Daryush Shayegan - Bio

We should perhaps admit that accepting cultural diversity does not equate to dealing with “autonomous” cultures, that are the interconnectedness that binds us all together in a globalized civilization; that these cultures are continents with their own sensitivities, climates of being that can live and flourish only within modernity; and that the metaphysical foundations of these various cultures, which find expression as different registers of knowledge, are an inner dialogue among humans, with their soul and immemorial past.

What characterizes our time, with its many sources of confusion and uncertainty, is the bewildering chaos it unravels before us, leaving us at our wits end. It seems as though Pandora’s box has opened and all the jinn or, shall we say, genies, have come out of the magic bottle, from the most ancient to the most recent and garish. It is therefore necessary to exorcise them with the resources at hand. Why, however, should there be a resurgence of forgotten voices and an explosion of all these age-old repressed sensitivities? Because the recapitulative memory has long paved the way for this opening.

Consequently, in the light of the current situation, we are doomed to constantly broaden our knowledge, expand our range of sensitivities, draw on other cultural memories and secure new keys to unlock resources hidden hitherto.

For better or for worse, we have thus come to an inter-epistemic situation, and the whole issue of cultural diversity consists precisely of overcoming these shortcomings and establishing new linkages in which the hall of mirrors would have a creative – rather than inhibiting – impact.