutual cooperation among civilizations. In fact, the universality and necessity of this theory has never been proved strictly. It is at most an inadequate induction out of some past experience. In my opinion, as long as we actually practise equality, justice and tolerance in economy, politics and culture, people with different religious and civilization backgrounds certainly can coexist peacefully, coordinate the interests of all sides through negotiation, and seek simultaneous development through cooperation. In this case, it is wholly possible to avoid the clash of civilizations or the religious war. The best example in dealing properly with such matters should be the motherland of Jean Jacques Rousseau ¾ Switzerland. As everyone knows, Switzerland is a democratic country with three nationalities, four languages and two religions. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Switzerland experienced two wars against foreign countries (Austrian Empire and Napoleon France) and two civil religious wars (between Catholics and Protestants), but since the freedom of religious belief was established and the federal government was founded, it has been maintaining domestic peace as well as international neutrality. In this way, Switzerland avoided destruction in two World Wars and other wars, and has succeeded in maintaining its independence, stability and prosperity. The Swiss people enjoy many more democratic rights than most Western countries, and they are tolerant toward each other, treat each other equally and love peace, but are determined to defend their independence and rights at any moment. All of those are crucial conditions for Switzerland to maintain its peace, neutrality, stability and prosperity without a regular army, the high pressure of autocracy, and domestic and foreign enemies. Of course, on the objective side, the independence of Switzerland depends on circumjacent countries¡¯ respect for its sovereignty and neutrality; but on the subjective side, if the Swiss people had believed Huntington¡¯s idea of making enemies in and out of their country and given up their policy of refusing to be involved in the hostile international conflict, Switzerland perhaps would have fallen apart and become a victim of the contentions of great powers. Although the threat from the outside enemy may be helpful for reconciling inner disputes and enhancing inner solidarity, this does not mean that in order to make friends one must intentionally make an enemy.
A good deal of experience in personal relationship and world history has demonstrated that the primary reason for all hostility and conflicts is to fail to take equal, just and tolerant attitudes towards others; and the best way to make an enemy is partiality, discrimination, oppression and exclusiveness. On the contrary, if all the people belonging to different ethnic groups, languages, religions and civilizations enjoy equal and just political-economic-cultural rights, treat one another without discrimination, understand one another and sincerely cooperate in the communication of civilizations, there will be no jealousy, contention and hostility, civilization clash and religious war will be avoided. The past colonial wars, the two World Wars, the cold war and other cruel wars in history have shown that people could not gain positive results and real interests by means of antagonism and war, even if one side won a temporary victory at the heavy cost of property and life, it could barely maintain an unsafe rule and superiority. The embedded hatred would surely lead to the revenge of the loser, and in the end both sides would suffer and there would be no final winner.
II. Cooperation and Justice: a Universal Ethic
Reason and historical experience have told us that the only way for the humankind to achieve peace, development, reciprocity, bilateral winning and the common good is equality, justness, tolerance, understanding and mutual cooperation. Unfortunately human beings are so impulsive, near-sighted and narrow-minded that they only gradually understand and accept this universal truth by means of trial-and-error after thousands of years¡¯ painful lessons. With the progress of contemporary science and technology, modern game theory has been able to prove, by the aid of computer simulation experiments, that even out of the pursuit of one¡¯s own interests, the ethical pattern of cooperation plus justice (limited retaliation) has practical advantages over that of cheating and hostility.
