E D U C AT I O N F O R L E A R N I N G TO LIVE TOGETHER

CO-EXISTENCE AS H A R M O N I Z AT I O N O F L AW, M O R A L I T Y A N D C U LT U R E 1
An t a n a s Mo c k u s

In t r o d u c t i o n
Co-existence is a concept that has arisen or been adopted in Latin America to synthesize the ideal of a life shared by culturally, socially or politically very diverse groups, a viable shared life, a stable, maybe permanent living together, desirable in itself and not just because of its effects. In the English-speaking world co-existence usually describes people living peacefully side by side, particularly as the result of a deliberate choice. In fact, as the opposite of war, it carries a slight connotation of resignation when accepting the other. Perhaps as occurred during so-called peaceful co-existence, one co-exists with the other through necessity, because there is no alternative. It therefore shares two common features with tolerance: on the one hand, it is a desirable thing and, on the other, it to some extent involves learning to put up with things. A similar nuance of co-existence as some-

Original language: Spanish Antanas Mockus (Colombia) Educated in France and at the Universidad Nacional of Colombia, with degrees in mathematics and philosophy. Elected Mayor of Bogota from 1995 to 1997 and re-elected 20012003. Professor at the Universidad Nacional; Chancellor, 19911993. Worked with the Instituto de Estudios Polticos y Relaciones Internacionales. He has carried out research in projects related to co-existence, a peace agenda for civil society, the harmonization of laws, morality and culture, the state university system, the theory of education and the articulation of formal and non-formal knowledge. He has published numerous articles about education, teaching, higher education, culture, science and technology. Prospects, vol. XXXII, no. 1, March 2002

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thing deliberately opposed to exclusion and something arrived at with a degree of resignation appears in its translation into French as cohabitation. However, perhaps due to its origin, the Spanish term convivencia has ended up with more positive connotations and as promoting something intrinsically desirable.2 Co-existing is when different people manage to live together without risk of violence and with the expectation of making fruitful use of our differences. The challenge of co-existence is basically a challenge of tolerance towards diversity and this is most clearly manifested in the absence of violence.3 Tolerance towards diversity today involves: a transformation of identities and how they are reproduced, so that to acquire a strong identity, or to maintain it, it is no longer necessary to deny the others identity, or to exclude him/her; acceptance that the options provided by different groups or traditions with respect to the most important questions (religious,4 philosophical, political) could somehow be considered equivalent and, more recently, acceptance that it can be possible and useful for various models of society to exist within the same society; a broader scope for making agreements (many issues, such as those relating to sexuality or household chores, cease to be regulated by custom and are the subject of agreements, between partners, for instance). Lack of violence involves: exclusion of violent action, through shared rules (legal or cultural) or through rules set or internalized autonomously and unilaterally (moral/personal); universalization of competencies for the peaceful resolution of conflict (resolving problems, reaching agreements). There is, of course, a connection between the two aspects, tolerance and non-violence: identities rest to a large extent on shared or autonomously adopted rules.5 In general, more shared rules mean a greater common identity and vice-versa; agreeing on at least the most fundamental rules perhaps provides the essential basis for us to be different with regard to others (our style of dress, our personal discipline, etc.). The fact that there are different religious, philosophical or political options that are equally valid from a certain point of view in practice poses the challenge of reaching agreements (inevitably partial and imperfect) and, in particular, leads us to seek common rules (even though we recognize and respect them for varying reasons from different traditions).6 In short, for tolerance towards diversity to be viable and to exclude violence: (a) some common rules are necessary: shared cultural rules (some common cultural denominators); an explicitly adopted constitutional and legal framework; international conventions. (b) it is necessary for the great majority to share the capacity and willingness to reach and comply with agreements: To change from seeing difference as a danger to seeing it as an opportunity for getting to know each other, for a mutual broadening of horizons, also crucially requires those common rules and that willingness to accept agreements.
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As well as mutual tolerance and the absence of violence, co-existence suggests processes of construction and stabilization of that living together: ultimately, co-existing could mean harmonizing the processes of economic and cultural reproduction.7 But it is not our intention to go as far as that here. Our approach is more limited: we simply want to go beyond the negative definition of co-existence as an absence of violence, to explore a positive view of it. What leads to us to tolerate diversity, to adopt it enthusiastically? What takes us away from violence? An initial positive response to date i.e. provisional and whose refinements we will examine in this article by moving from the most philosophical level (the first four sections of this article) to my experience as Mayor of Bogota (the fifth section) and the conclusions from an investigation with young people (six and seven), finally to return to a more philosophical issue, co-existence as tolerance accompanied by approval, given the existence of different models of society and humanity (the last two sections). Considering the positive view achieved prior to the investigation with young people and used as the initial concept for this,8 co-existence means keeping common rules, having culturally rooted mechanisms of social self-regulation, respecting differences and complying with rules to process them; it is also learning to reach, comply with and amend agreements.

