Tzvetan Todorov keynote at the Inner Lives of Cultures Conference
Author: Counterpoint
Tzvetan Todorov was born 1939 in Sofia, Bulgaria and is a historian, essayist and Directeur de Recherche Honoraire at the CNRS in Paris. He has taught as Visiting Professor at various American universities and is the author of, amongst other titles, The Conquest of America, On Human Diversity, Facing the Extreme and Hope and Memory. His most recent publication is In Defence of the Enlightenment.
This is a complete recording of Tzvetan Todorov’s keynote address, Unity of civilization, plurality of cultures, given at Counterpoint’s, The Inner Lives of Cultures conference, in Brussels, 25 February 2010.
Unity of civilization, plurality of cultures: These two words, “civilization”, “culture”, have been used sometimes as synonyms ; I suggest to distinguish the two and reserve “civilization” as a term opposed to “barbarity” (a universal moral category) and to use “culture” as a generic term for the common characteristics of a human group and their mental representation. Cultures are, in this sense, a preliminary given for each individual, they experience a permanent change, and each society as well as each individual carries a number of cultures
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