A plea for documenting  the diverse dimensions of dignity,

by Francisco Gomes de Matos, a peace linguist from Recife, Brazil

We talk about dignity but embedded therein are many dimensions. Let´s list some of them, alphabetically. Please join with me in this probing activity.

Dimensions of  dignity:

Anthropological, artistic, …

Biological, …

Creative, critical, cultural, crosscultural, communicative, community, conversational, …

Democratic, design, documental, diplomatic, disciplinary, …

Ecological, economic, educational, environmental, …

Family, fictional, filmic, future-centered, …

Gender-based, geographic, geriatric, …

Harmonizing, historical, humanistic, humanizing, humanitarian, Human Rights-based, Humor-based, …

Informational, intellectual, interpersonal, international, …

Journalistic, judicial, juridical, …

Knowledge, …

Legal, lexical, linguistic, listening, literary, literacy-based, Life-supporting, Life-sustaining, Life-protecting, …

Marketing, medical, mental, military, musical, …

National, network, nursing, nonviolence, nonkilling, …

Occupational, organizational, …

Peace-focused, pedagogical, personal, physical, police, political, psychological, …

Questioning, …

Reading, religious, research, rhetorical, …

Scientific, semantic, signed (in the use of  a sign language), social, spoken, sports, spiritual, survival, …

Technological, terminological, transdisciplinary, …

Universal, unifying, …

Verbal, viewing, visual, …

Writing, written, …

X……………..

Youth

Zoological, …

The above listing is open-ended, as is the core concept of DIGNITY. When you use the term, be sure to specify which  dimension thereof you have in mind.

Let me end with a plea for research of the diverse dimensions of dignity.

Received June 24, 2010

More from Francisco Gomes de Matos