“The circumstances of our colonization and settlement created in us an extremely individualistic outlook.”
According to Paulo Freire, a country will face a split when certain economic changes challenge the “closed society”. This will cause a society to split open and the people in that society can better participate in democracy and the people will have more agency. The example Freire used was when the slave trade was made illegal in 1888. This caused capital that was meant for trading slaves to be left without application. Slowly, that capital was put into internal economic growth and society grew because the people were allowed more access to that capital. Instead of the rich elites, spending outward and only growing their own net worth, the money was starting to get invested in the common interests of the people and society.
Dialogues are important for an open society because it gives a voice to the needs of the many. In a democratic society, the people can vote on issues that are most important to them and ultimately every individual will be better off because there’s an open area for discussion and the needs of the many can be better established. An example of this on a small scale that I’ve experienced in my own life is when professors ask for feedback from students. When we went online in the Spring, many of my classes changed because of the new format, the changes that were most successful were as a result of open discussion in the classroom. Everyone was able to make a compromise and the class became more manageable.
I think artists can assist human beings in opening up dialogues because art can be very powerful and convincing. What I mean by that is that art can tell a story, and it can be understood by anyone because there is no language barrier, it is purely visual. Art can be persuasive because it makes you feel something, and it can illuminate struggles and problems of other groups of people that you might not be aware of. Therefore, it creates open discussions and dialogues and helps people empathize and experience what other people might be going through. This can have small scale changes on the individual or bigger changes for society at large.