@ @
Pathways to an Open World
experience an enlarged sense of self (the word simorgh , used for a great bird, means in fact ‘thirty birds’), and ‘morning knowledge’. There is my reading, as a Westerner, of what I consider to be some of the finest and most fundamental texts of the East. It may be said by some that my attitude and approach are elitist and idealistic, not geared to the contemporary political context. This word elitist is used more and more on the contemporary scene to dismiss anything that is not cliché-ridden opinionism or vulgar demagogy : I find other fields not only more interesting but, in the long run, more effective. As to idealistic, I am in fact no idealist, but I am interested in ideas. If I have been talking of rare movements, it’s because it’s they that contain the most reality, and the most ideational energy. And it’s they that can provide a field for further development. What happens to a culture subjected to a process, say, of crusading, colonialism and constricted contemporization is that its high moments, its ample movements, are totally lost sight of. All that remains is a very shrunken sense of identity to be clung to, or a faith to be adhered to. With this kind of thing happening all over the world, any communication which is not blatantly and brutally conflictual can only take place at the lowest level of consensus, via various types (political, moral, contractual) of secondary discourse. The real work consists in recovering the line of cultural development, and opening a field. It’s only in that high field that real convergence can occur. There have been examples of high convergence in the past. There can be others in the future. Before talking about a possible convergence now, let me evoke, rapidly, an illustrious example from the past. 3. The Mediterranean Convergence We’re in thirteenth century Spain, at Toledo. If the city of Toledo was to be the place of meeting, the point of conjunction, the co-operational ground,
-33-
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter