Page - 131 - in Reflective Cosmopolitanism - Educating towards inclusive communities through Philosophical Enquiry

IN AND OUT THE PARk (MANUAL) 131 b) Respect the will of your parents and decline the invitation because you think that your parents, with their experience, cannot be wrong. c) Accept your parents’ decision, even if you think it’s wrong, simply because they are your parents. d) Convinced that you are right, lie to your parents by telling them that you are going to sleep at a friend’s house, and then go to the party. e) Other reaction....................................... 2) Two friends are furiously arguing during the break and one of them offends the other by referring to the colour of his or her skin. What are you going to do? a) Take your racially offended classmate’s side, without worrying if he or she was right or wrong. b) Tell the teacher, but without mentioning the racial offence. c) Try to make them reason with each other about the object of the argument without any interest in the racial offence. d) Stay there to watch them without intervening – it is not your business. e) Other reaction........................................ 3) Your elder brother has discovered that your best friend belongs to a different cul- ture and, for this reason, he wants you not to meet your friend any more. What are you going to do? a) Demand for a “family summit” to reason together on the issue. b) Decide not to see your friend anymore. c) Report the issue to an association that fights against racial and ethnic discrimi- nation. d) Think, “Who cares? Whatever will be will be”. e) Other reaction........................................ Leading Idea 2: Solidarity In a cosmopolitan society, human relationships offer a significant starting point to de- velop a new interpretation of reality. Together with empathy and imagination, solidarity is an important element that reinforces relationships. In the story, the relationships created amongst the protagonists have strengthened the birth of a culturally heterogeneous group that has already surpassed and included their individual differences. Their relationship can be characterized as containing a unique and loyal friendship. For this reason, it is impor- tant to consider what having solidarity with someone means. Is solidarity an instinctive or a rational act? Does solidarity arise from an instinct related to us as human beings? Does it come from a deliberate reflection on what we should do in a specific circumstance? In the story, there are various occasions in which the characters express solidarity with each other. In the episode where Jensika is a victim, for example, they feel struck by what happened to her and would like to help her. Indeed, solidarity is when we understand ourselves (and experience ourselves) as part of a larger whole. It involves seeing ourselves as an extension of others and sharing our living space with the people that surround us so that what happens to them involves (implicates) us. In this sense, solidarity is like a geometrical body: every part of the body is necessary to the whole. If just one side of the geometrical body falls down, the whole body collapses. In this way, every single part of the whole is interested in the survival of the other parts.