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Barry, Brian. (2001). Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian
Critique of Multiculturalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
399 pages
$19.95 (Paper) ISBN 0-674-01001-9
$40.00 (Cloth) ISBN 0-674-00446-9
Reviewed by Aaron Cooley
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
February 19, 2004
“Liberal democracy is indissolubly connected
with modernism—as against postmodernism—in one
crucial respect: it depends on a general belief that there is
such a thing as truth, as against my truth or your truth”
(p.236). One certainly cannot accuse Brian Barry of hiding his
agenda in Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of
Multiculturalism. Statements like the one above and comments
in the Preface, speaking to his initial attraction to philosophy,
such as: “[I] took to On Liberty . . . and inside a
week had turned in an essay arguing that Mill had got it about
right—a view that, as will be apparent in this book, I
still retain” (p.ix) demonstrate that Barry’s
intellectuals cards are on the table and that he is supremely
confident in his hand. In an era when many academics are
suspicious of characterization and labels of any sort, Barry
comes right out and claims to be an egalitarian liberal and then
spends the next several hundred pages defining what that actually
means against the backdrop of debates around
multiculturalism.
This volume, along with his Theories of Justice and
Justice as Impartiality, showcase him as one of the most
sober and erudite political philosophers of the recent era. His
unique common sense and accessible writing leads one to wonder
why his centrist views have garnered less attention than the
works of his more well-known colleagues of the contemporary
liberal tradition, John Rawls and Robert Nozick.
Barry’s central aim in Culture and
Equality is to attack multiculturalism; his arguments are
directed at a diverse set of philosophers that he feels have a
multicultural bend. He acknowledges that there is not a singular
perspective of multiculturalism, but in fact, there are numerous
multicultural theories with disparate and varied goals advocated
by a wide-ranging set of policies. Barry’s principal
targets are a list of eminent philosophers that include William
Galston, Will Kymicka, Bhikhu Parekh, Charles Taylor, and Iris
Young. Barry is incredulous towards the merit of their arguments
and quite flippant about their coherence. He mocks them in the
following fashion: “Multiculturalists tend to be
intellectual magpies, picking up attractive ideas and
incorporating them into their theories without worrying too much
about how they fit together” (p.252). Barry is indeed a
raraavis to make such a comment.
This diverse group of philosophers garners
Barry’s attention because of several common ideas that he
thinks they espouse. Chief among these is what Barry describes
“as the politics of difference, the politics of recognition
or, most popularly, multiculturalism” (p.5). Barry sees
“views that support the politicization of group identities,
where the basis of the common identity is claimed to be
cultural” (p.5) to be lacking philosophical coherence and
to be much more dangerous than their advocates believe. Barry
suggests that “[t]he spectre that now haunts Europe is one
of strident nationalism, ethnic self-assertion and the exaltation
of what divides people at the expense of what unites them”
(p.3). Multicultural advocates would, undoubtedly, decry the
linking of their philosophical positions to recalcitrant world
events such as the ethnic separatist wars in Kosovo. Barry,
however, believes that ideas still do matter to politics and
reminds us of the intellectual roots of the French and Russian
revolutions.
This leads Barry to characterize political divisiveness along
cultural lines as inherently dangerous. He views the rebirth of
the intellectual desire for political separatism under the law
with distrust and fear. Of greatest concern is the high-jacking
of ideas by groups with different intentions than the political
philosophers that currently espouse them. Groups with malevolent
agendas could certainly usurp these seemingly progressive
philosophical notions and morph them to justify the mistreatment
of a minority group. As previously mentioned, there are more than
a few examples of just this type of development.
Further, Barry is struck by the historical amnesia of those
that support the separatist variant of multiculturalism. He
states: “[n]ever again, we thought, would the world stand
by while people were slaughtered simply because they belonged to
a certain ethnic group; never again would the idea be seriously
entertained that obligations to the nation overrode obligations
to humanity” (p.5). It should be reemphasized that Barry
does not think any of these philosopher-multiculturalists harbor
maniacal tendencies, but he posit that in their common retreat
from ‘rights’ talk, notions of impartial treatment,
and opposition to universal humanism, they open the door to a
much greater variation of treatment in all matters of law,
justice and interaction with the state. In essence, they are
willing to leave behind equal treatment under the law and
Barry’s own ideal of ‘impartiality’ in
government for a yet unnamed future measure justice. It is this
variable and difference-minded separatism about which Barry
worries. He sees this philosophical discussion not just as a
static scholastic enterprise, but as having real world outcomes
and Clearly, he feels the stakes are higher than some of the
multicultural commentators will acknowledge.
Barry also questions the efficacy multicultural program in
helping to achieve better lives for everyone in a given society.
