Abstract
Multiculturalism’s noble vision of advocacy was forged in the form of a cosmopolitan solidaristic ethos discussed in the preceding chapter that subordinated racial and national and ethnic identity to a broader cause that united people in a much wider sense than did race, ethnicity and the separatist ethos of identity politics.
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Notes
For a rigorous analysis of the various forms of “multiculturalisms” to be encountered as theoretical constructs and as empirical levers in the world see Susan Haack, Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998). See especially Chapter 5: “Multiculturalism and Objectivity,” 137–148, Haack distinguishes among social multiculturalism, pluralistic educational multiculturalism, particularistic educational multiculturalism, and philosophical multiculturalism. Social multiculturalism refers to the idea that the majority culture in a society ought not to impose unnecessarily on the sensibilities of minority culture(s); pluralistic educational multiculturalism refers to the idea that it is desirable for students to know something about cultures of others with whom they live; particularistic educational multiculturalism basically holds that students from minority groups in societies should be educated in their own culture—the strong form holds that students should be educated exclusively in their own culture; philosophical multiculturalism defends the tenet that the dominant culture should not be privileged—this is often expressed as the claim that “Western culture” should not be privileged. Haack notes that strong particularistic educational multiculturalism is wrong-headed not only in its presupposition that raising students’ self-esteem is a proximal goal of education but, more fundamentally, in its failure to acknowledge that a sense of self-worth is likely to be better founded on mastery of some difficult discipline than ethnic booster-ism, and that students can be inspired to achievement by example of people of very difficult backgrounds from their own. As an example she cites W. E. B. Du Bois who testified to such a claim by reference to his education in the classics of European literature, 140.
For a reasonably different perspective on the normative aspirations of multiculturalism see Bhikhu Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory ( Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000 ).
See Jason D. Hill, Beyond Blood Identities: Post Humanity in the 21st Century ( Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009 ), 181.
For a thorough account of the riots and an analysis of their consequences see Bryan Appleyard, “From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy by Kenan Malik,” Sunday Times, April 5, 2009.
David Bromwich, “Culturalism: The Death of Liberalism,” Dissent (Winter 1995): 89–106.
Haack, Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate, ( Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998 ) 147.
See Christopher von der Malsburg, William A. Phillips, Wolf Singered. Dynamic Coordination in the Brain: From Neurons to Mind ( Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2010 ).
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© 2013 Jason D. Hill
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Hill, J.D. (2013). Educational Multiculturalism and Epistemological Counterculturalism: Toward a Moral Deratification of Their Agenda (Part II). In: Civil Disobedience and the Politics of Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137350312_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137350312_6
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