Co-existence and rules

Why could respect for rules be so relevant to co-existence? Respect for what rules? In order to address respect for rules, it should be recognized that the modern age stresses the difference between legal, moral and cultural rules, between the law, morality and culture. A legal penalty is not the same thing as a feeling of guilt and neither of these punishments is comparable to social repudiation. Likewise, the motivation for behaviour based on respect for the written law, for how it is drawn up and applied can be differentiated from motivation based on gratifying ones conscience and the latter from motivation based on social recognition. Thanks to this difference, we can conclude that co-existence largely consists of breaching the gap between law, morality and culture, that is, overcoming moral and/or cultural approval of unlawful actions and overcoming the lukewarm or non-existent moral or cultural approval of legal obligations. Skill in reaching agreements and complying with them, and if necessary amending them, moral and cultural disapproval of unlawful actions and moral and cultural approval of legally compulsory actions, will be recognized as key to co-existence, a co-existence which, due to the connection with the difference between law, morality and culture and to the inescapable central role of the law, we will call civic coexistence.

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Co-existence and pluralism

In Colombia, and to a greater or lesser extent in many other countries, for many people conscience or custom justify the breaking of the law. I have been fortunate in having the opportunity to help correct this through both government action and education. After working for over ten years in education, I was able to apply part of what I had learned during my term as Mayor of Bogota (19951997, and now 20012003) in the Civic Culture Programme with visible results in the protection of lives, compliance with rules and civic behaviour, such as, for example, voluntary water saving. Also, in the three years following my first term as mayor, I had the opportunity to undertake a survey with ninth-grade youngsters in Bogota9 with J. Corzo, the results of which are providing a useful input for the second version of the Civic Culture Programme. What has inspired this work, in short, is a vision of societies where there is harmony between law, morality and culture. This does not mean that law, morality and culture govern exactly the same thing; that would be fundamentalism and would be incompatible with cultural and moral pluralism commonly accepted ideals in most contemporary societies and clearly so in our own.10 One of the characteristics of contemporary society is that people with different moral criteria can feel mutual moral respect; that is how I would characterize moral pluralism. It is not just that each one should set their own rules, but that these rules should be sufficiently universal, sufficiently consistent or find an appropriate aesthetic expression to arouse the respect of people with different moral frameworks. For centuries mankind has not found this easy to accept or comprehend, so we can understand that a contemporary society also finds it difficult to grasp. Now, how can we make sure pluralism does not turn into indifference to legal criteria? How can we avoid it being accepted as meaning anything goes? Harmony between law, morality and culture is where each individual chooses behaviours morally and culturally, but selects them from legal behaviours and this choice may vary from one individual to another, one community to another. In other words, there is no moral justification for illegal behaviour and if there were, a number of conditions would have to be present. John Rawls, for example, studies these conditions in his work on civil disobedience (Theory of justice, chapter VI, see footnote 6). Some of these conditions are to accept publicly that the law is being broken, be willing to debate publicly the intention of the individual who breaks the law for moral reasons and, secondly, be willing to recognize that the value attributed to morality is so high that one would accept legal punishment for breaking the law. The Colombian Constitution allows for respect for cultural and religious diversity and for diversity in customs, but subject to respect for the law. In other words, long live pluralism, but not so that it will morally justify or lead to cultural acceptance of illegality. In the ideal democratic society, as illustrated by certain periods in the experience of some stable industrialized societies, the three systems of behaviour regulation referred to law, morality and culture tend to coincide in the following sense. All behavProspects, vol. XXXII, no. 1, March 2002

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iours that are morally valid according to the individuals moral judgement are usually culturally accepted (the contrary does not necessarily occur: there are culturally accepted behaviours that some individuals abstain from adopting due to moral considerations). What is culturally permitted in turn coincides with what is legally permitted (in this case the opposite does not occur either: there are legally permitted behaviours that are rejected culturally). In these societies, culture simply demands more than the law and morality more than culture.

G a p b e t w e e n l a w, m o r a l i t y a n d c u l t u re
By the gap between law, morality and culture I mean the lack of consistency between cultural regulation of behaviour and its moral and legal regulation, a lack of consistency that is expressed as violence, delinquency, corruption, illegitimacy of institutions, weakening of the power of many cultural traditions and a crisis or weakness of individual morality.11 We can thus classify Colombian society as exhibiting a wide gap between law, morality and culture. The systematic exercise of violence outside the rules defining the States monopoly of its legitimate use, or the practice of corruption grow and consolidate precisely because they become culturally accepted behaviours in certain contexts. There is thus tolerance of clearly illegal and often morally reprehensible behaviours. In a subsequent work the strength of cultural regulation in Colombia is stressed: The stability and dynamism of Colombian society depend largely on the great power exerted here by cultural regulation, which does not always match the law and leads people to act against their moral convictions.12 Other nations, other continents, even Europe itself, have experienced crises due to the gulf between law, morality and culture. In general, it has been the national States that have been able to establish a certain degree of order by giving priority to the law, and it has been through the law with some support of course from morality and culture and, more specifically, through religion and ideology that a high degree of consistency between law, morality and culture has been achieved. In short, the gulf between the three systems is expressed in: (a) illegal but morally and culturally approved actions; (b) illegal actions disapproved culturally but judged morally acceptable; and (c) illegal actions recognized as morally unacceptable but culturally tolerated. And it is also expressed in legal obligations that are not recognized as moral obligations or in certain social circles are not incorporated as culturally accepted obligations.

