Dialogue and Humanism

An unsolved contradiction exists between the universal zest for economic growth and the menace to the future of mankind which results from it. It cannot be solved as long as human thinking is focussed on short-term issues. The global predicament of humanity calls for imiversal solutions. There is an urgent need to overcome all kinds of political and ideological Manicheism in order to arrive at universal understanding of the real problems of mankind. The present experience of Coitral European countries which find themselves in a unique historical situation of transforming their economic, social and political systems in the conditions of global predicament offers observations of relevance for the universal solutions.

To understand the meaning of kalokagathia one must take into account not the contemporary but the Greek theories of beauty and the good. Beauty in the Greek tradition had at least three significations: as an end in itself, as harmony, and what pleases as seen. The so conceived beauty comes to a very close relation with the moral goodness, especially with bonum honestum.Bonum honestum is also an end in itself, and, when other moral values are properly related to it, there is a harmony on the personal as well as on the social level. And finally, the moral goodness is something to be admired (it pleases as seen). The concept of kalokagathia, then, was at the core of morality, education and culture. It is too precious a pearl to be forgotten.