post-modernism, cultural relativity and identity politics - attitudes of progressives

[SpineyNorman]

i just think what we're talking about need a different name. not multiculturalism, i know exactly what you all mean but outside urban75 many people think multi culturalism and multiracialism/diversity mean the same thing.

Competitive culturalism? Not my term - I nicked that from somewhere - might have been one of Malik's essays.

 

[frogwoman]

So why can't we explain to them what we mean in the same way we have done on here? Are the wider public behind us in consciousness or something?

there's no reason why we can't you're right, and no not at all. i'm just saying that i instinctively thought when i saw the thread that it means something else and i can't be the only person having that reaction.

 

[SpineyNorman]

So why can't we explain to them what we mean in the same way we have done on here? Are the wider public behind us in consciousness or something?

Not so much the wider public as the political left in my experience.

 

[butchersapron]

Councillors culturalism!

 

[butchersapron]

Not so much the wider public as the political left in my experience.

I'm beyond them now mate. Couldn't care less what they think.

 

[SpineyNorman]

lol

 

[articul8]

Sorry, but I think that is complete rubbish. For starters, I contest the idea that there is such a problem as 'the sexualisation of young white women'. If teenage girls want to wear short skirts and high heels to go out on a Friday night, that is entirely up to them, and not a 'problem' at all.

You don't think pressure exists on young women to conform to images of lads mags, get cosmetic surgery, equate their value with sexual availability/attractiveness? This isn't a "problem" in your eyes?

 

[butchersapron]

there's no reason why we can't you're right, and no not at all. i'm just saying that i instinctively thought when i saw the thread that it means something else and i can't be the only person having that reaction.

And then you saw that it wasn't. So nothing had to be changed other than what you thought it was about right?

 

[frogwoman]

And then you saw that it wasn't. So nothing had to be changed other than what you thought it was about right?

Right.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Well, could you show where and why then?

And sorry, you might have intended to do that in that post but all you actually did was show that it easy to fall into facile equations of multi-culturalism with multi-racialism - without examing how the thing you use as your example came about.

I'm not particularly convinced by this supposedly important distinction between 'multi-culturalism' and 'multi-racialism' - presumably the former is just a signifier for 'everything bad' whereas the latter has more positive connotations. On my example tell me which part of the analysis you think was wrong:

(1) The event was an example of multi-culturalism
(2) The event was something that could be supported

Because it seems to be that if (1) and (2) are both true, then my contention is that there is something good about multi-culturalism - a progressive strand to be cultivated while also recognising all of the problems and shortcomings identified here and elsewhere. If you think that (1) is wrong, I want to know why you think that. On what basis is it a non-example of multi-culturalism?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You don't think pressure exists on young women to conform to images of lads mags, get cosmetic surgery, equate their value with sexual availability/attractiveness? This isn't a "problem" in your eyes?

I can't stand the kind of culture that has seen Jordan become a star, if that's what you mean. Is it a problem? For me, yes. But not for others. Yes, pressure exists on young women to conform to particular norms. Pressure also exists on young men. But it is patronising in the extreme to look at a bunch of girls out on a Friday night and assume that they are victims of pressures that they resent. Often they are no such thing. Likewise, one should not assume that a woman wearing a hijab is a victim.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I'm not particularly convinced by this supposedly important distinction between 'multi-culturalism' and 'multi-racialism' - presumably the former is just a signifier for 'everything bad' whereas the latter has more positive connotations. On my example tell me which part of the analysis you think was wrong:

(1) The event was an example of multi-culturalism
(2) The event was something that could be supported

Because it seems to be that if (1) and (2) are both true, then my contention is that there is something good about multi-culturalism - a progressive strand to be cultivated while also recognising all of the problems and shortcomings identified here and elsewhere. If you think that (1) is wrong, I want to know why you think that. On what basis is it a non-example of multi-culturalism?

For me it's because multi-culturalism as it actually exists as a political project and system of social and political control entails far more than that. You can't simply isolate the good bits - it exists as part of a wider project.

 

[articul8]

I can't stand the kind of culture that has seen Jordan become a star, if that's what you mean. Is it a problem? For me, yes. But not for others. Yes, pressure exists on young women to conform to particular norms. Pressure also exists on young men. But it is patronising in the extreme to look at a bunch of girls out on a Friday night and assume that they are victims of pressures that they resent. Often they are no such thing. Likewise, one should not assume that a woman wearing a hijab is a victim.