(One begins to wonder if this is a goal of multicultural
programs.) He mentions some of the successes that
multiculturalism and its various forms have attained in Canada,
England, and the United States. Certainly, the multicultural
perspective has gained media attention and legitimacy in school
curriculums and some social policy, but Barry fears that these
are false gains if equality is their aim, especially when
compared to the rise of inequalities in income and power in these
same countries. Quite provocatively he states: “a politics
of multiculturalism undermines a politics of
redistribution” (p.8). Barry would like to see a world with
less inequality (material and otherwise), but he has severe
apprehensions that multicultural politics will achieve a more
egalitarian society:
The proliferation of special interests fostered by
multiculturalism is furthermore, conducive to a politics of
‘divide and rule’ that can only benefit those who
benefit most from the status quo. There is no better way of
heading off the nightmare of unified political action by the
economically disadvantage that might issue in common demands than
to set different groups of the disadvantaged against one another.
Diverting attention away from shared disadvantages such as
employment, poverty, low-quality housing and inadequate public
services is an obvious long-term anti-egalitarian objective.
(p.11-12)
One assumes that multiculturalists are not right of center
conservatives that pursue false objectives with a disingenuous
agenda or that seek to maximize oligarchic wealth and power. Yet,
even so, one is left to wonder why multiculturalists continue to
pursue public policies that seem to undermine the efforts of
various disadvantaged groups to achieve common goals.
Beyond these first two considerations, Barry
identifies yet another problem with the multicultural ethos. This
time he directs his attention to multiculturalisms’
propensity for “faddism” and academic celebrity. With
eroding standards of “truth” and
“objectivity,” many academics now think popularity or
radicalism is an appropriate standard for evaluating the
correctness of a philosophical position. Barry these
multicultural endeavors, which have enveloped many university
campuses, as supporting a flight from reason and as a broader
attack on the Enlightenment. He states:
Strange as it may seem for academics to repudiate
enlightenment, it is noteworthy how popular the sport of
Enlightenment-bashing has become in recent years. Especially
among pop academics and their journalistic hangers-on, it is now
commonplace that something they call the ‘Enlightenment
project’ has become outmoded. But ideas are not like
designer dresses. There, the latest fashion is the most desirable
simply in virtue of being the latest. There is only one parallel
to ideas: new fashions in ideas help sell books as new fashions
in haute couture help sell clothes. But in the case of
ideas we can ask a question that does not make sense in the case
of clothes: is the latest fashion right or wrong? It is my
contention the anti-Enlightenment bandwagon is misdirected.
(p.9)
The bone that Barry time and again picks with
multiculturalists is the inconsistency and ahistoricity of their
views. He seems to know the history of their ideas better than
they do, which makes his critique particularly biting. The notion
of replacing the intellectual mechanisms of the Enlightenment is
quite shocking to Barry, who thinks this notion displays a great
deal of naiveté about what would happen if Enlightenment
principles were entirely abandoned. Barry succinctly puts his
objection to undermining the universalism of the Enlightenment
with many culturally defined exceptions:
In advocating the reintroduction of a mass of special legal
statuses in place of the Enlightenment, multiculturalists seem
remarkably insouciant about the abuses and inequalities of the
ancien regime which provoked the attacks on it by
the Encyclopaedists and their allies. It is not so much a case of
reinventing the wheel as forgetting why the wheel was invented
and advocating the reintroduction of the sledge. (p.11)
The position we see Barry holding to on the Enlightenment is
quite similar to the views of Jurgen Habermas, in that Habermas
criticizes many post-modern thinkers, such as Foucault and
Derrida, for not having any room to argue against power, pain,
and injustice having given up on Enlightenment values.
It is at this point that we can start to decipher the impasse
that Barry and the multiculturalists have reached. A primary
objection of multiculturalists is that the universalism of the
Enlightenment and its gains in social, political, and human
rights did not apply to many of the world’s populations and
minority groups among them. To multiculturalists, this condemns
any possible benefit that Enlightenment thinking might have
brought to other parties or minority groups in the long run.
Further, they seem to feel that political liberals harbor an
anachronistic attitude that accepts the injustices of the past.
This is simply not the case for liberals like Barry.
Barry views the Enlightenment in a different way. He sees the
increasingly positive gains in the civil and human rights of
minority groups and lifestyles as derivatives of the universalism
of the Enlightenment and as continuations of that universalism.
For Barry, a less impartial state in the future will mean a less
just state than we have now.
Multiculturalists instinctively go the other way on accepting
this notion of universalism by thinking that it is an inherently
negative, homogenizing cultural force. Barry is committed to
thinking that groups of people are more alike than different and
that all people regardless of culture can share similar aims.
