Confrontation And Tolerance Of Cultures: Pro Et Contra

Abstract

The article presents the idea that the modern cultural-historical realities as the form of co-existence of separate cultures are, at one and the same time, the area of tolerance and the area of confrontational cross-cultural interactions. The tolerant character of the cross-cultural interactions is ontologically determined by the complementarity of cultures with harmonious mentalities. Their mentalities prompt these cultures to enter the enculturational and transculturational interactions. The tolerant character of cross-cultural interactions prevails as the modern cultural area is predominated by the cultures with a harmonious paradigm core. This core presents a well-proportioned entity of cultural and civilizational values that makes them potentially complementary, capable for modifications and interactions without the loss of cultural identity. Confrontation, as the fact of cultural interaction, is ontologically determined by the non-complementarity of the value basis of certain cultures, the inharmonicity of their mental basis with the predominance of self-exclusiveness. The ontological bases of such cultures incline them to the clashes of counterculturational interactions. Such counterculturational interactions are typical, as a whole, to the history of cross-cultural relationships. The fact of the world’s “narrowing”, the constant interaction of cultures at the level of a person, a group, governmental units are the realities of the modern world. This leads to the reaction opposite to the mega-synthesis; to the cultural self-identity growth, to the situational counterculturation. Whereas the situational counterculturation as the response to the global challenges does not necessarily bear the confrontation character provided that the principle of cultures equality is followed.