As early as 1950s some mathematicians put forward the famous ¡°Prisoner¡¯s Dilemma¡±, and demonstrated that as long as neither of the two parties is a fool, the strategy of mutual cooperation will be superior to that of mutual defection. From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, Robert Axelrod at the University of Michigan followed this route and conducted two global computer tournaments, in which 14 and 62 programs of survival strategy submitted by experts of game theory and programmers from many countries took part. Each participant program started from egoism to pursue the maximization of its own interests (namely gaining most points in the tournaments) by means of different survival strategies (defection or cooperation etc.). The tournaments were played according to the round-robin rule. The results were very surprising: the non-nice programs mainly using defection strategies were gradually eliminated, on the contrary the nice programs mainly using cooperation strategies gained more points. Among these nice programs, a simplest program TIT FOR TAT designed by Anatol Rapoport at the University of Toronto finally won in both tournaments. The tactics of TIT FOR TAT are very simple: it always cooperates on move 1; thereafter it does whatever the other player did on the previous move, that is, if the other player cooperated it will do so, if the other player defected it will retaliate immediately, but will confine itself to one retaliation; then it will not hold a grudge and continue to cooperate. After analysis we can find that TIT FOR TAT has four basic traits: niceness (being willing to cooperate and never being the first to defect), provocability (getting angry at defectors and retaliating correspondingly), forgiveness (not holding a grudge once having vented anger and being ready to cooperate again), and clarity (giving a clear and straightforward response to the other player¡¯s action). It is these four traits that guarantee TIT FOR TAT will gain maximum self-interests while not infringing upon other¡¯s interests, therefore it can win out in an egoist world and become the best survival strategy in the struggle for existence.
What is more interesting is that Axelrod carried out an ecological tournament with all the participant programs to simulate how a species fits in a developing environment. In this tournament, a program¡¯s score in one round was taken as a measure of its fitness and the number of progeny in the next generation (next round). As the ecological tournament was carried on generation after generation, the environment gradually changed. The less fit programs began to drop out and the more successful ones had more and more descendants. Finally, TIT FOR TAT displayed its extraordinary adaptability once again: not only its score was far ahead but also its rate of growth was greater than that of any other program. In contrast, although some non-nice programs gained the lead for a while by milking stupid programs, as those programs were gradually squeezed out and the environment changed, the non-nice programs themselves eventually suffered the fate of extinction. In summarizing this entirely new sort of computer simulation ecological evolution tournament, Axelrod pointed out: ¡°TIT FOR TAT won the tournament, not by beating the other player but by eliciting behavior from the other player that allowed both to do well. ¡ In a non-zero-sum world you do not have to do better than the other player to do well for yourself. ¡ Letting each of them do the same as or a little better than you is fine, as long as you tend to do well yourself. There is no point in being envious of the success of the other player, since in an iterated Prisoner¡¯s Dilemma of long duration the other¡¯s success is virtually a prerequisite of your doing well for yourself.¡±(Douglas R. Hofstadter, ¡°Computer Tournaments of the Prisoner¡¯s Dilemma Suggest How Cooperation Evolves¡±, Scientific American, 1983, 5, p.19) Therefore, cooperation and reciprocity are not only the best survival strategies but also the inevitable results and future direction of the evolution of life and society. Just as Axelrod put it: ¡°The gear wheels of social evolution have a ratchet.¡± (Ibid p.20)
The ethical significance of these computer simulation tournaments is very obvious. The four traits of TIT FOR TAT respectively stand for several fundamental ethical principles: 1. Niceness is to be willing to initiate and reciprocate cooperation, which is the most important ethical principle to maintain the relationship of reciprocity and mutual benefit. 2. Provocability stands for just revenge, which is the major means to punish illegal violations and preserve equity and justice. 3. Forgiveness means limited retaliation, which is an auxiliary means to prevent conflict from escalating, avoid cyclical retaliations and resume cooperation. 4. The significance of clarity consists in giving a clear and adequate response to the other side so as to promote mutual understanding and create a favorable interaction of mutual benefits, at the same time to prevent misunderstanding and mutual damages. The first three principles can be reduced to cooperation and justice, which belong to the normative principles in ethics. The last one is a principle of communication, which has a special meaning for the mutual understanding and responding between different religions and civilizations. Although these ethical principles are quite simple, we cannot but acknowledge they are very convincing in theory and advantageous in practice. What is especially important is that they may become a universally applicable ethic transcending the particularities of the historical origin and cultural tradition of any specific civilization. Furthermore, this ethic can realize the unities between morality and interests, egoism and altruism. Finally, it is a kind of ethic of retribution in this life, which is more in conformity with the concept of justice of modern times. Although it does not rely on the threat of falling into hell and the promise of ascending to heaven or eternal salvation, this ethic can persuade people to take moral actions of honest cooperation, because the altruistic action will in turn benefit themselves too.
