ABSTRACT

Richard Rorty writes that in contemporary liberal societies, descriptions of cruelty that form the bedrock of sentimental education can be undertaken by a vast range of people: journalist, anthropologists, sociologists, novelists, dramatists, moviemakers, painters. However, if author are to move the concept of sentimental education into the area of inter-cultural understanding, it should be focusing on what social scientists would term agents of cultural reproduction and political socialization in individual communities and in society as a whole. However, there is a growing body of work and practice that would question this rather pessimistic and self-limiting viewpoint and which believes that there are many branches of the arts that can have an important role in conflict transformation. Yet all forms of art and media seem to provide opportunities for helping with the development of sympathy, and in societies with high rates of illiteracy and a poorly developed media infrastructures and library systems then alternative methods may even be preferred.