Keeping the Common While Seeking the Different
“Seek common ground while reserving differences” is a good phrase. When the various parties differ in position and judgment, one can first set aside hostility, consider those claims on which everyone agrees, cooperate first, and then gradually negotiate the differences.
This attitude is very important in many practical activities that require cooperation, and especially necessary for urgent issues such as ecological protection.
However, “seeking common ground while reserving differences” is not enough to capture the attitude toward exchange held by pluralism. It is a very good attitude for cooperation, but not quite the best attitude for dialogue. The pluralist view of dialogical coexistence that I want to propose is not “seeking common ground while reserving differences”; perhaps “keeping the common while seeking the different” is more apt.
Pluralism is not merely tolerant of “diversity.” Therefore, those who do not hold domineering dogmatism or absolutism are not necessarily sympathetic to pluralism. Pluralism does not merely tolerate the present condition of diverse coexistence; rather, it advocates and praises diversity, instead of treating plural coexistence as a stopgap expedient. The “tolerance” of non-pluralism is only “allowing” or “forbearing”; the “tolerance” of pluralism, by contrast, is “embracing” and “accommodating.” In the pluralist view, coexistence in diversity is not merely no expedient at all, but the most beautiful state; diversity is something to be protected and worth pursuing, differences are not only not frightening but lovable, and the monotonous, homogeneous, uniform world is, on the contrary, the most frightening of all.
If the views of the various parties have absolutely nothing in common, then there is no possibility of dialogue; but equally, if the views of the various parties have absolutely no differences, then there is no need for dialogue. If “seeking common ground” is the ultimate goal of contention, then that goal is the stillness of thought. It is precisely because there are differences that dialogue and debate arise, and only in dialogue and debate can the richness and brilliance of human thought unfold. Why insist on “seeking common ground” at all?
Pluralism not only “respects” different opinions, but also “affirms” them. Pluralists believe that, due to differences in perspective or paradigm, different claims may all be “correct”; they can not only coexist temporarily, but can develop in parallel and coexist forever, just as different languages can coexist forever with no distinction of superior or inferior.
Thus, when pluralists engage in dialogue, they do not need to “seek common ground” (this refers to theoretical contention; practical cooperation is another matter). On the contrary, the purpose of discussion for pluralists is to express oneself as well as possible and to foster mutual understanding. So how can one express oneself better and deepen mutual understanding? A more beneficial attitude is to “seek difference.” If one single-mindedly seeks common ground, one easily becomes satisfied with many superficial points of agreement, while differences and divergences are easily obscured by too much pleasing shared sentiment. For example, in dialogue between Eastern and Western cultures, if one places too much emphasis on common points, and whenever Western culture has something, one goes looking for a similar thing in ancient China and says “it was already there in antiquity,” that is by no means a good way of dialoguing. If one continues to examine Chinese tradition from this perspective, in the end Chinese characteristics will be diluted and ignored. Only by, while preserving those common points, actively exploring the differences between Chinese and Western cultures can one truly understand what the distinctive features of each side are. What is deepened in dialogue is not only one’s understanding of the other, but also, in the process of exploring differences, a clearer establishment and understanding of oneself. And after one has gradually deepened one’s understanding of the other and of oneself through dialogue, then on the one hand one can of course “learn from each other’s strengths to make up for each other’s weaknesses,” but even more importantly one should “promote strengths while avoiding weaknesses” — developing one’s own strengths, especially those that reflect one’s own distinctive character, more effectively.
This, then, is the pluralist view of dialogue.
November 7, 2006
Sheltered Bay Hostel
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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