Genocide and community violence, the loss of ethical landmarks and social "order," lack of confidence in the viability of the prevailing system and economic forces: the 20th century has painfully challenged all our certainties concerning society, history, and humankind. This volume offers reflections on the likely nature of the values of the 21st century and addresses questions such as whether aesthetics will prevail over ethics, whether the third industrial revolution and its forms of globalization will shatter culture as we know it, hasten the decline of thousands of languages, or give rise to new forms of racism or "genism."
This volume, the second anthology originating from UNESCO’s "Twenty-first Century Dialogues," brings together about fifty scientists and researchers from the four corners of the world to ponder the future of values and humanity.
Contributors include: Arjun Appadurai, Jean Baudrillard, Peter Sloterdikjk, Paul Ricoeur, Julia Kristeva, Paul Kennedy, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Delors, Edward O. Wilson, Nadine Gordimer, Achille Mbembe, Adalbert Barreto, Trinh Xuan Thuan.
Table of Contents:
List of Abbreviations
Preface
Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO
Introduction
Jérôme Bindé
PART I: THE FUTURE OF VALUES
Introduction
Aziza Bennani
Twilight, Clash or Hybridization of Values?
Chapter 1. Towards a Twilight of Values?
Gianni Vattimo
Chapter 2. Tactical Humanism
Arjun Appadurai
Chapter 3. From the Universal to the Singular: The Violence of the Global
Jean Baudrillard
Values and the Challenge of the Inhuman
Chapter 4. The Culture of the Inhuman
Hélé Béji
Chapter 5. The Devil’s Advocate, between the Ethical and the Systemic
Peter Sloterdijk
Serious Values or Frivolous Values?
Chapter 6. The Ethics of Complexity and the Problem of Values in the Twenty-First Century
Edgar Morin
Chapter 7. For a Subversive Genesis of Values
Mohammed Arkoun
Chapter 8. Towards a Frivolousness of Values?
Jean-Joseph Goux
Beyond the Aestheticization of Values?
Chapter 9. Art Beyond Aestheticism
Wolfgang Welsch
Chapter 10. Towards a Postmodern Ethic of the Aesthetic
Michel Maffesoli
Chapter 11. The Soul of Values
Victor Massuh
Towards the Reinterpretation of Values?
Chapter 12. Values and the Construction of Subjectivity
Candido Mendes
Chapter 13. Towards a Feminizing of Values?
Julia Kristeva
Chapter 14. The Rise of Associations and New Forms of Solidarity
Roger Sue
Chapter 15. Universal Project, Multiple Heritages
Paul Ricoeur
Towards the Century of the Spirit?
Chapter 16. The Emergence of Cognitive Civilization
Thierry Gaudin
Chapter 17. Religion and the Challenge of the Spiritual in the Twenty-First Century
Souleymane Bachir Diagne
PART II: GLOBALIZATION, NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND CULTURE
Globalization and the ‘Third Industrial Revolution’
Chapter 18. Globalization and its Discontents
Paul Kennedy
Chapter 19. Globalization, Peace and Cosmopolitics
Jacques Derrida
Chapter 20. Science, Technology and Globalization
Francisco Sagasti
The New Technologies and Culture
Chapter 21.The Age of Access
Jeremy Rifkin
Chapter 22. Is Culture Threatened?
Michel Serres
Cultural Globalization and the Preservation of Diversity
Chapter 23. A Tamed Schizophrenia?
Daryush Shayegan
Chapter 24. Reconstructing Culture
Alain Touraine
The Future of Languages
Chapter 25. Colonization, Globalization and the Future of Languages
Salikoko S. Mufwene
Chapter 26. The Life, Death and Resurrection of Languages
Claude Hagège
PART III: TOWARDS NEW SOCIAL CONTRACTS?
The New Social Contract and Lifelong Education for All
Chapter 27. Towards Lifelong Education for All
Jacques Delors
Chapter 28. Education and Citizenship in the Twenty-First Century
Jelyu Jelev
Chapter 29. Women and the Future of Education
Fay Chung
A Natural Contract and the Future of Development
Chapter 30. The Natural Contract and Development in the Twenty-First Century
Jérôme Bindé
Chapter 31. The Future of Biodiversity
Thomas Odhiambo
Chapter 32. Environment and Development in the Approaches to 2020
Mostafa Tolba
Framing a Cultural Contract for the Twenty-First Century
Chapter 33. The Case for a Cultural Contract
Alain Touraine
Chapter 34. What Future for Cultural Pluralism?
Hélé Béji
Chapter 35. Culture in the Twenty-First Century: Cloning or Hybridization?
Eduardo Portella
Chapter 36. Towards an Ethical Contract? 233 Bioethics and the Future of Living Things
Ryuichi Ida
Chapter 37. Future Ethics and Politics
Edgar Morin
Chapter 38. Development in the Twenty-First Century?
Lord Meghnad Desai
Chapter 39. Shaping a Universal Consciousness
Luc Montagnier
PART IV: SCIENCE, KNOWLEDGE AND FORESIGHT
The Human Impact of the Genetic Revolution
Chapter 40. Does Natural Selection Still Drive Evolution?
Edward Wilson
Chapter 41. From Genetic Mystification to Molecular Policing
Jacques Testart
Chapter 42. The Political Challenge of Genetic Engineering
Gianni Vattimo
The New Faces of Racism
Chapter 43. Racism, Globalization and the Genetic Revolution
Pierre Sané and Jérôme Bindé
Chapter 44. The New Aspects of Racism in the Age of Globalization and the Gene Revolution
Nadine Gordimer
Chapter 45. Genism, Racism and the Prospect of Genetic Genocide
George Annas
Chapter 46. Genome, Biology and Racism
Axel Kahn
Chapter 47. Racism as a Practice of the Imagination
Achille Mbembe
Chapter 48. The Changing Face of Racism
Elikia M’Bokolo
Self-Knowledge: Anticipating and Preventing Sickness of the Soul
Chapter 49. The New Maladies of the Soul Julia Kristeva Chapter 50. The Compression of Time and Sickness of the Soul Denise Bombardier Chapter 51. Exclusion and Sickness of the Soul Adalberto Barreto
Human Beings and the Future of the Universe
Chapter 52. The Future of the Universe: Big Bang or Big Crunch?
Trinh Xuan Thuan
Chapter 53. Cosmologies of the Future
Nicolas Prantzos
Chapter 54. Scientific Enquiry: Doubts and Certainties
André Brahic
Conclusion: In Search of Lost Time
Jérôme Bindé
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