Compared with the main religious and secular ethics in the world, we can see that the above ethic is more similar to Confucian and Christian ethics (the goodness in the New Testament plus the justice in the Old Testament), whereas it differs in the principle of justice from the excessive forbearance in Taoism, Buddhism and the New Testament (¡°If any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.¡± ¡°Love your enemies.¡±). These religious and secular ethics no doubt intend to persuade people to do good, but in a world with fraud, oppression and violence the ethic of goodness plus justice has stronger adaptability, because it has not only the advantage of cooperation but also a powerful means of self-defense, moreover its principles of limited retaliation and resuming cooperation can push the environment to develop in the direction of well-intentioned cooperation. The successful instance best illustrating this matter is the world history surrounding World War II: The excessive forbearance and concession of the Munich Agreement connived at Hitler¡¯s insatiability and the breakout of World War II; the just revenge of the Allied Forces was the correct means of saving Europe and world civilization; and the allies¡¯ postwar policies of remoulding, reconstructing and resuming cooperation with Germany and Japan have successfully avoided the revival of militarism and the breakout of World War III. One of the failing precedents was the Versailles System after World War I. As a result of the System¡¯s unlimited retaliation (e. g. Asking Germany to pay a huge war indemnity and cede territory, and many other requests leading to the bankruptcy of German economy), the German people under the pressure of unemployment and inflation selected Hitler as their last hope. In the end what France and Britain obtained was just an unsafe victory and a consequently more frightful revenge. If the leaders and politicians all over the world were to follow these greedy and nearsighted strategic and ethical principles, the vicious samsara of circular reprisals between nationalities, countries, religions and civilizations would never come to an end. Buddhism was aware of this phenomenon long ago, but it went to another extreme, so that it was blind to the fact that the results of endlessly returning good for evil, and daring not to resist illegal violation, would lead to the villain¡¯s refusing to repent due to not being punished and given lessons.
If we examine the field of law closely related to ethics, we will find that principles of cooperation and justice are almost entirely in conformity with the spirit of law of most countries. The law not only protects legitimate rights and honest cooperation but also punishes criminal¡¯s illegal violation. Legal punishment well reflects the principle of justice in ethics. Without the punishment on criminals and the protection of good people by domestic laws, the social environment in any country would degrade to a jungle in which the good and weak would be unable to exist, and all the fruits of civilization would be destroyed. Although it is nearly 400 years since Hugo Grotius created international law, our international community still looks like an anarchical and lawless world. Each country does things in its own way and only cares about its own interests, so that hostility, antagonism and conflicts emerge in the postwar world from time to time. Nevertheless, the principles of mutual trust and reciprocal cooperation do make progress to a certain extent. Besides the United Nations, the European Union, the North American Free Trade Zone, the Southern Common Market, the ASEAN Regional Forum and other transnational and trans-civilization cooperative organizations were set up one after another, which is a good sign indicating the trend of gradual expansion of the cooperation between countries and civilizations. The year before last I discussed with a professor at Leiden University about the development of the Western European civilization. I have taken for granted for many years that the motive power of the development of Western Europe is the competition among many countries. To my surprise, the professor said it was not competition but union and cooperation that were the motive power of the Western Europe. It is evident that having experienced the catastrophe of the two world wars, the Europeans have deeply realized the vital significance of trust, cooperation, peace and development. Just imagine if all countries and civilizations could adopt the policy of maintaining world peace and friendly cooperation, what tremendous common good would be created for all the people in the world, with huge military expenditures saved for peaceful purposes and socioeconomic development! Only this point is enough to prove the great advantage of cooperation over hostility.
Huntington arbitrarily asserts that the scope of identification and cooperation of human beings cannot extend across the border of civilization, which is the maximum scope of human community. I indeed cannot imagine on what tenable reason he grounds this assertion. If after a long evolution in ethics human beings have been able to develop the relations of identification and cooperation between individuals, families, ethnic groups, nationalities and countries, why can they not further develop the same relations between civilizations including the whole humankind at the present time and in the future? Mencius said: ¡°Care for my elders and extend the care to other¡¯s elders; care for my children and extend the care to other¡¯s children.¡± The painful lessons of wars and the progress of reason will eventually make clear to all human groups the truth of this fundamental ethic: To expand cooperation and uphold justice are the best way to achieve the maximum of one¡¯s own interests. I believe that as the scope of identification and cooperation of human groups continuously extends, people of different nationalities, colours, languages, cultures, religions, systems and values will eventually reach the common consciousness of ¡°all of us belong to the human race after all¡±, thereby we will realize a kind of human love applicable to all civilizations based on the principles of equality, justice, tolerance and cooperation. Although the realization of this ideal will undergo a long and hard process, yet this is our faith and the hope of the humankind as well.
