Crises of our present
and the ethical reference.
Call to the dialogue
XXVIIe Standard general meeting
Pescia
May 3rd, 2007
By evoking the modern myth of Pinocchio, so perfectly Italian, but which became universal, President Vincenzo Cappelletti addressing to Mr. Pier Francesco Bernacchi, General secretary of Fondazione Nazionale Carlo Collodi, expressed his thanks with this Foundation which made possible the behaviour in Pescia of the congress on the topic “the crises of our present and the ethical reference. Call to the dialogue”, as well as XXVIIe Standard general meeting of the European Company of Culture.
The First Vice-president, Mr. Arrigo Levi transmitted to the assembly the message of the President of the Republic Italienne, Mr. Giorgio Napolitano, who recorded the importance of “the ethics of the dialogue” as a cultural instrument offered by the Company to Europe in search of means of his development. In his address with the participants, Maire de Pescia stressed that the social character of the man is a conquest of the thought.
The multiple crises which appear today in Europe and in the world were the object of an examination without kindness, but free from vain dramatizations.
Ethics, in his etymological report with the “residence of the man” (Massimo Cacciari, Maire de Venise and Vice-président of right of the S.E.C.), and the call of Iring Fetscher are combined to announce the particular responsibility for Europe and the European thinkers in the commitment necessary for all to avoid a major crisis of the ecosystem.
Europe, like recalled it President Vincenzo Cappelletti, is before all the place of political freedom by the thought ; this freedom cannot be called in question, because it is founded on the ideal of the “reason of the man” (Umberto Campagnolo), who results in the “food-growing policy”. It is a question of adapting it and of becoming aware of it.
The international General secretary, Michelle Campagnolo-Bouvier pointed out the reasons of the choice of the topic of the session, to be related to the news and forming part of work characteristic of the S.E.C on the vocation into universal of Europe and on ethics like the highest expression of humanity in the man, one and the other being the bases of the commitment of the man of culture. For Arrigo Levi, Europe has a special duty, in this “second age of the humanity” which the atomic bomb inaugurated : that to give common institutions to project in the world its ideal of peace, by extending it to both “Europe apart from Europe”, Americas and Russia.
The economic responsibilities founded on planetary solidarity for the man – an objective solidarity – were stated by the economist Henri Bartoli. Only the ethical reference must make it possible to refuse the fate of the marketisation of any thing, while resorting to a principle of consensual regulation and management of the resources.
The search for a dialogue without prejudice, the refusal of the ideologies which hide projects of exploitation and domination of the man by the man appeared as the essential conditions to cure the evils which afflict the United States seriously as much that Russia, Poland, the Middle East, the ex Yugoslavia or the Ukraine, inter alia (Mark Field, Alexander Kudryavtsev, Matteo Campagnolo, Vittorio Dan Segre, Michael Schäfer, Eugeniusz Kabatc, Livio Missir, Jean-Louis Cornellie, Milan Djurcinov, Anika Skovran, Oleg Kudryashev).
But there is also with the East of Europe of the signs of hope which make forecast development of new reports thanks to a dialogue open between the civilisations and the religions ; thus the example of the multicultural city of Kazan in Russia tatare was evoked, where members of the S.E.C had recently met (Sergei Yerofeyev, Ravil Bukharaev).
The dialogue, which passes by the knowledge of the other and what it brings of lived, is in particular, in the field of the religious faith, at the base of Weltethos (or the research draft of one common fund to the whole of mankind) of Hans Küng (Helmut Reinalter), like, in another order, of the circle of meeting with Islam, in Zurich (Bernhard Billeter).
The philosopher Anna Kélessidou recalled how much the Greek philosophers Antiquity can inspire the culture as a base to be it (Konstantin Dolgov) and philosophy as an opening (Eugène Decker). He is need for a moral attitude which sees other not like a competitor nor like an object of consumption, and in general for new reference marks (Damian Meuwissen).
Bronislaw Geremek brought the message according to which to think a “realistic” Utopia, it is to conceive the formation of Europe by an integration of the national executives which is based on the values of a power determined in particular by the ethical reference. The reference to universal, with a world ethics, depends at the same time on the history and the paideia, teaching and practical sociopolitical taking back with the conscience of a common spiritual heritage.
