Pluralism

In a sense, pluralism is just a part of the discovery of the rest of the world, which began, for Europe, at around the same time as the Reformation (probably by no coincidence). Columbus sailed from Spain the same year the last Moorish kingdom in that land fell to Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, who had married in order to unite the kingdom reconquered from the Moors. During the reconquest, considerable libraries of classical texts, preserved by Arab scholars, were also regained for the West (which had begun printing with movable type less than fifty years before, and was on a rising tide of literacy and scholarship promoted by the new invention).

A quarter of a century after Columbus's voyage, in 1517, a monk called Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to a church door, and over the next few years founded a church which split from the central, international authority of Rome, and translated the Bible into the language of his nation - using rediscovered ancient texts as his basis. (These were not necessarily from Moorish sources; in fact, I don't know if any of them were. But the Moorish texts had helped to stimulate an interest in such manuscripts, which were searched out and compiled by scholars like Erasmus.)

From then on, though a Western consensus lasted several more centuries, pluralism was (in hindsight) inevitable. In recent years, we have seen the collapse of communism - the last great ideological bloc - followed by fragmentation as tiny states, and populations within those states, declare (often violently) that they differ fundamentally from their neighbors.

In a sense, though, these people are old-fashioned. Very few westerners, and if it comes to that very few Asians, would now be willing to fight for an ideology - any ideology. Pluralism is an accepted reality.

I travelled on business to Malaysia in 1997, and ate and worked with people of the three main races there (Malays, Chinese and Indians). I know there is ethnic and religious conflict between these groups in Malaysia (Malays are Muslim, Chinese a variety of religions not usually including Islam, and Indians generally Hindu). The only sign I saw of it, though, was when we were going out for lunch and someone (a Chinese) suggested that we go to a restaurant which served beef noodles. The receptionist (an Indian) reminded him sharply, but not angrily, that she didn't eat beef, and he said "Oh, yes, that's right," and suggested somewhere else. The tone of the whole incident was equivalent to a receptionist in the West reminding a colleague that she was vegetarian (with the main difference being that Sathiya's dietary choice was a cultural, and not merely a personal one). Apart from the managing director, I was the only person of European descent in the office, yet I felt entirely accepted (the receptionist even gave me a small gift when I left). This is the positive side of pluralism. (To me, one of the nicest aspects of it is that it enabled me to eat a different cuisine every day for a week.)

The negative side, as I have hinted (and stated in my chapter on the silent centre) is that there is nothing central any more, nothing that we all share, nothing that ultimately holds us together. Yet this is not an inevitable consequence of diversity.

On the same trip, I passed through Singapore. Walking through an underpass beneath one of the main streets (which was clean, well-lit and completely free of graffiti), I noticed neatly framed and beautifully designed posters proclaiming the "shared values" of Singapore - the population of which contains the same main ethnic groups as in Malaysia, except that the proportions are different; Chinese are the most numerous by far. Perhaps this is why they are able to promote "shared values". After all, the Chinese have had an empire for thousands of years which was able to incorporate both conquered and conquering peoples into a stable society with shared civic values (based largely on Confucian teachings).

I was interested at work recently to hear one of my colleagues (a lapsed Anglican with Buddhist leanings) say something very relevant to this point. We were in a meeting to discuss the merging of two work teams, ours and another, into one, and my colleague made the point that what made us effective as a team was a set of shared values which we hold - such as supporting, respecting and trusting each other, working as a team rather than individuals, being honest with one another, and fulfilling our commitments to one another. She suggested that the merger would not work if these values were not also adopted by the other team concerned, and everyone present (especially me) concurred.

We are left, then, with a paradox. Pluralism leaves us with no philosophical basis for shared values. But the nature of society - people having to live and work together - means that shared values are imperative.

I'll read and think more about Confucianism and get back to you.

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