HUMAN COEXISTENCE: CHARACTERISTICS AND EXAMPLES - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The human society is a process that involves demonstrating respect for others, consideration of differences, compromise, tolerance and mutual recognition. For decades it has been seen as the basis for building and rebuilding the social fabric. Human coexistence represents the possibility for human groups to coexist in peace.

The Royal Spanish Academy defines human coexistence as that which implies living in company. From the etymology, it is pointed out that the term already allows us to deduce that it is a necessary condition for the human being, since it derives from the word conviviere, whose meaning is "cohabiting".

Human coexistence is key to the existence of a healthy and democratic society. Source: pixabay.com

People are social beings by nature; therefore, there will always be a tendency to expose oneself to daily socialization in order to coexist, agreeing every moment criteria to reach agreements.

These agreements will be more basic than others: some will be more necessary than others to advance and even overcome conflicts that arise daily and are conceived in a natural way.

There are authors who approach the subject from a less pragmatic or reductionist and more anthropological and even philosophical approach, and consider that the crisis of humanity framed in the presence of armed conflicts, discrimination and daily confrontations between groups with different ideals, is why not knowing how to live together.

characteristics

As the author Humberto Maturana points out, humanity imperatively needs to learn how to achieve adequate coexistence.

For this it is understood that in the first place it is essential to know yourself, to know the nature of its most basic processes. In this sense, knowing what characterizes human coexistence can serve as a first approach in this learning.

Not optional

It starts from the fact that no person can live in isolation. The verification that the human being is a social being has been described since the first primitive societies and becomes palpable when the spontaneity in grouping together and the use of communication as the main bridge of various personal and social processes is observed.

It is important to note that the conflict has never been absent and is positive as long as reflection, understanding and, therefore, agreements are present.

Strengthens self-worth

From social relationships, recognition of the other can be generated and the self-knowledge process strengthened; this process is not generated in one direction only.

In various studies on human relationships, it is pointed out that coexistence can be the starting point to learn trust, warmth, spontaneity, emotions in general and faith, among other elements.

When living together, their own values ​​and customs are contrasted, options are chosen and it is decided how to act in each situation.

This requires acquiring and reinforcing external referents, and simultaneously strengthening individual referents that ultimately make up the individual personality. Self-assessment arises by testing who each one is in relation to the other.

Encourage dialogue

Dialogue is a process in which positions are established and it is possible both to contrast and defend ideas, as well as to expose and reveal needs and requests based on them, consider points of view and reach agreements.

It is clear that in coexistence it is necessary to be willing to learn to promote the strength of social cohesion from the understanding of each other; therefore, it is necessary to develop strategies for this and dialogue is one of these.

Serves as a basis for citizenship

The multiple competences of citizenship -among which stand out respect, self-regulation and compliance with norms that favor institutionalism, among others- are developed and strengthened only in coexistence.

This is so because coexistence needs self-reflection and the invocation of personal responsibility so as not to limit itself only to holding others responsible.

This scenario places a limit and shows what is pursued with each attitude: understanding that responsibility is first individual and then social, and that the defense of the duties and rights of citizens must be pursued based on the democratic participation of each one.

It implies values

Coexistence as a phenomenon has individual and social dimensions. It is individual when in the development of the person the coexistence of different values, tendencies, tastes, preferences, characteristics and feelings is put to the test, until conforming beliefs and ideas more of their own that arise from a personal and moral combination.

The social dimension appears because the process of coexistence is only possible in socialization and it has become clear that this process cannot be surgically separated from education and pedagogy because it is in the school where socialization -and, therefore, coexistence- has a privileged place.

Examples

Educational programs

An example of coexistence corresponds to educational programs specifically focused on this area, which are increasingly common and are present in various countries.

These programs are based on the concept of democratic coexistence or coexistence and seek to offer students specific strategies that facilitate coexistence both in the classroom and outside of it.

On the other hand, there are already interesting examples in the work that has been carried out around social networks in creating guidelines, norms and / or diverse mechanisms that favor coexistence and reduce the level of violence and conflicts with their consequences.

Programs focused on immigrants

Currently there is a great migratory wave generated by various events. An example of human coexistence is reflected in the actions carried out by public and private institutions that favor the integration of immigrants in their new social settings.

By generating an atmosphere of understanding and openness, it is possible for those who arrive in a new country to feel that they can belong to the society that exists there, and for the natives of the receiving country to understand the scope of the positive feedback that may arise as a consequence of the coexistence.

What do you need?

As professors Ortega and Del Rey point out, to achieve coexistence it is imperative that those who share land, chores and activities within a social system are obliged to abide by rules.

These rules are the only guarantors of the prevention of conflicts that may be harmful to the members, as well as the emotional consequences of such confrontations.

Today the promotion of coexistence is seen as the basis for the prevention of more complex processes of discrimination of all kinds: racial, economic, gender, among others.

In several countries, human coexistence is associated with democratic patterns. An example of this is education for democracy, understood as an organizing concept that also integrates ethical motivations and values.

References

1. Jares, XR. "Learning to live together" (2002) in Interuniversity Journal of Teacher Training. Retrieved on July 2, 2019 from the Dialnet Foundation: unirioja.es
2. López de Mesa, C. and Soto-Godoy, MF. "Factors associated with school coexistence in adolescents" (2013) in Education and educators. Retrieved on July 3, 2019 from the Network of Scientific Journals of Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal: redalyc.org
3. Padilla, PC. "Democratic Coexistence in Schools: notes for a reconceptualization" (2013) in the Ibero-American Journal of Educational Evaluation. Retrieved on July 3, 2019 from the Dialnet Foundation: unirioja.es
4. Maturana, HR. "The sense of the human" (2003) in the Digital Repository of the University of Chile. Retrieved on July 2, 2019 from the Digital Repository of the University of Chile from: uchile.cl
5. Maturana, HR. and Varela. F. "The tree of knowledge: the biological bases of human understanding" (2009) in Digital Repository of the University of Chile. Retrieved on July 1, 2019 from the Digital Repository of the University of Chile: uchile.cl
6. Bennett, JD. "Coexistence of social networks, US Patent App" (2013) in Patents Google. Retrieved on July 3, 2019 from: patents.google.com
7. Tyler, A. "Islam, the West, and tolerance: conceiving coexistence" (2008) in Editorial Springer. Retrieved on July 2, 2019 from: books.google.com
8. Barba, B. "Education and values: a search to rebuild coexistence" (2005) in the Mexican Journal of Educational Research. Retrieved on July 2 from Scientific Electronic Library Online: scielo.org.mx