Is it Possible to Avoid the Exclusionary Power of Culture?
In: Multiculturalism: Critical and Inter-Disciplinary PerspectivesSearch for other papers by Agnieszka Jarzewicz in
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Multiculturalism tends to be the ideology of emancipation from any pervasive system of cultural oppression and domination. However, some axiological dilemmas are inherent in this ideology. When a certain cultural minority demands an agreement on the implementation of principles that are at variance with human rights, its members must not ignore the fact that this claim is not expressed in any legislative vacuum, but impinges on a judicial system that has been in force in the country where this group resides, so it undermines the efficacy of national law enforcement and thereby threatens those who abide by human rights with the domination of a tradition that they condemn. Thereby, radical multiculturalism, as it is argued by Andrzej Szahaj, undergoes reformulation: instead of being an instrument of righting the wrong, it becomes the instrument of struggle for reversing the centres of power. Can we find any alternative to the situation illustrated by Isaiah Berlin’s metaphor ‘liberty for the wolves is death to the sheep’? As long as we differ significantly in our backgrounds, the exclusionary power of culture is unavoidable. Multiculturalist ideal that all cultures should be equally respected, for they are of equal value, is criticised in the chapter as a form of claim about ʻpresuppositionlessʼ approach to the world. But it is assumed that deliberate effort to decrease level of cultural exclusion and soften its effects must be undertaken and continued. The chapter follows Szahajʼs argumentation on behalf of soft ethnocentrism, which excludes epistemological or moral arrogance manifested in a fundamentalist belief that one represents a culture within which patent on the Truth has been obtained. The idea of cultural equality is reconsidered with regard to the implementation of Isaiah Berlinʼs concepts of freedom into cross-cultural communication contexts and Jürgen Habermasʼ interpretation of the speech acts theory.