III. Seeking Common Ground while Reserving Differences:
the Common Ethical Principles in Practice
Huntington asserts the clash of religions and civilizations are unavoidable, because he overemphasizes the differences between their doctrines without further analysis. If we make a careful analysis and comparison among the doctrines and principles of several religions and secular ethics, it is not difficult to find that the differences among them are not as great as Huntington imagines, and they are not absolutely incompatible.
First of all, let us analyze and compare the similarities and differences of the practical ethical principles of several religious and secular ethics at the empirical level. The fundamental practical ethical principles of TIT FOR TAT and a number of religious and secular ethics are listed below:
TIT FOR TAT Niceness Provocability Forgiveness
(Honest Cooperation) (Just Retaliation) (Limited Retaliation)
Confucianism Benevolence is love to man. Return evil with retaliation Hatred must become
Return good for good. straightforwardly. reconciled.
Courtesy demands reciprocity. (Limited Retaliation,
Gentleman governs the forgiving after obtaining
country without killing. justice.)
Keep your promise.
Show filial piety to your father
and mother.
Do as you would be done by.
Don¡¯t do to others what you
would not have them do to you.
Christianity You shall love your neighbor You shall give life for life, Love your enemies.
as yourself. eye for eye, tooth for tooth, If any one strikes you on the
You shall not kill. hand for hand, foot for foot,¡ right cheek, turn to him the
You shall not steal, nor deal other also.
falsely, nor lie to one another. (Do not revenge, excessive
You shall not break the covenant. forbearance.)
Honor your father and mother.
Whatever you wish that men
would do to you, do so to them.
Taoism Saint always saves men. Return good for evil.
Saint will not do injury to men. (Do not revenge, excessive
One who likes killing will not forbearance.)
win the world.
Words should be kept.
Buddhism Ferry all living creatures. Guard against hatred and
Do not kill. anger.
Do not lie. Forbear and yield to keep
harmony.
Do not revenge on one
another to avoid falling into
eternal samsara.
(Do not revenge, excessive
forbearance.)
It is easy to find that the ethics of these different civilizations or religions share similar principles in goodness or niceness if confined to the practical ethical principles in empirical world. Among them Confucianism has more similarities to Christianity, for example, benevolence, love, honesty, credit, justice, filiality, loyalty and consideration for others. Moreover, no stealing and no adultery are also their common commandments. Hegel once acknowledged in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy that Confucius¡¯ teachings in the Analects were the same in the main as the doctrines expressed in ethical maxims and commandments of other nations in the world. So it is not difficult for most civilizations or religions (except some evil sects) to get to a common ethical view in the matter of goodness, the only differences between them consist in whether to adopt the principle of justice and the degree of forgiveness. In the real life, the application of justice and forgiveness depends on the concrete living circumstances to a great extent. If there are many people practising the principles of non-goodness in our living circumstances, we have to adhere to the principle of just retaliation in order to get back justice, and never connive at the villain¡¯s evil doings. If most people in our circumstances are moral civilized people, it seems desirable to adopt a more forgiving principle like TIT FOR TWO TATS, namely, our side retaliates once after the other side commits two cheats or hostilities. This means we first forgive them once to give them a chance to correct their mistakes by accident; doing so will help to create and preserve the atmosphere of mutual trust and cooperation. Yet we must be aware that this needs a higher level of morality and the sincere goodwill of the other side. Only in this circumstance the principles of forgiveness of the New Testament, Taoism and Buddhism are practicable, because people can expect to exchange forgiveness for forgiveness and exchange concession for concession. Otherwise, once you find the other side is not a civilized gentleman with goodwill and your circumstance is not a favorable one, in which excessive forgiveness will lead to self-destruction, it is better to take up self-defensive weapons and resolutely exercise the just TIT FOR TAT principle, until the other side gives up evil and resumes the attitude of cooperation. A vivid example in the Chinese classical literature is Monk Tang (Tang Xuanzang) and Monkey King (Sun Wukong) in A Pilgrimage to the West (A Mission to Heaven). The former is an absolutely kindhearted and devout Buddhist who believes in non-killing and non-resistance, and the latter is an unrivaled hero who resolutely fights back the attacks from demons and villains. The Monk himself not only refuses to resist evil force, but also frequently obstructs and punishes the Monkey King¡¯s resistance. Without the latter¡¯s desperate protection and just retaliation, the Monk would have been cooked into a cannibal¡¯s banquet by the demons long before his arrival in India. Although this is merely a mythical story, it clearly displays the opposition and different consequences of the two ethical principles, the ethical meaning of which nobody can misunderstand. The same can be said in the real life: you could never exercise unlimited forgiveness to Hitler. In the present situation of the world, perhaps we cannot give up the principle of justice yet, but with the end of the cold war and the enhancement of communication and understanding among the nations and civilizations, the possibility of practising more forgiving and tolerant principles of goodness does increase gradually, which is the hope of promoting trans-civilization cooperation and avoiding the war of civilizations.
