Menurut asal katanya Pluralisme berasal dari bahasa inggris, pluralism. Pluralisme adalah Suatu kerangka interaksi yang mana setiap kelompok menampilkan rasa hormat dan toleran satu sama lain, berinteraksi tanpa konflik atau asimilasi (pembauran / pembiasan). Pluralism berasal dari kata plural yang berarti jamak atau lebih dari satu. Pluralisme adalah keadaan masyarakat yang majemuk berkaitan dengan system social dan politik. Pluralisme adalah gagasan mengenai kemajemukan, yaitu keberadaan kesadaran mengenai keanekaragaman sebagai suatu keniscayaan yang hidup dan tumbuh dalam sebuah masyarakat.
Toleransi menjadi inti penting dalam pluralisme. Pluralisme tanpa toleransi adalah jargon atau lips service.Toleransi (toleration) adalah the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. Penghargaan terhadap pluralisme juga harus disertai dengan semangat toleransi, tanpa toleransi maka pluralisme tidak akan terjadi atau terjaga dalam sebuah masyarakat.
Konsep pluralism dan multikulturalisme mempunyai benang merah yaitu pengakuan dan penghormatan terhadap keaneka ragaman. Termasuk didalamnya adalah kesadaran atas keanekaraman yang hadir dalam kehidupan berbangsa dan bernegara. Kesadaran ini seharusnya mendahului adanya pengakuan dan penghormatan atas keanekaragaman. Tanpa kesadaran, maka yang terjadi adalah fanatisme terhadap keberadaan yang serba tunggal dan tiada pengakuan terhadap ko-eksistensi lain yang berada dalam kehidupan bermasyarakat.
WHAT IS PLURALISM?
"In the social sciences, pluralism is a framework of interaction in which groups show sufficient respect and tolerance of each other, that they fruitfully coexist and interact without conflict or assimilation."
The plurality of religious traditions and cultures has come to characterize every part of the world today. But what is pluralism? Here are four points to begin our thinking:
First, pluralism is not diversity alone, but the energetic engagement with diversity. Diversity can and has meant the creation of religious ghettoes with little traffic between or among them. Today, religious diversity is a given, but pluralism is not a given; it is an achievement. Mere diversity without real encounter and relationship will yield increasing tensions in our societies.
Second, pluralism is not just tolerance, but the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference. Tolerance is a necessary public virtue, but it does not require Christians and Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and ardent secularists to know anything about one another. Tolerance is too thin a foundation for a world of religious difference and proximity. It does nothing to remove our ignorance of one another, and leaves in place the stereotype, the half-truth, the fears that underlie old patterns of division and violence. In the world in which we live today, our ignorance of one another will be increasingly costly.
Third, pluralism is not relativism, but the encounter of commitments. The new paradigm of pluralism does not require us to leave our identities and our commitments behind, for pluralism is the encounter of commitments. It means holding our deepest differences, even our religious differences, not in isolation, but in relationship to one another.
Fourth, pluralism is based on dialogue. The language of pluralism is that of dialogue and encounter, give and take, criticism and self-criticism. Dialogue means both speaking and listening, and that process reveals both common understandings and real differences. Dialogue does not mean everyone at the “table” will agree with one another. Pluralism involves the commitment to being at the table -- with one’s commitments.
—Diana L. Eck
