Cultural Pluralism: An Overview of the Debate since the 60s

Helly, Denise. (2002). Ethnopolitics, 2(1), 75-96.

Helly, Montreal based, notes that public controversy over the equality of minorities since the 1960s has triggered a large-scale academic debate on cultural differentiation in a modern political system. This article provides an overview of the debate and an examination of the theoretical positions.

Political liberalism and republicanism
Helly suggests political liberalism and republicanism as two extreme political stance in liberty and equality, which came to a target of criticism in the 19th century. Political liberalism, based on classical liberalism, emphasizes an autonomous individual who has unconquerable liberty and freedom. According to this view, thus, cultural diversity is a natural extension of individual diversity and the state cannot intervene to define common morality and cultural values; instead, collectivity in this model can be negotiated only through individual reasoning. Thus Helly notes that the political in this view is instrumental and administrative. This perception is parallel to political relativism, as Gutmann notes.

Republicanism, on the other hand, does not rely solely on individual reasoning to obtain common values. As Helly observes, republicanism recognizes cultural and political dissidence, but it calls attention to "the predatory effect of liberty upon equality" (p. 76), because of the passivity of citizens. Thus, central to republicanism is to place collective interests over individual desires in order to preserve equality among people. From this perspective, republicanism emphasizes a construction of citizenship to instruct an active political behavior and build a public morality. This state's active role in civil society constitutes a sharp contrast with liberalism, which adheres to the insurmountable individual right to liberty.

Critics
Helly examines critics of these perspectives (fictitious argument over liberty and freedom) from various sectors since 1940s in North America. Helly states that Black and feminist movement in the United States and francophone movement in Canada reveals the illusory character of anti-discrimination law enactment. At the center of the critique is the debate on culture: minority rights, communinatianism, and nation and ethnocentrism. (I substantiate the debate around minority rights from Kymlicka and Norman.)

[Citizenship in Diverse Societies, Kymlicka & Norman (Eds.) Intro. 1-41]
Characterizing the Culture Wars in the 1980s and early 1990s as minority rights against cultural dominance, Kymlicka and Norman inquire whether minority rights can coexist the virtue of democratic citizenship and how the rights relate to underlying principles of liberal democracy, such as individual freedom and equality. They argue that the relationship between minority rights or cultural diversity and citizenship ideals is complex and no definite answers have been found yet. In their argument, however, the author allude to the importance of citizenship education and practices to build cohesion and generate common sense and values among diverse cultural groups.

In contrast to the concept of rational individuals, predominantly supported by John Rawls's A theory of Justice (1971), communitarianism (Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, 1982; Taylor) emphasizes individual interaction with others and communities in the process of construction of identity. In this view, cultural inclusion and recognition are crucial to a human's well-being and this recognition has to be won. Taylor states:

"Yet inwardly derives, personal, original identity doesn't enjoy this recognition a priori. It has to win it through exchange, and the attempt can fail. What has come about with the modern age is not the need for recognition but the conditions in which the attempt to be recognized can fail. That is why the need is now acknowledged for the first time." (The Politics of Recognition, 34-35)

Taylor contests that liberalism cannot claim complete cultural neutrality because a scheduling of rights among different cultural interests is inevitable, thus liberalism is a fighting creed. Thus Helly notes that from communitarian perspective, the cultural neutrality of the state is a myth and only reinforces cultural dominance.

Helly asserts Article 27 of the the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as the optimal liberal answer to the protection of minority culture by making it an interpretive clause of individual rights:

Article 27. This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.

Helly locates communitarian responses, in particular from Taylor and Michale Walzer, as a liberal response to demands for multicultural diversity. According to Taylor, a recognition of cultural differences is necessary to obtain individual participation in political and collective life. For him, a politics of recognition is important in two levels: in the intimate sphere, and in the public sphere. As noted earlier, a politics of recognition is important as identity is formed in relation to significant others. This recognition comes to play a bigger role in the public sphere as this recognition refuses second-class citizenship, thus inviting a cohesion among the diversity. (FIND THE PHRASE)

As a republican response to demands for multicultural diversity, Helly notes that republican emphasizes political commonality and the unity of sovereign people reinforced by anti-discriminatory legislation and public intercultural education. Notable is Tourain. Helly summarizes his perspective: Tourain, criticizing a policy of cultural pluralism, focuses on ways in which social rules make reconcile individual sovereignty over their own life experience and diverse cultural identities. Thus for Tourain, democracy is an instrument of cultural communication and public school must be a place for the formation of respect for cultural differences, toleration, and for the intercultural.

(Touraine, Alain, 1994, Qu'est-ce que la Démocratie? Paris, Fayard.
; 1997, Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? Égaux et différents)

Helly states that an inherent tension of the modern state lies between the cultural foundation of a specific society and its universal principles. Instead of relying on the abstract rationality of the state or universalism, the state exercises its sovereignty by intentionally integrating populations in different territories and creating a political identity in order to complement the abstract notion of the political identity.

It is interesting to note the way Helly approaches the formation of nationalism in the 19th century in Europe. Borrowing Gellner's argument, she sheds light on the ways in which capitalism played a role in forging nationalism by homogenizing culture and experiences and creating the sense of belonging to a territorial entity. In this process, she notes, citizenship and nationalism flourished and a good citizen became a patriot.

As to minority nations, Helly observes the idea that the state must become multinational (Resnick 1994; Gagnon and Rocher 1997; Bourque and Duchastel
2000). She asserts the implication of this idea in Canadian context:

"In Canada, this solution implies the sharing, amongst Quebecois and also some sixty native nations, of powers relating to the organization of collective life (Royal Commission 1996), as well as an alliance with the federal state in matters of money and international politics." (p. 87)

In response to the liberal argument that cultural rights would form closed communities and harm the unity among cultural groups, Helly argues that cultural rights concerns persons, not groups, and cultural rights do not interfere with the collectivity among the groups. For instance, Article 27 does not annul the predominance of the two official languages in Canada. She further notes that the only granted collective right in the Charter is the right to impose French as official language in Quebec. [This indicates that Quebec is a special case in Canada among many national groups. Quebec itself is not composed of the same cultural group, but the predominance of French culture is recognized as such in the federal level. Looking at Quebec at a micro level is an interesting topic to see how a cultural diversity is played out.]

As to a post-modern response to cultural plurality, Helly points out that post-modernism denies the unitary idea of living together and all controls exerted by the state codify a particular form of cultural plurality and create a illusion of commonality and social unity.

Lastly Helly states as to social cohesion:

"It affirms that 'social cohesion' grows out of cooperation between individuals and constitutes a source of social peace, equality and a sense of social belonging. It suggests that this cohesion is eroded by the decline of civic life, of political interest, of social solidarity, and an absence of any
sense of social obligations on the part of individuals." (p. 89)