How to construct a common and consensual multicultural civic discourse

Abstract

The 21st-century construction of a new Chinese political discourse faces the same dilemma that Chinese intellectuals first identified in the 19th century – how to make currently pre-eminent Eurocentric sociocultural, economic and political theory and praxis compatible with Sinocentric sociocultural, economic and political circumstances. At the same time, among Chinese thinkers and strategists, there is a growing self-confidence in China’s ability to play a pre-eminent role in a new post-Western world order. Euro-American faith in the convergence of all societies into a single economic, social and political model defined by the heritage of the European Enlightenment and by Euro-American history is challenged by the emergence of new economic powers outside the Euro-American sphere that resist this model. Eurocentric sociocultural, economic and political theory and praxis must adapt themselves to the emerging paradigms and praxis of an emerging multicultural world order. During a historical period when Afro-Eurasian connectivity was at its height and Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo traversed Eurasia, Ramon Llull (1232–1316) tried in his Ars Magna Generalis (ca. 1274) to develop a new common and consensual terminology and logic of key terms and beliefs that would facilitate mutual understanding among Christians, Jews and Muslims. Shortly thereafter, in his Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) elaborated a universal theory of history. Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) tried something similar in Principi di Scienza Nuova d’intorno alla Comune Natura delle Nazioni. The development of new cross-cultural paradigms on a common, multicultural and consensual basis is needed, based on better knowledge of the non-Euro-American languages and cultures involved and more collaborative international and multicultural efforts to promote and build better mutual knowledge and understanding. Mutual respect requires mutual knowledge in order to construct a common and consensual multicultural civic discourse that could lead to more innovative and productive paradigms and more meaningful cooperation.