Yes I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. My point is that the sole focus on the conflict between white and muslim communities overlooks the patriarchal or class power relations of both, even if this expresses itself in different ways. And that you can't extrapolate from empirically existing tension to some eternal and irreducible conflict.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm not particularly convinced by this supposedly important distinction between 'multi-culturalism' and 'multi-racialism' - presumably the former is just a signifier for 'everything bad' whereas the latter has more positive connotations. On my example tell me which part of the analysis you think was wrong:

(1) The event was an example of multi-culturalism
(2) The event was something that could be supported

Because it seems to be that if (1) and (2) are both true, then my contention is that there is something good about multi-culturalism - a progressive strand to be cultivated while also recognising all of the problems and shortcomings identified here and elsewhere. If you think that (1) is wrong, I want to know why you think that. On what basis is it a non-example of multi-culturalism?

On 1. Ok, i need you tell me what the multi-culturalism you think this is an example of (not the event - the wider approach behind it) is.
On.2 What am i being asked to support? Could you clarify or specify?

Seems to that point 2 is pretty important to point 1. If it's just people being nice and that then it's just a i love curry point. It's not engaging with much of what been posted on this thread and you might as well post UB40 vids.

 

[danny la rouge]

in my experience a lot of people do think the term multiculturalism means the same as multiracialism. that might just be me tho

One of the things that this critique (as I understand it anyway) does is to point out that 'culture' has been substituted for 'race' as if the two are the same. If there is confusion between the two terms, it has been deliberately manufactured.

(This incidentally was what I was trying to talk about in the other thread when Jeff misunderstood me and thought I was setting up the opposition to say 'race' was a biological phenomenon. They are both social phenomena, but different ones).

 

[articul8]

For me it's because multi-culturalism as it actually exists as a political project and system of social and political control entails far more than that. You can't simply isolate the good bits - it exists as part of a wider project.

This was my point earlier - that it's important to make clear the difference between a political project (state-sponsored liberal multiculturalism) and the aspiration for different people to live alongside each other harmoniously. [which is what "multiculturalism" means for most people]

 

[Jeff Robinson]

For me it's because multi-culturalism as it actually exists as a political project and system of social and political control entails far more than that. You can't simply isolate the good bits - it exists as part of a wider project.

Yeah, but you could say the same thing about 'trade unions', 'the law', 'elections', 'education' etc etc. Things can be part of a power structure and yet be re-constructed, re-interpreted and critically engaged with so as to be transformed for other purposes.

 

[butchersapron]

Yeah, but you could say the same thing about 'trade unions', 'the law', 'elections', 'education' etc etc. Things can be part of a power structure and yet be re-constructed, re-interpreted and critically engaged with so as to be transformed for other purposes.

ARGGH! Talk about what is real and what's happening right now. Nice to see you join articul8 in the labour party can be saved camp - was it cruddas appointment by power that done it?

 

[frogwoman]

so the problems come when one "culture" is identified with one "race" which is usually either overwhelmingly positive or negative, or when efforts are made to suck up to reactionary elements within the so-called "leaders" of the community. i'm still not sure i fully understand all the terms and fully get entirely what this thread is talking about tbh. its been a long day for me so probably a good idea if i leave it and try and understand it all at some other point.

I do agree though, if you're talking about the respect debacle etc i do think it's fucking ridiculous. however i can only think that diwali, eid, christmas celebrations etc shared and participated in by everyone in the community can only be a good thing, i think there is far little understanding between different religions etc than there should be, often deliberately fostered by their "leaders"

 

[ViolentPanda]

There's a difference between liberal multiculturalism (different communities alongside each other) and political separatism (total separation)

And between the two we have the ground where the mainstream political parties have manufactured a "multi-culturalism" that fees their own needs rather than the needs of those "different communities" you mention. The politics you support are part of the problem, not a solution.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

This was my point earlier - that it's important to make clear the difference between a political project (state-sponsored liberal multiculturalism) and the aspiration for different people to live alongside each other harmoniously. [which is what "multiculturalism" means for most people]

I agree that this is what the term probably means to most people. The aspiration to live alongside each other without demanding forced assimilation of the kind that is often advocated in France, and was carried out zealously in the Americas during the main waves of immigration of the 19th/20th centuries. In that sense, I'm sure the term means for many, for instance, a firm rejection of Norman Tebbit's cricket test, of the idea that there are core cultural essentials to being 'British', which are mandated in a top-down manner. As such, it is the opposite of anything the BNP stands for.

 

[articul8]

And between the two we have the ground where the mainstream political parties have manufactured a "multi-culturalism" that fees their own needs rather than the needs of those "different communities" you mention. The politics you support are part of the problem, not a solution.

