Global citizenship with TorbjØrn (8.3.2011)

Content of our lesson was wery simple, to write a paper based on our reading from the last lesson. Writing itselfactually was not so easy....
There is a paper written by me, Mitsue and Eva based on article called Respect as the Ethic of the Open society:


Global citizenship                                                         Mitsue Kondo, Eva De Smijter, Michaela Lišková

Learning for Democracy, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2006

Respect as the Ethic of the Open Society

Stefano Gathei

(University of Pisa, Italy)

The aim of our paper is to conclude the article ´Respect as the Ethic of the Open Society´ by Stefano Gathei where he discusses the possibilities and the dangers of the relativism in the open society. In which the tolerance and respect are the basic idea for it, which are often used in the wrong way and misunderstood.

The biggest problem of our society is the confusion about the meaning of tolerance and respect. So it is necessary to make it clear.

Open society starts with tolerance by allowing differences to exist. To tolerate someone is rather passive, it is just the patient connivance of something we nearly do not care about or cannot accept as equal or worthful.

Moreover, the difference between respect and tolerance is that we do not only allow the difference but we also try to learn from them. According to Notturno “Respect […] means that we take the dissenting opinions of other seriously, and that we regard them as possibly true. It means, in fact, that we treat them as potentially our own – since we want to discover the truth and since we recognize that we may be in error […]” (Notturno, 2000, p.33).

At the same time, being critical is really important in having respect for someone else. We have to be willing to learn from the others. Have an open mind but still be critical enough because every opinion does not have to be the right one.

However, we cannot forget the dangers of an open society. We can only afford to tolerate and respect those who in turn tolerate and respect us.  “Aggressive people not only fail to appreciate respect, they also ignore tolerance, thus putting the minimum condition of civil coexistence at risk.” (Popper, 1945a, p.265).

And that´s why we think it is important to teach children how to be respectful and tolerant, in order to be a global citizen in a multicultural society.

 M