C i v i c c u l t u re
The first Civic Culture Programme (19951997) emphasized cultural regulation. Cultural regulation and its consistency with moral and legal regulation are a great help in understanding the workings of what is healthy, non-violent, non-corrupt. The purpose was to recognize and improve the cultural regulation of interaction between strangers or between individuals and officials in their capacity as strangers. Subsequently,
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there were initiatives that involved an interest in the cultural regulation of interactions in the family (for example, in combating domestic violence). Co-ordination between institutions and an understanding of the process by society, which were necessary to obtain the results achieved, depended largely on the institutional and social appropriation of the idea of civic culture itself. Recent legal reforms (Bogotas fundamental law, planning law and budget law) facilitated institutional appropriation of the idea and thus gave it top priority among the government team and for society through stronger communication (high media interest, partly motivated by the novelty of the media involved). The notion of civic culture sought above all to foster interpersonal self-regulation. Emphasis was given to cultural regulation of interactions between strangers, in contexts such as public transport, public areas, public establishments and neighbourhoods; and cultural regulation was also stressed in individual-government interactions, given that the public sphere depends substantively on the quality of these interactions. The four objectives for civic culture, top priority and backbone of the citys Development Plan, were thus defined: 1. To increase compliance with rules of co-existence. 2. To increase the capacity of some citizens to encourage others towards peaceful compliance with rules. 3. To increase the capacity for agreement and peaceful resolution of conflicts between citizens. 4. To increase citizens communications skills (expression, interpretation) through art, culture, recreation and sport. Moral and cultural pluralism should not mean a corrosive relativism. For this not to be interpreted as anything goes, it should be related again to individual and collective self-regulation: the fact that others have partially different rules from mine in no way means that I can or should relax my own. If I recognize the validity of other cultural traditions, this does not mean I should weaken my interest in developing and strengthening my identity with a specific tradition. The actions relating to the idea of civic culture sought to identify something of that common ground, of that set of minimum shared basic rules that should allow us to enjoy moral and cultural diversity. The Civic Culture Programme included many civic education initiatives set within the framework of a common philosophy. It involved great inter-institutional and multisectoral co-operation, particularly in the conception stage and in contingency actions. The total cost over the three years 19951997 was close to US$130 million (3.7% of the citys investment budget). The Civic Culture Programme and the philosophy behind its objectives were also the inspiration for many of the unplanned government actions that responded to unforeseen situations. Consistency between the two parts of the government agenda planned and improvised contributed greatly to social acceptance of the concept. The civic culture successes are still locally and nationally recognized as the main achievement of that government. An absolutely crucial element for creating a multiplier effect in the Civic Culture actions was its very high visibility in society, largely achieved through the mass media.
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Not paid campaigns, but novel, attractive methods, with a high visual or psychological impact. In particular, in the citys conflicts with the refuse collectors, taxi drivers, buses, mini-buses and collective taxis and with the national government itself with regard to arms decommissioning, the more timely, sincere and frank the communication, the more favourable the results. Perhaps the case with the greatest limitations on communications legal arms decommissioning was the one involving the greatest setbacks. In three of the behaviour changes indicated (see Box 1) there were updated indicators that enabled frequent evaluation of the actions undertaken and communication was strongly influenced by how the indicators evolved.13 The most outstanding case: water savings during the drought in 1997.14 Many of the Civic Culture initiatives were presented as preventive actions and therefore laid the ground for measures justified as risk reduction procedures, thus breaking with positions that hold that individuals are completely free to run risks. The combination of sensitive public opinion, radical frankness and an elementary methodology for regulating communication often played a crucial role. When communication intensifies, there is of course a danger of removing certain convenient ambiguities and generating a crude perception of rules, hierarchies and competencies.
BOX 1. Civic Culture results in Bogota (19952001) Reduction of the homicide rate from 82 (in 1993) to 35 (in 2000) per 100,000 inhabitants, a drop of over 50% in the last seven years. A number of measures relating to the three types of regulation probably had considerable influence: carrot law (imposition of a closing time of 1 a.m. for bars and discos and the sale of alcohol, a measure also adopted in other Colombian and Ecuadorean cities), arms decommissioning (legal and voluntary), arbitration centres, police training, voluntary handing over of over 1,500 weapons. In the month of the voluntary weapons decommissioning, the homicide rate dropped by 26%: only 1% of weapons were collected, but the message involved in unilaterally handing over arms had a significant effect. Some 45,000 people participated in the vaccination against domestic violence: a very brief, intense workshop with the support of psychiatrists and psychologists, useful for detecting cases requiring professional attention, to announce the provision of institutional attention and understand to what extent violence involves illness. Reduction of deaths in traffic accidents from 1,387 in 1995 to 834 in 2000. In this respect, the fact that the Metropolitan Police took over the city traffic had a great influence and also led to elimination of the custom of paying bribes to avoid traffic fines. A two-thirds reduction in the number of children burned by gunpowder. Marked progress in the restoration and respect for public areas. Voluntary water savings of between 11 and 14% in a crisis lasting several months, with a residual saving stimulated by the tariff structure (the average monthly domestic consumption has finally dropped from 27 to 20 m 3, making it possible to postpone the costly construction of new dams for over fifteen years). An end to the clientelist relationship between the Government and the Council. The joint search for a legally, morally and culturally defensible relationship has led to the rigorous exchange of arguments instead of the customary exchange of favours (appointments and contracts).

