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In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for
GEd 107 - Ethics
PLURALISM
Pluralism is a model of democracy that encourages various groups to present their ideas and opinions. In
doing so, no one group dictates how things should work. The different groups having varied beliefs
coexist while retaining their distinct identities.
Pluralism is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with diversity.
Diversity can and has meant the creation of religious ghettoes with little traffic between or
among them. Today, religious diversity is a given, but pluralism is not a given; it is an
achievement. Mere diversity without real encounter and relationship will yield increasing
tensions in our societies.
Pluralism is not just tolerance, but the active seeking of understanding across lines of
difference.
Tolerance is a necessary public virtue, but it does not require Christians and Muslims,
Hindus, Jews, and ardent secularists to know anything about one another. Tolerance is too thin
a foundation for a world of religious difference and proximity. It does nothing to remove our
ignorance of one another, and leaves in place the stereotypes, the half-truths, the fears that
underlie old patterns of division and violence. In the world in which we live today, our ignorance
of one another will be increasingly costly.
Pluralism is not relativism, but the encounter of commitments.
The new paradigm of pluralism does not require us to leave our identities and our
commitments behind, for pluralism is the encounter of commitments. It means holding our
deepest differences, even our religious differences, not in isolation, but in relationship to one
another.
Pluralism is based on dialogue.
The language of pluralism is that of dialogue and encounter, give and take, criticism and
self-criticism. Dialogue means both speaking and listening, and that process reveals both
common understandings and real differences. Dialogue does not mean everyone at the “table”
will agree with one another. Pluralism involves the commitment to being at the table — with
one’s commitments.
CHALLENGES OF PLURALISM
Globalization has brought us closer together. In the 21st century, we live for the first time in one global
community. But it is a community composed of many strands which must be carefully woven together
into a whole.
If diversity is seen as a source of strength, societies can become healthier, more stable and prosperous.
But there is another side of the coin if we fail to manage the conflicting pressures that pluralism
inevitably brings.
Without the institutions and policies to manage diversity, whole communities can feel marginalised and
oppressed, creating conditions for conflict and violence. This is why pluralism is a key challenge for the
21st century.
Strong, healthy and cohesive societies are built on three pillars – peace and security; development; and
the rule of law and respect for human rights.
Unfortunately stability and economic growth have, for too long, been the principal responses to national
and global problems. We must not fall into this trap. For there can be no long-term security without
development, and no long-term development without security. And no society can long remain
prosperous or secure without respect for the rule of law and human rights. For a society to manage
pluralism successfully, it must embrace and give equal weight to each of these three pillars.
Europe, for example, has well-established legal systems and arrangements to protect minorities and
reach acceptable compromises.Yet even within Europe, pluralism is sometimes seen as a threat. Levels
of social prejudice have been rising against religious and cultural minorities and new immigrants. It is
also seen a fall in trust and confidence in political institutions which has lead to increased support for
more extreme political groupings.
These trends underline how important it is for countries to entrench democratic principles and norms,
adopt inclusive policies to build and sustain trust, increase inclusion and reduce insecurity. And just as
no country is born a democracy, no one is born a good citizen. Mutual respect and tolerance have to be
fostered and taught.
FUNDAMENTALISM
One objection is that many of the movements that Marty and Appleby categorize as fundamentalist
seem to be motivated less by the rejection of modernity than by social, ethnic, and nationalistic
grievances.
Another criticism of Marty and Appleby’s approach is that it is inappropriate to use the term
fundamentalism, which originally referred to a movement in American Protestantism, to describe
movements in other religions, particularly non-Western ones.
This practice has been denounced as a kind of Eurocentric “conceptual imperialism”—an especially
sensitive charge in the Islamic world, where those designated fundamentalists are outraged by Western
political, economic, and cultural domination.
A third objection is that the significant negative connotations of the term fundamentalism—usually
including bigotry, zealotry, militancy, extremism, and fanaticism—make it unsuitable as a category of
scholarly analysis.
On the other hand, some scholars have argued that the negative connotations of the term aptly
characterize the nature of fundamentalist movements, many of which seek the violent overthrow of
national governments and the imposition of particular forms of worship and religious codes of conduct
in violation of widely recognized human rights to political self-determination and freedom of worship.
Religious fundamentalism has been described in various terms and jargon; however the most compelling
description of fundamentalism when we consider the topics of knowledge production and social practice
is’ the virtual absence of historical scholarship, liberty and rationality.’
Fundamentalism has a worldview of perpetual dystopia, that the ‘Golden Age’ of faith is gone and we
must strive backwards to recreate the conditions of that time.
There are multiple fundamentalisms ranging from how we interpret texts, make our laws and define our
culture, but there are some commonalities running through this family of fundamentalisms.
Literary fundamentalism
Literary fundamentalists argue that religious texts are to be read in a historical fashion (ignoring
historical context and processes), with human reason being subordinated to said religious scripture
under the burden of a dry literalism and that human beings should not actively deliberate on religious
texts as that could threaten the absolute supremacy of the Divine.
In such a construct human beings should have no free will outside the confines of religious texts,
knowledge should be only derived from religious texts and our practices based on said texts. This text-
fundamentalism undermines critical enquiry, and freezes religious texts beyond the scope of human
reason and unaffected by historical change.
For the fundamentalist history does not exist. What was good five centuries ago must be good for today
as well, otherwise the eternity of religion is undermined. This destruction and manipulation of history is
widespread in Pakistan.
Hassan Hanafi the Egyptian philosopher throughout his work argues that there is not, cannot be and has
never been a uniform interpretation of religious scripture. Human interpretation is essentially a
pluralistic endeavor. As Abdol Karim Soroush points out:
“All understanding assumes suppositions and entails ‘categorisation,’ that is subsuming the particular
under universal categories and concepts. Understanding religion is no exception. It is preceded by
certain assumptions and principles which are necessary conditions for its intelligibility and
interpretation.”
The basic premise of the theory is that religion is divine and perfect, but religious knowledge is by no
means perfect or divine, the interpreter is always fallible, and interpretation by its nature due to human
fallibility always pluralistic.
Fundamentalism or pluralism?
Literary theory and other methods of textual and cultural analysis should be applied to our rich textual
tradition and religious texts, so that we can open new avenues of meditation and complementation.
Many Muslim intellectuals have tried to start such a process.
Fundamentalism in all its spheres (legal, social, political, literary and cultural) erodes the foundations of
intellectual enquiry, blocking the means for ijtihad and critical thought and fostering an environment of
social intimidation that prevents new cultural, religious and literary expressions and if unchallenged can
pave the way for bigger evils such as an intolerant religiosity and cultural chauvinism.
REFERENCES
http://pluralism.org/what-is-pluralism/
https://www.theelders.org/news/pluralism-key-challenge-21st-century
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-is-pluralism.html
https://www.britannica.com/topic/fundamentalism
https://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/1737/fundamentalism-versus-pluralism-in-religion/