Through preceding analysis we can see that the empirical principles in ethical practice of different civilizations or religions are alike except for slight differences, and can be respectively applied to different circumstances. This means they are compatible or reconcilable, at least mutually understandable by reason. Whereas there is another dispute among various civilizations or religions that is more difficult to settle, that is the difference over their transcendent presuppositions. In other words, different religions believe in different Gods. At first sight this seems to be an entirely incommensurable and irreconcilable conflict; however the enlightenment and progress of civilization in the modern times have demonstrated that it is possible to solve this dispute by introducing another important ethical principle: religious tolerance and civilization tolerance. In other words, we must guard against the words and deeds of mutual discrimination, exclusiveness and persecution, and promote peaceful coexistence among different religions or civilizations by seeking common ground and reserving differences. In the opinions of traditional Chinese people, especially the intellectuals (including literati in the past), as for Confucianism, Taoism or Buddhism, their respective Gods or Heaven are no more than a supreme authority established for moralization. As long as they can play the deterrent and educational role in admonishing people to forsake evil for good, it does not matter which God the people believe in. This spirit of religious tolerance resulted in the government and society adopting relatively equal and tolerant attitudes and policies towards Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism since the Song Dynasty (about 1000 AD). The three religions also lived in peace with one another. In some places in China, the three religions collaborated and their three Gods were combined into one. Many foreign religions and cultures including Buddhism and Judaism gradually merged into the original Chinese culture. The contemporary Chinese culture is a concrescence of many heterogeneous components just like the American culture. Most religious conflicts in history arose from unjust religious exclusiveness and discrimination. Fortunately since the times of Enlightenment the principles of religious tolerance and freedom of belief have taken root in the West, especially in the United States. In the more enlightened world of today, should we allow religious hatred to resurge even going so far as to launch religious world wars?! Along with the progress of civilization today, the law, morals and public opinion in many countries have adopted a more tolerant attitude towards the previous irregularities and crimes, such as adultery, false witness and murder. Why would we not adopt the same attitude to the matter of transcendent presuppositions in religious theories, and seek common ground while reserving differences?
In the present world with an uncertain future, the destiny of ourselves and our descendents depends on our political decisions and ethical choices to a great extent. The moral politicians and intellectuals in all countries and all civilized people in the world ought to take the common responsibility of promoting the relationship of mutual tolerance, trust, peace and cooperation among different nations, countries, civilizations and religions; to cautiously deal with the urgent issue of the day about the communication between civilizations, namely how should the different civilizations or religions get along with one another in this small earth village? If we acknowledge the principles of national equality, civilization equality, international democracy and inter-civilization democracy, it will be an inevitable conclusion that different nations or civilizations have to respect and understand one another, seek common ground while reserving differences.
February 5, 2001
Claremont
E-mail: [email protected]
Address:
Mr. Yang Shen
Apt. 514, Unit 6, Bldg. Min-20
No. 2, Jin Tai West Road
Beijing 100733, P. R. China
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2004
© The Institute for Post-modern Development of China, Inc.
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