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But sincerity almost always produced better results than the traditional (misplaced) diplomacy. Saying quite clearly what could and what could not be done, and accurately remembering competencies were day-to-day tools. Something that was also important in this first version of the Civic Culture Programme was to accept conflict as caused or exacerbated by restrictions on communication. In a congress of sociologists to which I was invited to in 1993, I presented a paper entitled La violencia como forma de comunicacin [Violence as a means of communication]. It took ideas from Jrgen Habermas his communication theory to show that a violent person is someone who chooses a certain language and it could be of interest to society to invite him to choose other means of communication. It was then shown that the communications functions of violence can be partly replaced. In other words, if certain forms of violence did not have the communicative repercussions they do, they would be most unattractive. In most cases, it could be said that there is no physical violence particularly public physical violence that is not accompanied by an attempt to communicate something. We thus conclude that conflict could be caused or exacerbated by restrictions on communications and therefore that intensified communication and interaction could reduce the gap between law, morality and culture.15 One way of understanding the foregoing was recognizing that in situations of conflict an exchange of arguments can be more useful than negotiations. Likewise it became clear that direct, face-to-face contact could dissuade violence. Obedience to authority, an investigation by Stanley Milgram carried out at Yale University, shows it is easier to drop an atomic bomb from a height of 10,000 meters than to wound someone face to face. That is no guarantee, but it was a clue we followed up: new ways of expressing lack of agreement, such as symbolic aggression, can be very useful. In short, the Civic Culture strategy sought to strengthen cultural and moral regulation. It sought to increase the consistency and complementary effectiveness of those types of regulation with each other and with the law. It tried and very often managed to weaken the cultural or moral legitimacy of unlawful actions. It also sought to communicate (or reconstruct in the sphere of communications) the rationale and the advantages of legal regulation.

Re s e a r c h i n t o c i v i c c o - e x i s t e n c e
In the research with ninth-grade youngsters in Bogota, the responses from a sample of 1,400 youngsters to over 200 questions were analysed using multiple correlation analysis techniques. In the research, co-existence was initially described as a combination of obedience to rules, the ability to reach and comply with agreements and trust. Obedience to rules was specified in greater detail as obedience to three types of rules: legal, moral and cultural. It was attempted to find out what happened when there was a tension between these regulatory systems and how tolerant the youngsters were of moral and cultural pluralism. We attempted to test the initial point of view by contrast and empirical refinement. We used an instrument of over 100 questions (some of them with forty
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sub-questions). The multiple correlation analysis enabled us to identify the groups of questions that best predicted each other. Obviously, the results are strongly influenced by the initial questions. However, this reflection is exposed to the resistance and sometimes the counter-intuitive nature of conclusions deriving from the data.16 One way of addressing the theory behind both conceptions, the intervention in Bogota and the research into co-existence among youngsters, is by using Table 1. It distinguishes several dimensions or concepts, which are in turn broken down into what were called primary variables. The research made it possible to detect the following fairly widespread characteristics in the population (the first two and the fourth were confirmed in almost 100 workshops throughout the country): 1. I am guided by my conscience, others by the law and culture. 2. I understand things willingly, you unwillingly. 3. Pluralism tends to be the same as anything goes. 4. The highest value is given to the family (most frequent response to what is your greatest pride) In the first two characteristics there is an obvious asymmetry in the perception of the youngsters of Bogota (and possibly of Colombians in general) of their fellows. The asymmetry between ones own perception and peoples perception of others could be corrected by respect: respect is, by etymology, looking again, turning round to look and consider in detail. It is like the first instant of recognition. There may be a high degree of respect in a society where hierarchies are very marked. One can equally imagine the importance in the most recent events in societies like Colombia (where secularization and democratization have advanced, where there has been notable progress in gender equality and in access to educational opportunities) of egalitarian respect, of respect between fellow men. The notion of citizenship is inseparable from this respect between equals. Where there is citizenship, any encounter between strangers is above all an encounter between citizens. Seeing the other as similar to oneself in his relationship to the three regulations, believing that oneself, like others, can understand in the main willingly, constitute the foundations of civic respect. Completing the transition from respect based on hierarchies to respect based on awareness of equality, comparable to a radical change of paradigm, seems to be one of the main challenges to the construction of co-existence. Respecting the stranger, from the outset assigning him qualities as a subject analogous to ones own, is a crucial mainstay for coexistence. We also included questions on violence in the questionnaire. Remember the most important agreement you have reached in the last few months, write a very short summary, and now answer the following questions [. . .] have you used or experienced violence? Similarly: in the solution to the most important problem you had in the last few months, have you suffered, inflicted or threatened violence or were you threatened with violence? And also a more generic question: did you suffer violence in your childhood or at any stage in your life?; at what stage and from whom? But this part of the questionnaire was not included in the co-existence indicators, since it was to be used later as a contrast. The theory was: co-existence consists of following
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TABLE 1. Initial conceptualization for the research into co-existence 17 Description Co-existence Includes indicators on agreements, rules (moral, legal and cultural), trust and non-asymmetry. Indicators of non-violence serve as contrast variables. Breakdown into dimensions Attachment to rules; Harmony between law, morality and culture; Trust; Capacity to draw up and comply with agreements; Gratification. The other is not very different from oneself (low asymmetry) Not to use or accept violence in resolving problems or drawing up agreements (low violence, contrast dimension). Breakdown into sub-dimensions or primary variables Legal, moral and cultural regulation; Attitude towards rules.