With this reference Europe is not in failure.
The dialogue, “spiritual process determined by the meeting of two different ideas which tend towards a common truth” (Umberto Campagnolo), and Weltethos (Hans Küng) prove to be the only theoretical bases which make it possible to fight the defect of solidarity effectively, not to say the selfishness (particular, national or oligarchical), which is the cause of fractures, inequalities and increasingly unbearable injustices (Tatiana Tytova, Petre Raileanu).
Other fields of crisis evoked and which call some with the going beyond by the political commitment éthico, in other words with the food-growing policy, “to the culture which fills of the requirements, of the obligations of political nature” as said Norberto Bobbio :
- the policy as it resorts to the lie (Lorella Cedroni) ;
- lack of respect of the human rights (Patricia Galeana) ;
- the superposition of traditional legal systems and in construction (Angel Sanchez of Torre) ;
- the substantial deficit of a democracy remained apparently without enemies (Davide Cadeddu).
The European Union in crisis and growth recognizes in the culture a dimension, a factor of its own foundation in a space which tends, although with difficulty, to be formed (Claude Brulant).
Bronislaw Geremek synthesized the work of these days by focussing on three sets of themes : importance of the debate on Europe and the place of the European message in the world, on the base of an idea of Europe as carrying, in its open and creative diversity, of common values ; the nobility of the political act, since it keeps in mind the community property and not the simple game of the power and the immediate interest, which induces authoritative temptation or stagnation in the everyday life ; the ethical base of a policy allied to the culture, creative of values, and need for reinforcing it by the defense of the rule of law, the control of the power, the development of the civil society, finally freedom of expression, of creation and deliberation. Such is the concrete Utopia of “dreamed European”.
In fence and at the end of interventions which specified several questions, President Vincenzo Cappelletti stressed the importance of this meeting like update of the work of the Company, which with its continuous competence as regards dialogue to have a potential to offer in a favorable context from this point of view. How the commitment of each one is consequently !
Holding its statutory assizes, XXVIIe Standard general meeting :
- the memory honoured with the late international Vice-president, “maestro E sommo artista” Raùl Anguiano, disappeared one year ago. The merits of this convinced and generous member were recalled in the presence of his wife, Brigita Anguiano
- in the capacity as successor was assistant of the International office, by acclamation, the eminent lawyer, Director of Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas of the autonomous National university of Mexico (UNAM), Diego Valadés. In the name of the Mexican members, Maria Elena Ozan de Zea was pleased with this choice, while recalling the importance of the S.E.C to Mexico thanks to the tireless work of regretted Leopoldo Zea
- it was mentioned a project finalized with best put in division of the thought and work of the Company, as well as its history, by a teaching and the study of its archives (Institute of studies of the S.E.C.)
- it was decided to set up a Commission of the S.E.C for the formation, which will take up duty as soon as possible, sticking in particular to the resumption of the publication of the Company : «Comprendre», re-examined of food-growing policy, of which it was known as that for the treated arguments and collaborations obtained one could describe it as one of the most beautiful reviews of Europe of second half of the 20th century
- with the assistance of the persons in charge of the French Center of the Company, approachs are committed for one some insertion of the S.E.C in the cultural organizations of the EU and for a resumption of formal links with UNESCO.
All that being, Mr. Cappelletti, who also chairs the Board of directors, estimated of his duty not to conceal in front of all the members that, from the point of view of its financial resources, the Company was in critical situation and to call some within the meaning of co-responsibility of each one.
Diagram of program (from the point of view of the Year 2008 European year of the intercultural dialogue)
Crises present and the ethical reference
Or how to found the possibility of a cultural dialogue
- The crisis of art like representation and/or going beyond the culture
- The crisis of the policy (the policy like simple more or less cynical management of the City, or like attempt at reform even of revolution inspired of ethical reasons).
- The crisis of the monk (fundamentalisms).
- The crisis of science (not controlled).
- The crisis of the history and the memory
- The crisis of education
- The crisis of the culture in the guise of cultural diversity
