Multiculturalism

Category: Fields of research

Multiculturalism refers to the widespread social attitude and official policies and strategies that protect, promote, and celebrate cultural pluralism in a country. Multiculturalism stands in opposition to attitudes and polices that promote or mandate cultural unification and oppose cultural pluralism. Cultural pluralism can take various forms – ethnic, racial, linguistic, or religious diversity. The policies that promote multiculturalism emerged in Canada and Australia in the 1960s and 1970s. Multiculturalism, along with feminist, LGBT+, and racial equality movements, that also emerged at the same time, promoted politics of difference and identity politics and opposed the neutral concept of legal equality. Multiculturalism, as an ideology, wants to promote inclusion, tolerance, civic and political participation, and social equality; on the other hand, it aims to minimize conflicts, exclusion, and assimilation.

Approaches to Multiculturalism

Arend Lijphart studied democratic systems and ethnic conflicts in multiethnic societies. He promotes the concept of democracy he named "consocial democracy". Consocial democracy is based on the cultural and political autonomy of different groups, and the cooperation of their elites, to create a stable system. In his book Models of Democracy (1999), he aims to rank 36 countries on the dichotomous scale of majority democracy - consensus democracy. Majority democracy is an ideal type category in which decisions are made by a simple majority (citizens or MPs). The most important thing for consensus democracy is the idea of consensus - the desire to create and implement in reality an institutional framework that will allow decisions to be the result of a consensus of the largest population or a wide range of different parties, religious or ethnic communities, professional associations, and other groups, within one country. In the consensus model of democracy, rules and institutions aim at broad participation in government and broad agreement on government policy; associated with this is the tendency to limit and distribute power in different ways. This model is also characterized by commitment, negotiation, and compromise. Consensus democracy insists on a broad consensus and engagement of all, to achieve an essential compromise with which everyone would agree, and insists on a sense of unity to achieve a common goal. Lijphart’s data and analysis indicate that consensual democracy also has substantial advantages.

Paul Gilroy believes that the concept of the diaspora is very important for understanding the position of black people in Britain. The idea of the diaspora is associated with slavery and forcible removal from Africa. Diaspora culture preserves the memory of the past, which is reflected in the music and literature of British black people. In the twenty-first century, multiculturalism emerged, shaped by the desire of corporations to profit from it. Black athletes and musicians are increasingly more present in the British public and popular culture, but successes in sports have led to the codification of the black body as a superman. Black people are perceived either as great athletes or as brutal, non-human criminals. Gilroy also opposes the discourse of anti-racism, which overemphasizes racial differences, because it overlooks the mixing of racial, ethnic, class, and other identities.

Will Kymlicka, in Multicultural Citizenship (1995), argues that states can't be neutral toward languages and cultural traditions, as they always promote some and discard others. He advocates for polices of self-government for indigenous minorities, and poly-ethnic rights for new immigrants.

Opposition to Multiculturalism

Opponents of multiculturalism are mainly white conservatives who blame it for braking down of traditional order and cultures (especially by immigrants), and attack the ideology of multiculturalism as a form of bias against, primarily, white men. Arthur Schlesinger, in The Disuniting of America (1992), claims that shared identity and history are prerequisites of a stable democracy, while multiculturalism engenders minority ethnocentrism that is undermining national unity. In Closing of the American Mind (1987), Allan Bloom argues that there has been a deterioration in university education in the USA, as curricula started promoting feminism and cultural diversity, while dispensing with the classics, generating students who lack morality, right values, and wisdom.

References:

Barry, Brian. Culture and Equality (2001);

Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students (1987);

Duster, Troy. “Myths about Multiculturalism”, in Mother Jones (1991);

Fleras, Augie, and Jean Leonard Elliott. Engaging Diversity: Multiculturalism in Canada (2002);

Giddens. Beyond Left and Right: The Future of Radical Politics (1994);

- The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (1998);

- The Third Way and Its Critics (2000);

Gilroy. After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture (2004);

- Darker Than Blue: On The Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture (2010);

Glazer, Nathan. We Are All Multiculturalists Now (1997);

Harding. Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies (1998);