Dimension or sub-dimension Attachment to rules

Description

Compliance with law, morality and culture and appreciation of rules. Each individuals obedience to his conscience, moral coming of age. Tries to incorporate an approach to the degree of moral development.

Moral regulation

Intensity of moral regulation; I comply with rules for moral reasons; Others comply with rules for moral reasons; I comply with agreements for reasons of conscience; Others comply with agreements for reasons of conscience; Morality regulates action in line with the law; Approximate degree of moral development. Intensity of cultural regulation; Cultural pluralism; Culture regulates action in line with law; Cultural regulation compatible with morality.

Cultural regulation

Obedience to social rules of ones context or group and compatibility of these rules with law and personal conscience. Force of law and law seen as an agreement. Consistency, lack of conflict between law and what is accepted or imposed by cultural and/or moral regulation.

Legal regulation Harmony of law, morality and culture18

Intensity of legal regulation; Perceive the law as an agreement. Morality regulates action in line with law; Culture regulates action in line with law; Cultural rules compatible with personal morality; Pluralism.

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TABLE 1. Continued Dimension or sub-dimension Pluralism Description Breakdown into sub-dimensions or primary variables Moral pluralism; Cultural pluralism.

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Tolerance of diversity in matters of conscience and cultural tradition. Interpersonal trust granted and received.

Confidence

Others trust me. I trust others; Trust in institutions; Trust in authorities; To reach agreements both sides must built trust.

Capacity to reach and comply with agreements

Willingness and capacity to construct agreements and try to see they are complied with. And to resolve problems through agreements.

Orientation towards agreements; I comply with agreements for reasons of conscience; Others comply with agreements for reasons of conscience; I seek agreements that are advantageous to me; I seek agreements that are advantageous to others; Personal orientation in agreements; Objective orientation in agreements; I comply with agreements willingly; Others comply with agreements willingly; Perceive the law as an agreement. I comply with rules and agreements willingly; Others comply with rules and agreements willingly. I control myself more by conscience, others more by law or culture; I control myself willingly, others unwillingly; Asymmetry in the use of violence: I inflict but do not receive violence or vice-versa; Asymmetry in non-compliance with agreements, I demand compliance from others but I do not comply; Others trust me but I do not trust others. Agreements reached with threats of violence; Problems resolved through violence or threats of violence; Physical violence received and/or inflicted.

Gratification

Attribution of greater regulatory force to rewards than to punishments. Differences between self-perception and the perception one has of others.

Asymmetry

Violence

Use or invocation of violence for solving problems or reaching agreements.

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the rules, of drawing up and complying with agreements and in generating and reproducing trust; trusting others and making compliance with rules and agreements reinforce trust. It was a positive theory of co-existence; co-existence was not defined as nonviolence. Once the statistical work was consolidated, the violence variables were projected on the results, to find out which factors were related to the lack of violence (and to what extent).

Re s u l t s o f t h e re s e a r c h
The two main factors in co-existence proved to be the capacity to draw up and comply with agreements and to respect the law. However, respect for the law was a better predictor of the absence of violence inflicted by youngster on youngster. This research has influenced the second version of the Civic Culture Programme, so this places greater stress on democratic culture, particularly on appreciating what is good, appreciating rules and democratic procedures for making decisions. We conclude that for co-existence to happen, agreements are more important than rules and, in the latter case, harmony between law and culture was very important. The research confirmed that cultural change, rather than change in moral criteria, could make for improved co-existence. It is obvious that the questions were skewed by the theory, that is, it is not final proof, merely an argument in the discussion. In Latin America there is a current of awareness-raising and in a way the Civic Culture approach shows that we are all right with regard to conscience. Perhaps the difficult thing is to achieve habits and behaviours that are consistent with what is clear in peoples conscience. Everyone knows that we should not kill, but culturally it is more an issue of external regulation. The final result was that if co-existence is looked at from a positive view, what best predicts it is the capacity to draw up and comply with agreements. And if it is regarded from the angle of violence, of the urgency to reduce violence, the most important thing is to learn to respect and follow the rules, and very particularly the law. Thus, for example, an unexpected result was the agreement on the same factor by cultural regulation and the utilitarian argument. The response breaking the law is justified when great economic advantage is involved largely coincides with breaking the law is justified when it is customary to do so or when others do it. At least at this point in history, for Bogota youngsters in school, it could be said that cultural regulation summarizes utilitarian learnings, but does not contradict them. Today, custom is not a barrier to utilitarianism as it may have been at some other time. Other examples of counter-intuitive results: trust proved not to be an important predictor of co-existence (except for the response when I draw up an agreement, I trust the other party to comply). It was to be expected that co-existence would lead to trust: obedience to rules and agreements would generate trust and trust would in turn generate greater adherence to rules and agreements. But, at least in the population studied, those who trust and distrust co-exist more or less equally. Another result derives from a statistical analysis of responses to a classic question
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in social sciences: would you accept as neighbours people of a different religion, from a different region, of a different nationality, people with AIDS, destitute or indigenous people? A number of categories are thus included in order to establish how tolerant the person is. The same question also includes corrupt people, drug traffickers, guerrillas and paramilitary personnel. We hoped to obtain two pluralisms, but there proved to be only one: the youngster who tolerates indigenous people and AIDS sufferers as neighbours tends to also tolerate drug traffickers, guerrillas, paramilitary personnel and corrupt people. Pluralism has become anything goes. However, the wonderful thing about the written law, about all the processes for debating laws during their gestation and about the constitutional guarantees for minorities, is that it all exists to protect pluralism, but not to the point that it becomes an axiom that disrupts the constitutional framework itself. When contrasting the data on pluralism with the variables of violence, a certain direct relationship between these factors became clear: despite the trend to put tolerance and anything goes on the same footing, the intolerant person has a slightly greater probability of using violence or being a victim thereof.

