We and They

“Humanity’s future depends on our management of two crucial relationships: that between man and nature, and that between man and man.” — Richard Nisbett, The Geography of Thought.

Introduction: “We” are, “they” are

Australian musician Ben Lee has re-entered public consciousness in a big way in 2020, thanks to his 2005 song ‘We are All in This Together’, which has become a virtual theme song and a worldwide slogan for the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The slogan attempted to unify peoples and countries by indicating that anyone could get the virus, that the virus knew no borders and that the world was interconnected and we could “all do our bit to flatten the curve”. A good message! However, who exactly constitutes this “we”, and how do different groups identify with it?

In the context of pandemics, the “we” refers to human beings standing against “them”, the viruses. Deadly pandemics are not modern phenomena; they have happened throughout recorded history and caused deaths, destruction of political regimes, as well as financial and psychosocial burdens. The scientific response has focused on understanding pandemic mechanisms, controlling disease spread, and preventing new outbreaks. National health policy organizations have implemented crisis management measures, including widespread testing, contact tracing, quarantine, and vaccine development.

When addressing global violence and the peril of nuclear war, we can draw parallels with the pandemic and the pursuit of world peace. 

When addressing global violence and the peril of nuclear war, we can draw parallels with the pandemic and the pursuit of world peace. Employing the same slogan, “We are All in This Together,” underscores the existential threat we collectively face. However, there is a crucial distinction: in the fight against violence — also not a recent phenomenon — the “we” refers to human beings who are against “them”, fellow human beings, not viruses. So, how do “we” manage and control “them”?

Should we adopt a scientific approach akin to our response to infectious disease pandemics? Should we apply widespread testing to gauge “others' goodwill” and implement contact tracing to assess “their loyalty to our universal values”? Should we enforce economic sanctions and diplomatic measures to “quarantine” them? Perhaps we should “vaccinate” them with our religion, ideology, culture, ethical norms, and philosophy. Or should we dehumanize them, casting them as enemies — an embodiment of evil necessitating annihilation?

Without philosophical enquiry into the concept of the “Other”, the intuitive answer to the above questions would be that we should. However, even in our pursuit to eradicate viruses, epidemiologists caution that their disappearance will affect the evolutionary potential of all life on Earth, including Homo sapiens; their disappearance will upset the biological balance within ecosystems. Similarly, recognizing the value of the “Other”, which extends beyond scientific understanding, will allow us to ensure our own survival.

While decisions on war and peace are made by politicians, philosophy can provide a solution to mitigate the risk of nuclear threat. Firstly, philosophy can offer profound insights into the significance of the concept of the “Other,” which is essential for defining the “Self” and establishing the foundation of morality. Secondly, by embracing an intercultural perspective, philosophy can foster cultural diversity. Lastly, philosophy can contribute to envisioning a peaceful world order by engaging in dialogue with the “Other” — the sole solution in preventing nuclear threat and ensuring the future of humanity.

What should “we” know? — The concept of the “Other” and morality

The dichotomy of good and evil, justice and injustice, love and hate, war and peace, and the “Self” and the “Other” is central to Judeo-Christian thought and Western philosophy. However, despite this “either-or” logic, the notion of the “Other” challenges this binary distinction.

To illustrate the significance of the concept of the “Other,” consider the ancient story of Cain and Abel. This story, more than just a conflict between brothers culminating in the first homicide, highlights the need for workable ethics in the nuclear age.

The experience of making a choice indicates Cain’s transformation from the first-born human being to Cain, the moral being, though not yet a moral person. 

Cain, the first human born, becomes angry and jealous when God favours Abel’s sacrifice over his. Is this a case of arbitrary favouritism, or is there an educational intention behind the pain inflicted upon Cain? This pain is not meaningless or absurd. Cain’s painful experience of God’s preference for Abel’s sacrifice is God’s way of opening Cain up to the concept of the “Other.” The pain constitutes Cain’s first experience of the “Other” and, as such, an opportunity for him to rise to true selfhood. In the turning of his face towards Abel, God is seeking Cain.¹ God presents Cain with a choice for his future: “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4:7). God aims to transform Cain’s world into a shared one by including the dimension of the “Other.” Cain fails to follow God’s commandment to “master” sin and kills his brother. Cain’s problem lies in his lack of interest in and sensitivity to the “Other,” signifying ethical immaturity. The experience of making a choice indicates Cain’s transformation from the first-born human being to Cain, the moral being, though not yet a moral person.

