우리/그들, 동양/서양의 야만적 이분법 재고- M. 메를로-퐁티와 F. 줄리앙의 관련 언급을 중심으로

The Western dichotomy between the dominant and the dominated is the basic premise and practical logic of racial-ethnocentrism and cultural essentialism. Under this premise and logic, Westerners have dominated the culture, history, and traditions of non-Western countries. C. Lévi-Strauss criticized the barbaric dichotomy of the West by using the terms “une monstruosité” and “un scandale”. The barbaric dichotomy of the West is still being extended to the dichotomy of Us/Them, Western/non-Western, and Eastern/Western, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is the main culprit behind the exchange and communication between cultures. The inter-culture and cross-culture among cultures where the West continues to support Us/their logic will not be so easily accomplished as many expect. As always, it means that the unequal relationship between cultures, philosophically, culturally, politically and economically, will continue to be the colonial relationship of the dominant/the dominated. In this paper, we propose a new cultural epistemology that can cure the reality of the global village suffering from the cultural conflicts of cash and political and economic antagonism by considering M. Merleau-Ponty’s concept of the ‘world’ and F. Julien's concept of the ‘common world’ that we believe has presented our own alternatives to overcome this Western barbaric dichotomy.