Abstract

One of the most recent tendencies in the extremely widespread debate over laicism seems to indulge in a perspective defined as 'post-secular' or founded on the return of dialogue between lay thought and religious thought. The intercultural perspective, aimed at allowing the survival of single cultures without creating areas of forced protection that generate ghettoisation and conflicts, appears to be the most suitable for supporting the development of a pluralist society. However, it will have to defend itself from the transformations imposed by large-scale migration, not in the sense of a dull-minded inability to accept extraneous elements or a steadfast but equally vain defence of presumed native traditions of community marked by an exaggerated, xenophobic sense of identity, but rather for the purpose of preserving its nature as a meeting place where different civilisations confront one another, leaving as little room as possible for forms of intolerance that arise from a presumption of possessing the Truth, as well as an incapacity to recognise the need and usefulness of dialogue and doubt.