List the 38 stratagems that Schopenhauer developed in his book “The Art of Being Right”, the German philosopher ironized about the evil caused to thought and reason by the human vice of seeking victory in debate, instead of prioritizing the dialectical search for truth.
Political sectarianism acts in the same way because it prioritizes the demonization of the adversary and any criticism of one’s own position. An instinct of authoritarian cultures, the phenomenon is currently on the rise through disruptive leadership and anti-system movements on the left and right in many corners of the West.
From parliaments to television sets, dialogue was expelled by insult and disqualification. The word “hate” appears in all diagnoses of the tension that keeps societies and their political systems in a state of hysteria. Liberal democracy, that is, the rule of law and public and individual freedoms, needs the debate of ideas and the confrontation of projects, but without abandoning the stage of dialogue, that is, the exchange that starts from the acceptance that there is more than one reason.
In both religions and ideologies, absolute conviction destroys the possibility of dialogue, so the defense of liberal democracy needs a scenario far from the extremes in which dogma predominates.
The mayor of Córdoba, Daniel Passerini, and the vice-governor of the Province of Córdoba, Myrian Prunotto, agreed on the creation of a space to promote the culture of dialogue, and they proposed that I design and direct it.
With this objective, the Democratic Culture Forum was created. The appropriate place for this space dedicated to promoting the culture of dialogue to operate is the building where the nineteenth-century municipal government functioned and to which was added, at the beginning of the 20th century, the venue designed for the deliberation of the representatives of a democratic system.
That hemicycle where so many Cordoba laws were discussed, this time had on its platform and on its benches judges and academics who are part of the front line of Law and Legal Thought at the national and local level.
Minutes after Daniel Passerini and Myriam Prunotto inaugurated the Democratic Culture Forum on Tuesday, November 18, the first session of its Parliament of Major Contemporary Issues was held. He deliberated on “Justice and the Rule of Law” and on the stand were former judge Ricardo Gil Lavedra, former member of the Supreme Court of Justice Juan Carlos Maqueda, academic Roberto Gargarella, constitutionalist Daniel Sabsay and, by zoom from Uruguay, Luis Moreno Ocampo, in dialogue with prestigious exponents of legal thought and the local judiciary: Aída Tarditti, Marcela Aspell, Antonia De la Rúa, Jessica Valentini, Silvana Chiapero, Adán Ferrer, Horacio Roitman and, by zoom from Santo Domingo, Armando Andruet.
The dialogue revolved around a question: what to do from Justice to strengthen the rule of law in this time of threats from disruptive leaderships that express authoritarian cultures.
The level of knowledge and professional and academic experience gathered at the venue resulted in lucid ideas and deep reflections. The same is expected from the next session of the Parliament of Major Contemporary Issues, when we will try to bring together the former Ministers of Economy of the Nation and prestigious national and local exponents of economic thought and its praxis to dialogue from their experiences and points of view.
Thus, on a quarterly basis, the Parliament of Great Contemporary Issues will address all relevant issues for humanity at this point in history. Climatic and environmental issues, sociological, historical, philosophical, psychological issues, health-related issues. Everything will happen in the chamber of the old Córdoba legislature, today the main stage of the Democratic Culture Forum.
This space, co-managed by the Provincial Legislature and the Municipality of Córdoba, includes three agoras: the Agora of Political Culture, the Agora of Legal Culture and the Agora of Economic Culture, where conferences, seminars, round tables and other activities always presented from a dialogic perspective will be held. While the chamber of the Historical Legislature will also be the scene of the series El Pueblo en las Bancas, where attendees will be able to dialogue with top-level exponents in different areas.
In this way, the building of the Historical Legislature will be a space of resistance against the hegemony of confrontation that has been weakening liberal democracy for years.
On the Topics of Dialectics with which Aristotle constructed valid arguments to understand reality in its different dimensions, Arthur Schopenhauer wrote his lucid compendium of stratagems to win debates, denouncing from irony the fickle human pettiness of arguing with the aim of imposing himself on the interlocutor, instead of arriving dialectically at reason.
The new enemy of democratic reason is absolute conviction and its arsenal of confrontation: insult, disqualification, sectarianism and hatred for diversities.
The Democratic Culture Forum was born as an antidote to the toxic effects of authoritarian culture.
