We live in a plural age. But do we have an adequate philosophy for living together in our diversity? Tariq Ramadan, in his new book, The Quest for Meaning, thinks not.
We have roughly three options. First, is the pluralist philosophy that underpins what might be called "forbearing empires". The dominant power says, accept our rule, and in return, you will gain our peace – and a relative freedom to maintain your way of life. It's the pluralism of the ancient pax Romana, or the Muslim empires of the medieval period, or perhaps the British Raj. But it's a colonial philosophy too, and so not much championed today.
Second, is the pluralist philosophy that underpins the secular settlement. The watchword here is toleration, and the key policy is to separate civil government from the practice of religion – government being concerned with a citizen's welfare in this life, religion in the next. But this philosophy runs into the paradox of toleration, namely who should not be tolerated. For example, John Locke, in his Letter Concerning Toleration, infamously argued that Roman Catholics and atheists could not be endured.
Further, if you seek a thriving democracy, merely to tolerate others is too passive a political philosophy. And it's patronising, because diverse groups in an equal society want to be respected, an altogether different proposal. As Ramadan remarked during a talk on his book, "I don't want a peaceful coexistence. I want a living together that is constructive and active."
This leads to the third possibility, the one he champions. It's a pluralism prepared to recognise that the individual gains from engaging with the diversity that surrounds them. It's not syncretistic, as if the goal were a perennial philosophy – truths distilled from what is agreed in common. Such a project tends to evacuate religions and philosophies of their particularity and, in turn, nurtures human individuals drained of their colour. Rather, this form of pluralism recognises that what we have in common is not the answers, though there will be overlap, but the need to ask the questions. As Immanuel Kant expressed them: what can I know, what ought I to do, what may I hope?
Life in a plural age should be welcomed, therefore, because we have the opportunity not just to pursue our own path, but to learn from other paths. Only, it's not that simple, of course. And in truth, this is the most demanding form of pluralism.
It means that I must take responsibility for my commitments, and I must do so in a particular way: by recognising that they are commitments others do not share. "I must experience other truths if my responsibility for having chosen my truth in all conscience is to be meaningful," Ramadan writes.
At the same time, this diversity safeguards my humanity. If everyone were to follow the same path – if utopia were found – then there would be no more questions, no more questing, only subsistence living. It's often forgotten that Thomas More's coinage, "utopia", means "no place". A philosophy of pluralism, though, represents a real place because of the grit of others. "Others protect my humanity; their truth sustains my truth, and their difference enhances my singularity," Ramadan continues.
But perhaps the toughest characteristic of this version of pluralism is that it is not so much a political philosophy, as a philosophy of life. It relies, at its heart, on the individual and how we are going to be with others. It has political elements, such as some kind of separation between church and state, because there is always the question of power. But it's a pluralism that only works if individuals continually address themselves, and in particular recognise their own limitations, and cultivate an appropriate humility. The strange other that I encounter is important because of "what [he or she] reveals about my problems, my deafness and my blindness," Ramadan explains. Conversely, "my rejection of the other reveals the blindness that is within me: on the periphery of the 'ego', the other is an accidental threat; at the heart of the quest, the other is positive necessity."
Ramadan cites the familiar, pluralist parable about the blind men each feeling a different part of the elephant. It's usually taken to mean that we each have a partial knowledge of the one, immense cosmos. But that's not the point, Ramadan insists. Its basic message is that we are, at least in part, blind, or have been blinded. Accepting that is the first and fundamental challenge.