TABLE 2. Seven paths to co-existence19 Five paths, in declining order of importance for their presumed contribution to a reduction in violence C2: C3: C5: C4: C1: nomia: complying with the law over and above its immediate utility and custom (complying with the law even at the cost of the results) and seeking licit ways of innovating. adherence to the law: admiring the advances of national or local law, liking rules and being able to comply with the law even when it is in conflict with moral convictions. order but within the law and overcoming neglect of agreements: harmonizing legal and cultural rules and learning to cultivate agreements. pluralism: tolerating diversity. agreeing: learning to draw up and complying with agreements and very particularly amending agreements that have not been complied with.

Two additional paths corresponding to problematical traits found almost throughout the population: C6: egalitarian respect: breaking the asymmetry, coming to respect the other as an equal; seeing the other as more similar to oneself (we are both basically autonomous and seek to construct harmony between our morality and the law, we both basically understand willingly). democratic culture for a viable pluralism: learning to resolve the tensions between morality and law through democratic procedures and achieving the primacy of the law over culture and morality that is necessary for a viable pluralism (not everything goes).

C7:

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Since it is less closely associated with violence, a total neglect of agreements (difficulty in drawing them up, complying with them or even recognizing them) is preferable to what we have called order without law characterized by a liking for rules accompanied by disregard for the law of cultural approval.

To l e r a n c e o f a p l u r a l i t y o f m o d e l s
Co-existence is also sharing dreams or, at least, managing to have compatible dreams. Dreams can come from the past, thus being endowed with authority, or may be born from contractual processes, from agreements recognized as such. In some way, the arts, and particularly the moral emotions provoked by the arts, help to hand down and express shared dreams. The authority of the inherited dream the one that comes from the past also seems to be expressed as cultural regulation, as a determining effect on routes or constraints already handed down by tradition. We see how the idea of model has expanded, thus increasingly offering the most diverse aspects of nature and human life. Not the blanket offer associated with messianic inheritances, but localized, often gradual, possibilities. Again, in the indecision associated with the simultaneous existence of several models (discussions about them, their varying strength deriving empirically from their successes or failures), the law is inevitably central, in that it hands down clear definitions of accepted behaviours. The law also performs the function of closing off routes. For some societies where co-existence is not assured, for some the vision of a defensible future would be a society with many future visions (a society where each individual has his own vision of the future someone proposed in a workshop for the construction of a shared vision of the future!). The model consists of fostering the co-existence of many models. Now, models are an expression of will and a will for power. The struggle between models is again a struggle against violence, against exclusion and inevitably requires a more or less general, or at least majority, agreement on rules; rules for the co-existence of various models. One of the most important guarantees of the development and survival of these various models lies in the law, but at the same time they depend a great deal on custom (such as debates, or fair competition between organizations). What is the authority for the common dream constructed through a deliberate process with that precise purpose in mind? We do not know exactly, but there are many methodologies in vogue based on this type of joint construction of a common dream. We do not know if any vision of the future thus constructed can lead to the identified routes to co-existence: complying with the law over and above immediate utility and custom, liking rules, valuing the law and complying with it over and above moral conviction, seeing the other also as an autonomous moral subject and learning to try to change the law democratically when it clashes with our moral convictions, harmonizing legal and cultural standards and forbidding disregard of agreements, accepting daily contact with diversity and learning to draw up and comply with agreeProspects, vol. XXXII, no. 1, March 2002

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ments and amend them. At least some of these routes are tacitly and practically accepted in the procedure followed to construct this shared vision.

