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The Possibilities of Dialogue
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[Digital Vision/Getty Images] |
The diversity of human experience and cultures is nothing new. What is
new to our era is the fact that people holding radically different
worldviews are coming into closer contact. At the same time, previously
dominant value systems are losing their hold. These factors make this an
age of great risk and danger, but also of great promise. The key to
bringing out the tremendous creative possibilities of this difficult
period--both for the world and for ourselves as individuals--is
dialogue. While "dialogue" may seem to have a certain forbidding
weightiness, it simply describes our capacity to engage with others
openly and respectfully--an encounter characterized as much by listening
as speaking and based upon a faith in our common humanity. It is through
our efforts to engage in dialogue and to expand our field of dialogue
that we can make this troubled era a truly humane age. This issue of the
SGI Quarterly is aimed at highlighting and encouraging such
efforts.
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