THE CONFLICTUAL BASES OF ETHNICITY AND PLURALISM

Simmel maintains that the categories without which no society could exist can be listed as follows: it is not possible to wholly “understand” the other, but only in relation to the social category in which the other is placed; every individual is not just an element of society but something more because life is not only social; a society exists as a set of different elements and every element occupies a specific position. The recognition of diversity between cultures, which entails the praise of tolerance, had actually drawn its strength from the struggle against despotism. Montesquieu’s original idea according to which “one knows well only the society of others”, does not lead to absolute relativism, which would contrast with its rationalism, but to criticism of the despotism that leads to a certain type of society and culture. Tolerance in its widest sense has become a guarantee for freedom of thought, of speech, of the press, which are the main forms of liberty conceived during the Enlightenment. Tolerance is associated with the concept of shared ideas, of dialogue and constructive confrontation, and also of the laity of the state, which has the duty to guarantee all forms of liberty. The ground on which responsibility for the other flourishes is “ethics for two”, the meeting up of an “I” and a “You”, of the “I” with the “Other Man”. Only in this way the huge problem of social justice, which also includes the question of interculturalism, can be resolved.