And in the context of international education it should assist us to maximise our experiences of cultural exchange, cross cultural communication and cultural identity. Deepening our understanding and reawakening our sensibilities to others. The moral sentiment we need to draw upon is that described by the philosopher David Hume as sympathy - not sympathy as compassion, as feeling sorry for someone, but sympathy as recognising that other people are ourselves once more, that they suffer as we suffer, bleed as we bleed, yearn as we yearn. In the twentieth century that principle has moved to the centre of moral thought and discussion throughout the world and in this lies our advance - perhaps our only significant advance on past generations. It is, after all, taken for granted at a forum like this.
Moral understanding is the key to confronting and overcoming aggressive nationalism.
Culture as an enterprise of the spirit seems to me to have been intimately connected, throughout the ages, with such moral understanding. With recognising others as ourselves once more and respecting their needs, wants and personality, their dignity as human beings. Culture is not, as it is often taken to be, a random, accidental collection of arts and accomplishments. Culture above all is not bounded by race and place, incommunicable to those who do not share your experiences. It finds that in Europe and in Asia, in Israel and in Babylon.