Core Values and Human Values in Intercultural Space

This paper considers the issue of human values in intercultural space through the writings of Professor Jerzy Smolicz. It begins by explicating Smolicz’s concept of core values, developed from research on Australian ethnic cultural groups over more than three decades. Core values, he argued, were those central to the survival of viable and identifiable cultural groups. Where these values were lost, individuals assimilated into the mainstream cultural group. Intercultural space can be understood as places where individuals of different cultural backgrounds communicate, interact and co-operate. Such spaces may be transient and targeted to a specific purpose; develop over generations of different cultural groups inhabiting the same geographical region; be fostered in school classrooms; or even occur when an individual experiences ‘the cultural other’ in imagination through a literary or visual text. In such contexts, it would seem most appropriate for human values, those cultural meanings shared by all people as human beings, to prevail. However, Smolicz’s multicultural model for Australian society was based on a balance between the core values of the various minority groups and the overarching values shared by Australians of all cultural backgrounds. It is argued that a similar balance between core values and human values is required, if any intercultural space is to achieve dialogue, communication and fruitful interaction.