truth

This manifesto argues for the importance of cultivating the fine arts in the education of children and their relationship with the cultivation of intelligence. Poetry, music, drawing, painting, and philosophy transmit Beauty, which is inseparably linked to reason and truth. Teachers must know how to use knowledge to light a flame in the minds and souls of their students, and how to transmit to the them the sacred fire of culture. To keep this flame, which is the search for Beauty, burning, the fine arts are essential.

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Please, cite this article as follows: Campo Baeza, A. (2021). La Belleza necesaria. Manifiesto a favor de la Belleza en el sistema educativo | The vital Beauty. A manifesto for Beauty in the education system. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 79 (278), 95-101. https://doi.org/10.22550/REP79-1-2021-02

The present article analyses how cultivation of creativity underpins the possibility of rational dialogue with people who have different cultural origins by confirming the essentially productive character of human beings and contemplating creativity as a human dimension with intrinsic value, linked to the full realisation of the individual’s personality. The phenomenon of creativity is examined as an event that —sometimes dramatically— extracts the subject from the cultural world of mediations formulated within her own tradition that she usually inhabits, thus revealing to her a transcultural reality that manifests itself clearly. Recognising this original reality —which goes beyond the signifies constructed by different cultural traditions and from which creative action occurs— is the starting point for a true dialogue between cultures that enables a process of cultural critique, in other words, an examination of the validity of the products or objectivities of one’s own culture and the cultures of others.

 

 

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This is the English version of an article originally printed in Spanish in issue 272 of the revista española de pedagogía. For this reason, the abbreviation EV has been added to the page numbers. Please, cite this article as follows: Espinosa Zárate, Z. (2019). El cultivo de la creatividad para el diálogo intercultural | Cultivating creativity for intercultural dialogue. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 77 (272), 29-45. doi: https://doi.org/10.22550/REP77-1-2019-05

The author maintains that a tolerant person is not like a "permissive" one, a person that is indifferent to values and truth. Defending truth doesn't mean being dogmatic or intolerant. Defending something means that one is convinced of having found the truth, but not the whole truth, and so s/he is in the best attitude to collaborate with other people -even if s/he doesn't agree with them- in order to complete his/her view. This collaboration is a "reversible experience", a way of "encounter". Every reversible experience is tolerant in itself. Toleration in this deep meaning can be achieved through an educational program in five steps, whose main elements are explained by the author.

Nowadays toleration is often understood as a pragmatic principle leading social coexistence. In this way, it becomes something extremely fragile. Instead, the authentic toleration has a strong hermeneutical justification: truth doesn't appear but in the many and irreducible historical, psychological and cultural diversity of human experiences. Tolerating diversity means respecting the hermeneutical property of truth. Toleration has its limits. An empiric criterion to individualize the tolerable diversity is the claim to rights, because that who claims a right pretends this claim to be, if not universal, at least general.

This paper reviews the furthest antecedents, in Greek classical thinking, of the two senses of the educational value «tolerance». From the old scepticism which neglects the search for truth does the permissive sense of tolerance as «everything is the same» come, which is then the line present in postmodern thinking and lifestyle.

The Socratic line, however, implies tolerance as the positive acceptance of the other, from the faith that there is a truth to which we may come closer together. As a conclusion, the need to join this second line is defended so that it will lead to a sort of education based on constructive dialogue, beyond the simple unlimited respect, which may take us away from the risks of a paralyzing «everything is ok» and which may contribute to the effective improvement of society.

This article shows a very frequent confusion concerning the concept of toleration. It is often identified as the due respect for the opinions and behaviour of others, even though they may differ from ours. The author suggests that the authentic mind of toleration is referred to the acceptance of the "lesser evil", but stressing the notion of "lesser" rather than "evil".

This attitude is unyielding to the concept of respect, whose aim is something good in itself: the human being, no matter his/her opinions or conduct. Such confusion is lethal for the restoration of a culture of dialogue, so necessary nowadays to solve the current concerns of world-wide violence and multiculturalism.

 

Key words: Toleration, Relativism, Truth, Dialogue, Pluralism, Multiculturalism.