Human beings continue retrieval of the “Self” through the odyssey of the encounter with the “Other”. Today, this journey not only inflicts suffering and pain, but also poses an existential threat to humanity. Now, well into the twenty-first century, humanity has not yet learned how to “master sin.” “We” and “they” have ignored the commandments of God, gods and teachings of sages on how to achieve harmony with the “Other” and thus ensure our own existence. Humanity has not fully realized and remains oblivious to the fact that “our” and “their” mortality depends on morality. Instead, we continue to build another “Tower of Babel,” attempting to climb to the top, impose authoritarian unity, uphold centralized authority, and homogenize, manage, control and threaten the “Other” with violence and isolation in the competition for the “Self.” This new “Babel project,” called “globalization,” aims to achieve unity in diversity.

The purpose of this project is to create a community defined entirely by what unites its members, what makes them the same, over and against what separates and differentiates them. This community becomes reminiscent of the enterprise of Babel, which can be seen as an early form of identity politics — a tendency for people of a particular religion, ethnic group, or social background to form exclusive political alliances. These alliances are based on “common values” that unite members under the banner of sameness. Why did God, according to the Hebrew Bible, view identity with suspicion and disapprove of this endeavour? The main reason is that identity (from the Latin idem, meaning “the same”), with its emphasis on sameness, is essentially allergic to otherness. For the Biblical ethos, identity without otherness is sterile. Only upon encountering its “Other” does a given identity become fecund. It is only when identity meets difference that the fertile creations of culture and civilization are born.

The progress of this project is faltering; the desired peace is not only more distant than ever but its prospect is disappearing before our eyes. The leaders of the project have decided to construct the “tower of peace” by simply piling the colourful bricks of diverse cultures and nations without adding the main ingredient for the cohesiveness of the structure: dialogue. Dialogue acts as the cement that prevents any structure from crumbling and collapsing. The leaders of this project continue to employ the same false dichotomy: “You’re either with us or against us!” This approach imposes authoritarian unity in place of dialogical plurality, creating a false dilemma that forces people to take sides even though other alternatives exist. This slogan turns an emotion-driven approach into weaponized belonging. However, after Hiroshima, the “Other” is no longer defending themselves with a stick; the “Other,” like the “Self,” possesses weapons of mass destruction. In a clash between them, neither Cain’s nor Abel’s descendants will survive. If despite our capacity for reasoning, we prove incapable of resolving the problem of our own creation, we Homo sapiens (the “wise men”) may never fulfil our biological potential.

Dialogue acts as the cement that prevents any structure from crumbling and collapsing. 

Today our world tends to resemble a Hobbesian “state of nature” where every nation is trying to ensure their immortality forgetting that relentless “war of all against all” may result not in defeating the “Other” but eliminating each other. Geopolitical tensions combined with the eruption of active hostilities in multiple regions are contributing to an unstable global order characterized by polarizing narratives, eroding trust and security. The spread of chauvinistic populism, extreme nationalism and elitist neo-liberalism increases fear of unprovoked aggression and violence. The presence of militarized hegemonies coupled with the danger of nuclear proliferation threatens the future of humanity worldwide. We see our existence as perpetually threatened or with a question mark hovering over it. While human societies had long feared each other, never before had humanity feared itself.

In the nuclear age, the use of military force as a political instrument threatens the future of humanity. In each decade of the nuclear age, philosophers have provided critical reflections on the consequences of nuclear weapons and examined the ethics of international relations and co-responsibility in a globalized world. The world barely survived the Cold War and on the eve of the 21st century, many hoped for positive changes and a new era of peace and socio-economic development. Unfortunately, the economic and political forces interested in the preservation of the status quo shifted world politics toward militarism and neo-colonial hegemony in diametric opposition to the prospects of a lasting peace once envisioned by Kant.²

Thus, today we are again in the tense situation of a new Cold War — or perhaps even the beginning of the nuclear Third World War. Hegemonic unipolarity has presented a challenge to socio-cultural diversity and peace, in trying to preserve its domination. However, the policy of unilateralism in a unipolar world cannot respond to global problems, because nations that want to be independent resist and take counter-actions to defend their political, economic, and cultural sovereignty. Francis Fukuyama’s prophecy of the “end of history” and of “benevolent hegemony” promising world stability and prosperity was short-lived and today we witness the painful birth of the multipolar world, which brings its challenges but also great opportunities.³

What ought we to do? — Intercultural dialogical philosophy

Philosophy has always been an integral part of human life and one of humanity’s most significant cultural achievements. However, the complexity of the contemporary world poses a significant challenge for philosophy today. As the world changes, philosophy must also evolve to remain relevant in the face of the critical threat of nuclear disaster. Should “we” or “they” choose to unleash such destructive force, it would not be mere murder; it would be collective suicide.