Some conclusions
Co-existence would seem to depend mainly on the so-called rule of law. However, what is central is not exactly the law: it is the consistency between cultural and moral regulation and the law. What is important are the justifications for obeying or disobeying the law, or the example of others, or what is customary, or the only means of achieving the objective. Thus, the central focus is not precisely on the law, but on accompanying the law from the sphere of culture and morality. It is precisely where the laws own force is not sufficient that the backing of ethical or cultural traditions and/or transformations is indispensable for achieving co-existence. Each time something is legislated a (preferably voluntary) process of cultural and moral change should be triggered. To achieve this, the law that is produced should seem fair, at least to a majority of citizens. Culture is expressed in custom, particularly to the extent that custom has authority. Custom serves as an expression of culture, particularly when it obliges supra-subjectively, when it expresses authority by generating a sense and feeling of obligation. That authority of culture is at least in part displaced by technical aspects associated with the model. We can increasingly represent, know and draw diagrams of and therefore dream of giving technical shape to even the most sacred or intimate aspects of cultural reproduction. Economic reproduction tried to modify itself substantively on the basis of changes in only one of its dimensions (ownership of the means of production), forgetting its relationship with cultural reproduction. The best inspired dreams that aimed at creating communities morally and culturally closer to certain ideals also inspired and can still inspire totalitarian regimes, such as German fascism or Stalinism; this has made many of us more modest. But the challenges of co-existence are clearly also challenges to understanding better (and transforming more carefully) the relationships between economic and cultural reproduction. Will it one day be possible for production and education to be changed simultaneously and consistently? Many societies have already advanced in the construction of a cultural framework that lays the ground for, fosters and gives meaning to productivity in a sustainable manner. In short, the construction of a positive conceptualization of co-existence guided by a reflection on rules and agreements and by attempts to modify in practice some civic behaviours in Bogota was empirically contrasted with 1,400 Bogota youngsters. Due to their importance for the positive concept of co-existence and to their capacity for predicting non-violence, two dimensions were stressed: complying with the law over and above immediate utility and custom; liking rules and obeying the law even when it conflicts with moral convictions and admiring the acceptance of national and local law. Learning to draw up and comply with agreements and particularly to amend agreements not complied with or coming to respect the other as an equal, or learning to
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resolve the tensions between morality and law through democratic procedures were not such important variables in relation to the reduction in violence, but they did carry weight when positively characterizing co-existence.

Po s t - d a t a : f r o m re l i g i o u s t o l e r a n c e t o a t t r a c t i o n t o d i v e r s i t y, t h e c u l t u r a l a m p h i b i a n s
Tolerance of diversity has gradually been transformed into enthusiasm for diversity and a growing awareness that in some conditions, an examination of which has been the main objective of this paper diversity is a source of human wealth that can be exploited fruitfully and in the long term. When cultural diversity is merely preserved, it becomes unexploited wealth. It is essential that along with the preservation of differences, other mechanisms such as contact, dialogue, exchange, cross fertilization be triggered or stressed. In diverse cultural contexts there are diverse rule systems. The cultural amphibian is the person who acts effectively in various contexts, like a chameleon, and at the same time, as an interpreter, enabling fruitful communication between them, that is, carrying fragments of truth (or morality) from one context to another. The cultural amphibian, both chameleon and interpreter, facilitates the process of selection, ranking and translation required for cultural wealth to circulate. For this, it seems necessary for there to be harmony as described between the regulatory systems law, morality and culture compatible with moral and cultural pluralism. Perhaps continued construction of the model of a humanity interested in, enthusiastic about its diversity, but also questioned by it, would be helped by the presence of the cultural amphibian, either as a general identity of humanity, or as a great transnational community, or rather as an exceptional figure that is, an ideal figure that is never fully realized. The integration of the moral base of various traditions facilitates the amphibians actions in which morality and culture coincide and are expressed purely or with exemplary perfection, showing actors from different cultures the possibilities and fruitfulness of what at other times could have been perceived as contamination. The amphibian, insofar as he weaves bonds and facilitates processes for recognizing elements of mans unity in the very mosaic of the plurality of traditions and models, can be seen as a kind of moral integrator of mankind. Mutual knowledge with the ability to become morally and culturally involved, as the figure of the cultural amphibian tries to describe it seems to be a condition for making the co-existence of what is culturally diverse more viable and fruitful.

No t e s
01.
I am very grateful for the invitation of the International Bureau of Education to collaborate in the March 2002 issue of the journal, Prospects, contributing to the first part of the publication (informally entitled philosophy), with a summary of the outcomes of my work on co-existence. This invitation, together with the experience of some academic Prospects, vol. XXXII, no. 1, March 2002

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02. 03.

04.

05.