Multiculturalists take the opposite view that groups of people
are more different than alike and that people from different
cultures can never truly understand each other. The
incommensurability of these views is clear and it seems that this
spilt is one that is not likely to be reconciled, even through
extensive dialogue, as both sides have a tendency to talk past
one another.
In an attempt to combat this, one must conclude by
discussing the importance of culture, as it is the central issue
which divides Barry and the multiculturalists. Even the
definition of the term in this context is contentious and
misleading. Unfortunately, the definition used by most
multiculturalists is not a fluid and malleable entity of people
that fluctuates with time, the environment, and influence from
and upon other cultures—a definition that one might hope to
expect from such progressive thinkers. Their definition is in
fact quite the opposite perspective; that is, the definition
advocated by multiculturalists is to view cultures as hard,
fixed, and in need of preservation like species of wild animals
or exotic plants. Several examples illustrate Barry’s
increasingly intense frustration.
The first addresses the essentialism of
multiculturalists in their notion that cultural groups have a
natural state and take on the characteristics of a homogenized
biological entity. This goes against common sense and decades of
anthropological fieldwork.
The second addresses commonality among different
cultures of people and how different cultures can value the same
things. Barry relays a story from the distinguished philosopher
Martha Nussbaum in which she describes “a French
anthropologist [that] gave a paper saying that the eradication of
smallpox in India was to be regretted” (p.284). The reason
this great leap forward in medicine should have been prevented
was that it eliminated the need for patronage of the deity
Sittala Devi, who had been the goddess to whom one prayed to
prevent smallpox. When it was suggested that it was certainly
better to live free of smallpox than suffer in pain, the
anthropologist said that was simplistic essentialism and a
dreaded and predictable Western binary. (Even Derrida would role
his eyes at such an absurd assertion.)
This anecdote sends Barry into a particular dive
bomb on the absurdity common to the proponents of ‘soft
culture,’ in which he states a paragraph of binaries that
he thinks are justified. Some are worth quoting:
It is better to be alive than dead. It is better to be free
than to be a slave. It is better to be healthy than sick. It is
better to be adequately nourished than malnourished. It is better
to drink pure water than contaminated.... And so on. (p. 285)
However incensed Barry was by the anthropologist antics, he
recovers his composure to issue the most profound and obvious
critique. The deity was supposed to help them to stay healthy and
avoid smallpox. The anthropologist only valued the culture for
its own sake (and possible personal gain). Barry puts it like
this: “[i]t was the anthropologist, not the people
involved, who elevated the value of cultural diversity above that
of health” (p.285).
This example, incongruous as it is, illustrates
what is at play in the thought of multicultural values.
Multiculturalists believe all cultures have unique qualities that
should be defended simply because they exist and are thought to
be unique. Barry, as we have come to know, thinks this is quite
trite and “comes close to tautology” (p.253). Simply
defending a culture’s sovereignty without an external
justification makes quite a number of reprehensible practices
harder to criticize and more difficult to eliminate. If we accept
this multicultural notion of protecting culture for its own sake,
then the abuse of women, children, and prisoners can all be
cloaked as legitimate parts of any number of the world’s
cultures. The reductio ad absurdum of this view
leads to protecting genocide as a cultural practice. To Barry,
this is simply outrageous and unacceptable. Curiously, these
types of inhuman cultural practices are rarely addressed by
multiculturalists.
Barry’s polemic might come as a surprise and possibly an
insult to many educators familiar with a more innocuous version
of multiculturalism. His nuanced views could be misconstrued as
ethnocentric conservatism. Hence, it might be easy for some to
place Barry’s erudite work into a category characteristic
of Bill Bennett and E.D. Hirsch, but that would be a mistake.
Barry is not a cultural elitist that wants everyone to live like
he does and make a living practicing sophisticated political
philosophy. He wants diverse groups of people to flourish with
differences galore in all aspects that make up a culture.
Nevertheless, he also wants to make sure that all groups allow
all of their members to flourish within a culture as well. This
is, for Barry, a standard that all post-Enlightenment cultures
should meet. Undoubtedly, this will be troublesome to many
interested in multiculturalism.
Barry’s judgment that not all cultures are equal might
be the most difficult notion for educators. His views fly in the
face of a “soft relativism” that has seeped into many
diversity and social studies curricula. However, we must remember
that Barry’s goal is to increase egalitarianism among
citizens and protect rights, not feelings. In our attempts to
achieve increased equality, Barry reminds us that:
“[l]iberal institutions are remarkably successful in
accommodating cultural diversity” (p. 194). Maybe
multiculturalists were too quick in giving up on the
Enlightenment for multiculturalism. As educators, we must wonder
about the results of the current multicultural programs in
schools and if they will succeed in increasing tolerance among
the young or if multiculturalism will simply serve to splinter
society further.
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