Prelude to a Conversation of Cultures in International Society? Todorov and Nandy on the Possibility of Dialogue

Abstract

Despite post-Cold War enthusiasm about the universalization of values and social and political forms, the sense that the world is beset by a trend toward fragmentation or diversification is now widespread.1 As globalization is now challenged by fragmentation, it has been suggested that international society faces a problem of multiculturalism, even a threat to the idea of an international society itself.2 We see that the fear of multiculturalism is premised on the idea that an international society presupposes a set of common assumptions, values, ways of life, and modes of communication. Thus, in the absence of such conditions, the establishment of international the identification of rules and norms or pursuing various global purposes and projects will always involve either an imposed unity or a fragmentation disabling of that order and the assumed international society. This predicament evokes various responses from scholars. On the one hand, an intrinsic cultural diversity is seen to vitiate a common cultural basis for international society, eternally disabling the achievement of important purposes and the solution of critical global