work on the subject, a first mandate as mayor of Bogota, research into youngsters in Bogota and my second term as mayor of Bogota, will perhaps help to understand the rather curious structure of this text: philosophical reflection, a summary of my academic initiation into the subject, some lessons from the civic culture programme, others from the research, and finally some further reflections. Perhaps for this reason UNESCO decided to use the versions living together and vivre ensemble and opted, even in Spanish, to promote learning to live together. Sooner or later, all intolerance turns into violence from the intolerant individual or from the individual who is not tolerated. In many countries, learning to co-exist, learning to live together, has an obvious immediate meaning: learning to live without violence. The very complex question that then arises is, what are the minimum conditions for a nonviolent shared life for individuals and diverse social groups? There are many desirable conditions one could try to associate with a non-violent society. Here we need to identify minimum sufficient conditions. The historical matrix for tolerance has been religious tolerance. The following text from Martin Buber illustrates the challenges to achieving and maintaining it: Every religion has its origin in a revelation. No religion holds the absolute truth, none is a piece of heaven transplanted onto Earth. Each religion represents one of mans truths. This means that it expresses the relationship of a particular human community with the Absolute. Each religion is a dwelling for the human soul thirsty for God, a dwelling place with windows but with no door; I only have to open a window for Gods light to come in through it. But if I make a hole in the wall and escape, I will be left with no home, and I will also be surrounded by an icy light, which is not the light of the living God. Each religion is a land of exile into which man is thrown and where, more than anywhere else, he is separated from the other human communities by the way he relates to God. And we will not be freed from these exiles nor will we have access to Gods world, common to us all, until after the worlds redemption. But the religions that know that they are all associated in the same wait can communicate with each other, from one place of exile to another, from dwelling to dwelling, through the open windows. Moreover, they can join their efforts to see if they can find what can be done by man to bring the time of redemption closer. Common action by all religions is conceivable, even though each one can only act in its own dwelling. But this will only be possible insofar as each religion goes back to its origin, that is, the revelation that is at its origin and from which it advances towards the criticism of everything that has distanced it in its historical process of development. Religions tend to turn into ends in themselves, to replace so to say God, so that in fact there is nothing more appropriate than a religion to darken Gods face. [. . .] Each one [of the religions] should accept the fact that it is only one of the forms of human expression of Gods message, that it does not have a monopoly on the divine; each one should renounce its claim to be Gods only dwelling on earth and accept that it is the dwelling place of the men inspired by the same image of God, a house open to what is outside. Each one should give up its exclusive attitude lacking any true basis and adopt a behaviour that is closer to the truth. [. . .] Then they will have united not only in the common wait for redemption, but also in the daily tasks of a world that has not yet been saved. Zaghloul Morsy, ed., La tolerancia: antologa de textos, Madrid, Editorial Popular/Editorial UNESCO, 1974, pp. 213214. This is accentuated in societies with extreme divisions of labour: the system of crafts or, even more so of professions, increasingly defines more social categories because society can Prospects, vol. XXXII, no. 1, March 2002

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be sure that these categories will act within a set of categorical (moral) imperatives and also in line with a set of hypothetical imperatives (technical rules). Consenso por traslapes, in: John Rawls, Liberalismo poltico, Mexico, Law Faculty UNAM and F.C.E. (First edition in English 1993) (Chapters IV and V). The learning and internalization of rules and standards, which contribute substantively to the shaping of identities and patterns of interrelationships, and therefore to cultural reproduction, are recognized today as the indispensable complement to institutions (formal rules) when an explanation has to be given as to why some societies develop economically more quickly than others (Douglas C. North, Instituciones, cambio institucional y desempeo econmico [Institutions, institutional change and economic recovery], F.C.E., Mexico, 1993; Francis Fukuyama, Confianza [Trust], Buenos Aires, Editorial Atlntida, 1996). Despite notorious manifestations of autonomy, cultural reproduction of identities and of behaviours is inevitably intermixed with economic reproduction. The tensions or friction between the two reproductions perhaps lie at the root of the problems of coexistence. A concept possibly typical of the Colombian situation and by what we have been able to learn and do in this situation, mainly in public administration and in research. Antanas Mockus and Jimmy Corzo, Indicadores de convivencia ciudadana [Indicators of civic well-being], research project, Institute of Political Studies and International Relations and Department of Mathematics and Statistics of the National University of Colombia, May 1999. As can be clearly seen in the Colombian Constitution promulgated in 1991. A paragraph taken from Antanas Mockus, Anfibios culturales y divorcio entre ley, moral y cultura [Cultural amphibians and breakdown between law, morality and culture], Anlisis poltico, vol. 21, 1994, pp. 3748. Some of the texts included in sections 4 and 10 of this article have been taken or adapted from this article and from Antanas Mockus, Anfibios culturales, moral y productividad [Cultural amphibians, morality and productivity], in: Revista colombiana de psicologa, vol. 3, 1994, pp. 125135. Anfibios culturales, moral y productividad, op. cit. The information on weapons and alcohol provided by the National Institute of Legal Medicine was of crucial importance. Inter-institutional co-operation was very useful for the analysis of the causes of violence, in the promulgation of measures and in the detailed co-ordination of enforcement. Arms decommissioning, water saving and restrictions on the availability of gunpowder were actions constructed, perfected and socially validated thanks to indicators. Taking the invitation to save water seriously, instead of making this invitation formal simply to justify rationing two days later, not accepting journalistic pressure to focus the news on the penalties for those who did not save water, checking that there was a will to save and that it was necessary to help with information and methodologies in the change of habits were some of the milestones in this campaign which made it possible to manage the crisis over four months. This was in fact the moral of the first academic work on the subject by Clara Carrillo in 1991 in the National University under my direction (Clara Carrillo Fernndez, La interaccin en la reconstruccin de legalidad y moralidad [Interaction in the reconstruction of legality and morality], undergraduate monograph, Bogota, Philosophy Department, National University, 1991). Later on some examples will be given of unexpected results.

06. 07.

08. 09.

10. 11.

12. 13.

14.

15.

16.

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18.

19.

It provided the basis for drawing up the questionnaire for the empirical research. The comparison with the results of the multiple correspondence analysis led to a simplification and ranking (see the two charts under the title Chart 2. Siete caminos hacia la convivencia). Antanas Mockus, A. Armonizar ley, moral y cultura [Harmonizing law, morality and culture]. Cultura ciudadana, prioridad de gobierno con resultados en prevencin y control de violencia en Bogota, 19951997. 1999 Published on the website of the Interamerican Development Bank: www.bid.org. Except C6 and C7. In fact, the potential influence of C6 and C7 on suffered or inflicted violence has not yet been analysed empirically. Correspondences have been found for the other five.

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