Reclaiming Dialogical Humanism

Abstract

ABSTRACT In face of the danger that contemporary anti-humanisms might feed xenophobia, racism, and neo-fascist nationalisms, the ethical significance of shared humanity is worth affirming. Such affirmations need not displace more particular identities and loyalties, so long as these take forms capable of mutual respect and recognition. Late 18th- and early nineteenth-century German reflection on Bildung can be fruitfully engaged toward this task. With deep roots in earlier Christian humanism and the Aristotelian virtue-ethical tradition, the Bildung tradition assumed the political task of forming persons capable of taking an active role in defining the terms of their lives in community. At the same time, this tradition was also complicit in the advancement of white racism and colonialist empire. Why draw water from these poisoned wells? Because we move forward only through open-eyed critique of the past, through naming the injustices and silencings woven through past imaginings of the universally human.