Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 9, Number 2, January 2009

communication processes an individual exists within a group and a group exists in an individual (mutual interpenetration 10 ). However, this does not mean that opposites blur in some homogeneous structure. The author of the theory of symbolic 8 John Dewey, Logic. The Theory of Inquiry (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1938), pp. 66-67. 9 Charles Horton Cooley, Human Nature and Social Order (New York: Schocken Books, 1964), pp. 36- 37. 10 See Talcott Parsons, Stability and Social Change (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), pp. 5-6. 24 Journal of European Baptist Studies interactionism, George Herbert Mead, also overcomes dualism (of the body and soul, instincts and consciousness, etc.) through the category of act and social act, in which inner experience is always a part of a broader whole. 11 Within that whole, conscious processes of action and reaction build up human personality while life becomes meaningful through act (social interaction). According to Mead, the self has social origins: an individual may only experience himself or herself through the mediation of the other. The basic tenets of pragmatism were recognised and developed by Richard Rorty, who related the idea of democracy not so much to emancipation but to tolerance and openness to cultural difference. However, he did not insist that a juxtaposition of differences must always result in a synthesis; at the same time, this does not mean that some borders are not to be crossed. 12 The tension between objectivism and subjectivism in Rorty’s thought is manifested in the idea of solidarity and voluntary agreement, based on the fundamental principle of a person’s loyalty towards other people. This is some sort of a third way (between dogmatic conservatism and heartless liberalism) which allows for a critical attitude towards the encountered values only from the inside of a social system, i.e. when the values established democratically have been sufficiently internalised. In other words, an individual is only capable of a responsible (i.e. non-revolutionary) implementation of innovations if he or she is bound to the local community through socialisation processes resulting in a similarity and partnership of values and experiences. At the same time, Rorty, though recognising the relative and casual nature of these similarities, argues not only for a local but also global responsibility; otherwise, misunderstood freedom will lead to acculturation, uprooting, alienation, and ultimately to social disintegration. Rorty’s neopragmatism does not permit challenging the social consensus at the lower levels of education though it protects the freedom of the university; the freedom of democracy is therefore an educational goal. 13 Democratic coexistence of cultures and ideas must then be based on the ethics of consultation and compromise, i.e. competing statements should be in the state of balance rather than fight. We should prevent the social domina