Forms of Openness

Abstract

Openness is the strongest and most revealing multicultural value. It governs the distinctively multicultural interpretations of equality, freedom, recognition, and authenticity (as cultural equality, cultural freedom, cultural recognition, and ethical authenticity). Beyond its familiar and easily understood meaning as open borders, openness as a value also encompasses evidence-based policy making (Karl Popper) and the overcoming of ancient religious rivalries based on incompatible divine revelations by the universal adoption of a new faith in the future of humanity within a universe that is “a machine for the making of gods” (Henri Bergson). The analysis of openness as a multicultural value thus takes the reader out of reflections about the past and into speculation about the future.