Multiculturalism According to Bauman

Published by

Clarissa

May 15, 2013

“Multiculturalism,” Zygmunt Bauman writes in his recent book Culture in a Liquid Modern World, “acts as a socially conservative force. Its achievement is the transformation of social inequality, a phenomenon highly unlikely to win general approval, into the guise of ‘cultural diversity’, that is to say, a phenomenon deserving of universal respect and careful cultivation.”

I always found it fascinating how people convince themselves that the profund dismissiveness and contempt towards other cultures that multiculturalism conceals are somehow progressive. In reality, the result of multi-culturalism is always hatred, animosity, barbarity, and suffering for everybody involved. Except the politicians who advance this concept, of course.

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16 responses to “Multiculturalism According to Bauman”

musteryou

May 16, 2013

This is moral hair shirt “progessivism”. It’s a very strong narrative in Western culture, that the more we punish ourselves, the more we are improving. Actually, as Nietzsche showed those progressives would have their psychology back to front — rather, the more we punish ourselves, the more we morally criticize and condemn. If we were to stop hurting ourselves and enjoy ourselves a bit more, we would certainly become more tolerant of others too, and allow them more scope to be themselves.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  May 16, 2013
  
  It’s a supermarket mentality, too. People automatically think that having a million brands is good even though they always buy the same brand. In the same way, having a crowd of people who have nothing in common all bunched up together is considered to be good just because these people are like different consumer goods.
  
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  1. musteryou
    
    May 16, 2013
    
    Here’s some funny thing I just did, whereby I have learned I am half Asian:
    
    http://unsanesafe.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/the-left-hand-path.html
    
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  2. David Bellamy
    
    May 16, 2013
    
    I do not always buy the same brand of things. Variety is a good thing, IMO.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      May 16, 2013
      
      Of course, but not just for its own sake.
      
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  3. David Gendron
    
    May 16, 2013
    
    Variety of products is a good thing. Variety of brands could be a delusion.
    
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2. David Gendron
  
  May 16, 2013
  
  We don’t have to punish ourselves, but we should stop to policing the world and we should stop to commit massive murder and terrorism to “strangers” (sic) in their own land.
  
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cliff arroyo

May 16, 2013

To steal an argument that I agree with, long term multiculturalism with no common assimilatory pressure works best when the boundaries between social groups are comparatively impermeable. This makes it difficult or impossible to marry across social groups (whether based on class, religion or language) and it means individuals do not have access to various economic/political/social opportunities unless their ancestors in their particular group did. A government with no interest in educating the population or concern about how they might vote (‘cuz there’s no elections) is also a plus.

Granted that’s pretty much what your excerpt said but repeating the same thing in different ways helps the message to sink in.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  May 16, 2013
  
  Bauman lives in Europe and he has already seen the result of stupidly and blindly implementing multiculturalist policies based on the idea that any difference is good just because it exists. Now we are seeing universities such as mine, which are struggling with funding as it is, hire people for very highly paid positions of “Dean of Diversity.” What that person will be doing all day long is a mystery I don’t want to solve.
  
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Z

May 16, 2013

Dean of diversity will help keep things under control. You want those diverse people to be advertising their native foods, not demanding actual equality or global perspectives in class or anything like that.

Multiculturalism is a technology to keep people from discussing real issues…

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  May 16, 2013
  
  Exactly!!! Alongside the hiring of the Dean of Diversity, there is constant talk of cutting the French program. And the Study Abroad in France has virtually been destroyed. And what would foster greater cultural understanding and curiosity, the Dean or the Study Abroad? The answer is obvious.
  
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David Gendron

May 16, 2013

So we should embrace the Native American cultures because multiculturalism is always bad?

What’s multiculturalism, really? If you talk about Trudeauist anti-Québec multiculturalism (which is not interested at all by the First Nations cultures), I tend to be agreeing with you, but I don’t think we should enforce how others should live.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  May 16, 2013
  
  The wa multicultiralism is practiced today is more like indifference hiding under the empty celebration of otherness. Bauman proposes, instead, a dialogue where everybody deserves the right to be heard but nobody’s difference is accepted just because it exists.
  
  You will be happy to know that in this book Bauman is very supportive of Quebec’s language policies. 🙂
  
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  1. David Gendron
    
    May 16, 2013
    
    “You will be happy to know that in this book Bauman is very supportive of Quebec’s language policies. ”
    
    Good, but I don’t like the “ads section” of the Bill 101, though.
    
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  2. David Gendron
    
    May 16, 2013
    
    “Bauman proposes, instead, a dialogue where everybody deserves the right to be heard but nobody’s difference is accepted just because it exists. ”
    
    Other intellectuals distinguishes “interculturalism” and “multiculturalism”. Bauman’s proposal seems like interculturalism. No problem for me.
    
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  3. David Bellamy
    
    May 16, 2013
    
    As a confirmed xenophile, I very much like encountering people from other cultures. Nevertheless, some things, especially the ways that some cultures treat girls and women, deeply offend me. Others potentially create problems I do not know how to deal with. (For example, if a woman student keeps her face covered in one of my classes, how can I know who she is and whether she is, for example, sending someone else to take a test for her.)
    
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