As Jean-Paul Sartre pointed out, “Human history is made by human beings, and thus there would be no one around to shut the dead eyes of the human race”.⁴ According to Karl Jaspers,

Indeed, the bomb is shaking us out of the philosophical slumber of a baselessly optimistic faith in progress. Things are getting serious again — not only because of war, disease, and hunger, as in the past, but because of the real danger that mankind will perish.⁵

In Western philosophy, Socrates examined existential questions while claiming to know only that he knows nothing. He believed that philosophy was a never-ending dialogue between representatives of different points of view, whose claims were never absolute. Examples of dialogical philosophizing are also found in the Asian tradition, such as the exchanges between Confucius and his disciples and in the dialogical format of some Indian Upanishads.

After Socrates, Western philosophy made a radical turn away from a dialogical approach in favour of a monological one, which sought definitive solutions to problems and was reluctant to consider other views. This shift began with Plato’s specific philosophical stance on absolute knowledge, which exceeded the need for dialogue. Dialogue is philosophically useful only if epistemological claims are relative and not absolute. In philosophy, claims on absolute knowledge impede, threaten, or even preclude dialogue and tend to transform it into mere monologue. To move beyond the dogmatic “absolutization” of our current views and to promote cultural diversity and peaceful relations among nations and cultures, philosophical dialogue is indispensable.

The first mode, labelled “I-Thou” or “I-You,” emphasizes the mutual, holistic existence of two beings. 

In the Western tradition, the return to the importance of dialogue is profound in Martin Buber’s writings. Martin Buber (1878-1965), an Austrian-Jewish philosopher, is often regarded as the father of the philosophy of dialogue. In his book “I and Thou,” he introduces the premise of human existence as an engagement with the world in dual modes of being: one of dialogue and another of monologue. The first mode, labelled “I-Thou” or “I-You,” emphasizes the mutual, holistic existence of two beings. In this relationship, there are no qualifications or reduction of the other to a mere object. In contrast, the second mode, termed “I-It”, treats the other being as an object to be experienced and used for the individual’s interest. Here, the “I” does not engage with the “Other” but rather confronts and qualifies the “Other” as an abstract idea existing solely in the mind. Consequently, the “I-It” relationship becomes a monologue — a dialogue with oneself rather than genuine interaction. Buber argued that “I-It” relationships between human beings devalued the meaning of existence. Instead, we should employ genuine dialogue, the “I-You” relationship, as essential for our shared humanity.

Another philosopher, known for developing his own dialogical philosophy, was a Russian thinker, Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975). In his early work, “Toward a Philosophy of the Act,” Bakhtin challenged philosophical monologism with its either-or logic and advocated for a pluralistic dialogical world over a monological world of authoritarian rules. He argued for dialogical principles that recognize others as equals and promote shared coexistence.

Bakhtin wrote,

The dialogical relations between the self and the other constitute the structure of being understood as an event of co-being: ‘I-for-me, the other-for-me, and I-for-the-other’.⁶

For Bakhtin, dialogue is not merely a conversation but a series of dialogical relationships, which are “an almost universal phenomenon” that permeate “all relationships and manifestations of human life in general, everything that has meaning and significance”.⁷ Additionally, Bakhtin emphasized “the interconnection and interdependence of various areas of culture” and argued, “It is only in the eyes of another culture that the foreign culture reveals itself fully and profoundly”.⁸ His ideas can contribute to a deeper understanding of cultural diversity and reinforce the importance of intercultural dialogue as essential for mutual coexistence.

The philosophical ideas of dialogue are also found among Latin American thinkers, who sought to counter social uniformity and preserve cultural diversity and plurality. Raúl Fornet Betancourt, a Cuban philosopher, advocates for intercultural dialogue as a path to a “philosophy of otherness,” where the other is recognized in relation to their identity and traditions. He supports dialogical relationships among cultures and calls for an intercultural transformation in Western philosophy to create new spaces for democratic coexistence instead of the political hegemonies.

Betancourt’s project of intercultural philosophy offers possible solutions for contemporary problems:

First, philosophy must expose the “monocultural” limitations of its concepts by critically reviewing the interchange and solidarity among diverse cultural traditions. Second, it must develop ideas and approaches to address global challenges arising from the contradiction between the homogenizing tendency of hegemonic globalization and cultural resistance by peoples who seek to reaffirm their right to political, economic, and cultural self-determination.⁹

As Ram Adhar Mall points out, “It is the task of intercultural philosophy to mediate between these two ends, i.e. the specific philosophies as they are found in different cultures and the universal philosophy which is not culturally bound itself."¹⁰ Intercultural philosophy should serve as an opposition to manipulation or domination:

In genuine dialogue, the interlocutor is neither externalized nor appropriated, assimilated, or controlled. To this extent, dialogical philosophizing offers a counterpoint to ‘power politics,’ rampant warfare, and militaristic forms of social and political interaction.¹¹

Such immense interest in intercultural philosophy during globalization stems from the unprecedented opportunity to engage in dialogue on a global scale. This unique moment should encourage philosophers to seek wisdom from various philosophical traditions by exploring ideas of dialogue and harmony found in Daoism, Confucianism, Indian, and Ancient Greek philosophies, as well as contemporary European, African, and Latin American philosophies.

