One Size Fits All

In the spirit of living up to the claim of ambivalence, here’s a little rejoinder to “C’mon baby, do the glocamotion”. I was reading a blog by Dave Webb that covered his thoughts and changing perspective on multiculturalism as opposed to assimilation. Having been presented with various views through university, I’ve also come to change my position on multiculturalism. One piece of information which sticks in my mind is the lauded assimilation policy of France and seemingly repudiated multicultural policy of England. These articles seem to miss an element of valuing cultural heritage by focusing on the standard of living, health and education of (in this case Islamic) migrants and neglecting to consider culture. If assimilation leads to the loss of culture, where are these stats recorded? Does cultural heritage have to become cultural economy to justify its worth, its very existence.

In the past I always considered multiculturalism to have an inherently positive effect on society, and to a great extent still do. However, I now think there are some limits. Patrick Parkinson separates multiculturalism into five stages; toleration, non-discrimination, legal accessibility, (affirmative) multiculturalism and pluralism. The first three stages are less active and more or less adhere to conceptions of negative liberty (see Isaiah Berlin’s seminal work). The final two stages require far more public and administrative support and aspire to establish liberty in a positive sense. I now consider pluralism to perhaps be unattainable and probably undesirable. Pluralism as a multicultural concept is primarily concerned with autonomy. Separate communities with different legal and socio-political organisations that live harmoniously alongside one another within the boundaries of a single nation state. To my mind, this goes against the nature of multicultural policies that seek to bring cultures closer together. I understand there will be some tensions. It was pointed out to me that I probably don’t notice these tensions as much because I don’t look for them. I am still very much in favour of achieving a multicultural policy (and practice!) that lies somewhere between affirmative multiculturalism and complete pluralism.