ABSTRACT
Cultural diversity is becoming an increasingly common aspect of most modern states. This is due to the fact that trade, tourism, international dialogue among scholars, scientists, and artists, as well as skilled labor movement and migration, have assured that few countries do not contain significant populations of people from other cultures. Conflicts of cultural interests, particularly between minority and dominant cultural groups, are likely to arise as a result of this diversity, prompting proponents of multiculturalism to call for minority rights and acknowledgment for cultural minorities. Multiculturalism, on the other hand, has a tendency to exaggerate the “culture self” at the expense of the “cultural other,” leading to cultural separatist. However, this thesis advances the concept that a healthy view and understanding of ‘the other’ in our relationships with fellow human beings is more important than multiculturalism in addressing the issues of cultural variety. The goal of this study is to use Merleau-reversibility Ponty’s thesis (in which one’s world opens up to the other and vice versa when people meet) as an alternative model for better understanding the ontological nature of the self’s relationship to the other as the foundation for intercultural reversal of perspectives for social harmony. This study employs a qualitative research design as a methodology. Books, journal articles, biographies, and interviews were used to gather data for the study. The information obtained from various sources is examined.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
In the history of philosophy/thought, historical-hermeneutics is used to survey and understand prior ideas of alterity and the self’s relationship to alterity. In Merleau-philosophy Ponty’s of reversibility, philosophical exposition is used to stress the relational ontology of the self to alterity, as well as the growing reality of cultural variety and minority rights issues. Merlau-ontology Ponty’s of alterity and reversibility is examined using philosophical/textual analysis in order to adapt it to the issues of cultural diversity and multiculturalism in the context of social development.
Others appear close in our experiences, but they remain distant in our minds… -William Ralph Shroeder1
For two main reasons, other people’s experiences become a source of concern and interest: cultural and intellectual. We are confronted with some facts from a cultural standpoint (which is the primary focus of this work). Divorces are on the rise, families are disintegrating, cultural groups are clashing over competing interests, and friendships are fraying. We alternate between a desperate attempt to fully commit and a stubborn insistence on staying islands unto ourselves. Even for people who try their hardest and care the most, most interpersonal interactions appear to be superficial; at best, they leave one uninjured; more often, they deliberate and disorient.2
Careers take primacy, and relationships suffer as a result. Self-help proselytizers peddle injunctions to be unique, authentic, and solely concerned with oneself from street corners. If one is to remain oneself, one comes to believe that one must constantly oppose others. Few people can be trusted, and one hopes for indifference rather than resistance from the rest. As our hopes dwindle, we forsake our efforts to build brilliant relationships, and entropy sets in. 3
The second incentive concerns intellectual issues, which are at the heart of social sciences and ethics. What may be observed and known about others is determined by one’s idea of their nature, as well as the most fruitful investigative processes.
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