EDGAR MORIN

How can one ignore the role of Islamic culture in European civilization?

Individualism, one of the great achievements of Western civilization, is now accompanied more and more by such phenomena as fragmentation, solitude, egocentricity and the disintegration of solidarity

Today, the fundamental global objective of all education aspiring not only to progress but to the survival of humanity is to Civilize and Unify the Earth and Transform the human species into genuine humanity The education of the future should teach an ethics of planetary understanding.

[There must be] recognition of the Other as an interlocutor having rights equal to one’s own. Real dialogue is when you recognize the same dignity in the other. No dialogue is possible between a master and his slave. Dialogue assumes equality…. To understand the Other, first we have to try and know him in his entirety, know his beliefs, his customs, his rites, his civilization.

With the fundamentalist Islamic fanatics of today, there is no dialogue possible either, because for them all others are “infidel dogs”. As soon as the Other becomes a wrongdoer or an infidel, dialogue becomes impossible.

[There must be] recognition of the Other as an interlocutor having rights equal to one’s own. Real dialogue is when you recognize the same dignity in the other. No dialogue is possible between a master and his slave. Dialogue assumes equality…. To understand the Other, first we have to try and know him in his entirety, know his beliefs, his customs, his rites, his civilization.

How can one ignore the role of Islamic culture in European civilization?

Individualism, one of the great achievements of Western civilization, is now accompanied more and more by such phenomena as fragmentation, solitude, egocentricity and the disintegration of solidarity

With the fundamentalist Islamic fanatics of today, there is no dialogue possible either, because for them all others are “infidel dogs”. As soon as the Other becomes a wrongdoer or an infidel, dialogue becomes impossible.

Today, the fundamental global objective of all education aspiring not only to progress but to the survival of humanity is to Civilize and Unify the Earth and Transform the human species into genuine humanity The education of the future should teach an ethics of planetary understanding.