You know full well I'm not defending the cynical (and ultimately self-defeating) electoral calculations of the existing Labour machine. Maybe I'm wrong to think that anything whatsoever can be salvaged from the century+ long history of w/c communities building and voting for the Labour party. But hoping otherwise does not make me some pom-pom waver for what currently exists.

 

[frogwoman]

Yeah I was just about to ask that actually. What is all that racist shit the French gov't have done an example of? That surely isn't multiculturalism, although perhaps the whole idea of multiculturalism gave those ideas ground to take root in, although in France what they've done is sort of enforced a sort of weird insistence that everyone in the country is the same and has the same conditions (for example not taking stats on who gets jobs so allowing them to deny that there is racism among employers, the cops etc)

 

[butchersapron]

I agree that this is what the term probably means to most people. The aspiration to live alongside each other without demanding forced assimilation of the kind that is often advocated in France, and was carried out zealously in the Americas during the main waves of immigration of the 19th/20th centuries. In that sense, I'm sure the term means for many, for instance, a firm rejection of Norman Tebbit's cricket test, of the idea that there are core cultural essentials to being 'British', which are mandated in a top-down manner. As such, it is the opposite of anything the BNP stands for.

I'm equally sure that you're 100% wrong.

 

[articul8]

I'm equally sure that you're 100% wrong.

He's not wrong to think that's what people want. He didn't say that is what "multiculturalism" IS about.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You know full well I'm not defending the cynical (and ultimately self-defeating) electoral calculations of the existing Labour machine. Maybe I'm wrong to think that anything whatsoever can be salvaged from the century+ long history of w/c communities building and voting for the Labour party. But hoping otherwise does not make me some pom-pom waver for what currently exists.

That's exactly what it makes you, despite any reservations or "more in sorrow than in anger" havering on your part. I quit Labour when I felt they'd gone too far away from representing the working class. You keep hanging in there "just in case". You may not wave the pom-poms vigously, but you're still holding them in your hands, nonetheless.

 

[articul8]

only in so far as I can ram them down the throat of the leadership and choke them

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yeah I was just about to ask that actually. What is all that racist shit the French gov't have done an example of? That surely isn't multiculturalism, although perhaps the whole idea of multiculturalism gave those ideas ground to take root in, although in France what they've done is sort of enforced a sort of weird insistence that everyone in the country is the same and has the same conditions (for example not taking stats on who gets jobs so allowing them to deny that there is racism among employers, the cops etc)

This is partly the effect of being a republic, I think. There is a far stronger sense in France that citizens owe duties to the republic. We don't get systematically taught from an early age of the glory of the monarchy. Sure, there's an attempt to socialise us into an acceptance of the monarchy, but it isn't a legitimate power and everyone knows that really, which leaves even royalists with a slightly ambivalent attitude towards state power.

It's very different in the US and most of Latin America, where the idea of the republic is strongly reinforced, and where immigrants are expected to sincerely swear allegiance to that concept. It's one of the paradoxes of the idiotic British constitution, imo, that it allows greater space for widespread dissent.

 

[butchersapron]

He's not wrong to think that's what people want. He didn't say that is what "multiculturalism" IS about.

Yes and how does that effect what i said - in terms of what people want and what they think it's about? And lets not have this glib separation either.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

On 1. Ok, i need you tell me what the multi-culturalism you think this is an example of (not the event - the wider approach behind it) is.
On.2 What am i being asked to support? Could you clarify or specify?

Seems to that point 2 is pretty important to point 1. If it's just people being nice and that then it's just a i love curry point. It's not engaging with much of what been posted on this thread and you might as well post UB40 vids.

The approach behind the event is multiculturalist in the sense that it recognises a plurality of cultural practices in Leicester (e.g the celebration of Christmas and the celebration of Diwali) and distributes resources to accommodate both cultural practices. That seems to me an example of a multiculturalist practice in that it provides recognition and respect to the practices of certain cultural groups. Yet I don't see a problem with it. In question 2 I was asking: is there anything that you object to about Leicester council providing that funding?

I don't think I've tried to equate multi-culturalism with loving curry and UB40. I've tried to illustrate my case with what I consider a genuine example of it. That doesn't mean I reduce multiculturalism to my example, nor does it mean I don't recognise all the problems identified in the thread: of course I don't support policies that segregate communities and create artificial divisions between them. What I am questioning is whether this is the only legacy of multi-culturalism. I suspect that anything that I consider to be a gain of multi-culturalism might simply be described as something else by the critics on this thread (multi-racialism or whatever), in which case we are just going round the mulberry bush.