In addition, Russian philosophy, which has historically positioned itself as a bridge between Europe and Asia without fully belonging to either, has significantly contributed to the humanistic traditions of promoting dialogical relations and peace and needs to be recognised in intercultural philosophy. Philosophical ideas developed by different cultures can offer profound insights into discussions about issues of peace among politicians and world leaders.

Intercultural philosophy should become a fundamental value, establishing a common platform for dialogue among civilizations and cultures because it advocates for unity without uniformity, focusing on “unity in the face of diversity” rather than “unity in diversity.” The future of the dialogical relationships in the reality of today’s multipolar world is likely to involve cooperation, competition, and occasional conflicts, but not the confrontation or clash predicted by Samuel Huntington, nor the continued domination of Western civilization as suggested by Francis Fukuyama.

Instead, it will be an interaction that fosters mutual understanding and respect.

What can we hope for? — A vision for a peaceful world order

In today’s globalized world, philosophy must transform itself into intercultural philosophy and develop a vision of a free, just and peaceful world order to prevent nuclear catastrophe and ensure humanity’s future.

Human beings naturally exhibit diversity, forming unique contexts in their pursuit of the good life. All people are keenly interested in the survival and prosperity of their families, communities, nations, and civilizations and, therefore, the peaceful alternative is attractive to all people and serves as a common ground for dialogues between people with different cultural backgrounds and worldviews. National entities, each with its distinct identity, culture, land, language, heritage, and destiny, can contribute to the conditions necessary for global peace.

Human beings naturally exhibit diversity, forming unique contexts in their pursuit of the good life. 

However, peace cannot arise solely from individual efforts or state-centred machinations. Instead, it should emerge through dialogue, which requires ethical attention to others. To foster understanding and cooperation “them” and “us” need to be distinguished — not in a destructive and blaming way, but in a creative and task-oriented way. The growing aversion to acknowledging any differentiation — avoiding talk of “us” versus “them” — may inadvertently deny the reality that “We are All in This Together” but in different ways, which require acknowledgment of and engaging with the “Other” using intercultural philosophy.

This philosophy envisions humanity by avoiding one-sidedness or any form of evanescence, and can allow humanity to thrive without attempting to assimilate the “Other” or fearing the loss of one’s “Self” in the “Other.” Therefore, in our search for global order, mere high-sounding slogans about “world peace” fall short. True peace demands moral growth and sustained action.

Philosophers from various traditions should continue to advocate for cultural diversity and the right of cultures to be recognized and developed, to provide philosophical justification for transitioning from a unipolar to a multipolar world and to be engaged in intercultural dialogue to establish peace and security for humanity.

Are we there yet? — The fear of death is the beginning of wisdom

To provide an alternative to hegemonic globalization, culture wars, and the nuclear annihilation of humanity, intercultural philosophy can help us to establish the foundation of morality through recognition and appreciation of the “Other” and equip us with the wisdom of engaging in dialogical relationship with the “Other”. The unity in such diversity cannot be proclaimed as a fact, but only as a goal, which needs to be pursued in the never-ending dialogue between “us” and “them”. As Bakhtin emphasizes, “To be means to communicate dialogically. When dialogue ends, everything ends… Two voices is the minimum for life, the minimum for existence”.¹² (Bakhtin, 1984, p. 252).

If dialogue stops, the future of viruses, rather than humanity, will be ensured and “We will be All in This Together,” facing the same fate!

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Originally from Kazakhstan, I have called Australia home for the past 30 years. I hold a Master’s degree in Linguistics and Language and Literacy Education. I teach Italian, Russian, and Philosophy at a secondary college in Sydney. My teaching methodology employs comparative analysis to highlight the diversity in people’s perceptions and understanding of the world. I strongly believe that the philosophical method of inquiry should be widely applied in school education to foster critical thinking and a passion for learning among young people. My interests include learning the Chinese language, as well as Chinese and Russian Philosophy. I frequently contribute to Philosophy Now’s “Question of the Month” articles, writing on topics such as Normative Ethics, Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Political Philosophy.

Nella Leontieva on Daily Philosophy:

• We and They.

Notes

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