(no subject)
I've been considering France's recent troubles, and have come to a personally troubling conclusion: despite all my multiracial-children-holding-hands-under-a-rainbow political leanings, I truly sympatize more with the French side of the argument.
(
I'm due for some clarifications at this point: When I say 'French' I refer to a pointlessly nebulous idea of "indigenous" French ethnic geography...specifically, a group that is very narrowly defined and exclusive when my argument needs it to be, and magically expands to encompass a broader spectrum of personalities when that same exclusivity contradicts what I'm trying to say. Essentially, 'French' in the context of my discussion could be better defined as "French-French-you-know-what-I-mean-French," to the exclusion of whomever is not-French.
In any case, I deliberately try to avoid getting bogged down in the tricky specifics of the French/NonFrench dichotomy, because I have no special sympathy for the French themselves and want to move very quickly into the broader (narrower?) context of my own feelings re: multiculturalism in general.
In other words I'm working on what are nonsense definitions, and admit this. But these definitions will suffice for a personal meditation on personal impressions.
)
Multiculturalism is tricky to me: its one of the few positive and inclusive "isms" among a swarm of exclusive and intolerant "isms" (rasicm, sexism, ethnocentrism, et al) that it partially counteracts, and because fundamental tolerance is fundamental to both my politics and worldview, I can never truly reject it. Multiculturalism is troubled by a major irony however, in that it protects every culture except the culture that practices is.
This is the irony that I need to work through (for my own sake), because, oddly enough the handful of cultures that have made the greatest strides in espousing political and cultural tolerance are those that are most at risk of being diluted back into intolerance by their own very tolerant acceptance of intolerant ideas. Western Europe's recent difficulties in coping with cultural misogyny is an example of this: to protect the cultural values of immigrants (as per multiculturalism), a gender-egalitarian society has to compromise its own views w/re: women's rights. But its of course more complicated that clean-cut ethical dilemmas: In terms of ethnocentrism, tolerating the right-to-exist of immigrant language and culture forces some dilution of the language and culture of the host nation...without easy and emotionally evocative issues like gender equality to lean on, how does one approach the moral bargain of compromising your own cultural right-to-exist to preserve another's?
I think back to my own experiences abroad: each time I've left the US, I've gone to extraordinary lengths to accomodate local cultural norms and blend-in as much as possible. I've never once left without learning at least a few sentences of the local language, without reading extensively about the history and etiquette of the places I'll be staying, without emotionally preparing myself to accomodate local situations rather than having the local situation accomadate me. So that should be my position right there: If I struggle to accept the cultures I visit, even despite occasional hardship and moral outrage, then everyone else should struggle to do the same, including North African immigrants in Clichy-Sous-Bois.
Except for the troublesome realities:
First, the ethical choices of a traveler are completely different from those of an immigrant. I know from my own extended stays abroad (principally West Africa, South Africa less so) that since individuality and culture are tightly intertwined, complete acceptance of another culture entails some suppression of one's own personality. While this is an easy feat to pull off for a few day or weeks, its akin to holding your breath. At some point you'll have to come up for air, and your personality will manifest itself along with your culture and your cultural values. I left West Africa with a much stronger sense of my American-ness, not least because I realized how many treasured parts of my own personality only made sense and could only be fully actualized in an American cultural context. (As I type this, another subtle example rang into my phone: Anna's visiting Polish aunts are apparently a hassle to take around town because they didn't like the idea of drinking tea out of paper cups. In less than 24 hours of being in the US all of their attempts to accomodate American society were undercut from a simple commericial choice: they completely reject a manifestation of fundamental American values (convenience and cost) through an innocuous preference of bevergae containers. Inadvertently, I'm sure). In any case, If one can't expect people to accomodate local culture for two whole days, its laughable to expect entire families to permanently and completely suppress all public manifestations of their culture simply because they chose to live in another country.
Second, I know that in the end, there's really no such thing as integration, not least because of my wishy-washy sentiment expressed in the parenthetical comments above. There's really no such thing as integration because nobody is really sure of what boundries lie on the edge of the Culture/NotCulture dichotomy. For example, I've been blessed to have close friendships with several naturalized Spanish immigrants...all of these have made major strides towards integrating into American culture: they speak English, pay taxes, buy houses in the suburbs, raise families, go to Starbucks, study political issues and vote. However, some of their personal ethics do indeed fall outside that of mainstream American culture, particularly with regards to religious tolerance and defined gender roles. The trouble is, many "indigenous" Americans (a term even trickier than "indigenous French") have the same views, but their Americanness is not considered compromised because of them. Hell, a great many of my own personal habits and perspectives are diffrent from "normal" American culture because, frankly, that's part of what makes us individuals. My own rejection of some American cultural norms (e.g. consumerism, paper cups) doesn't make me less American in the eyes of anyone but a few fundamentalist screwballs. The difference is that the cultural standing of the native is seen as almost undbreachable (an oddly Gemeinschaft characteristic of our generally Gesellschaft culture), whereas the integration of the immigrant is seen as very tentative and subject to constant evaluation. Like it or not, "integration" has a strong fundamental connection to nativism, and its very unlikely that an immigrant can ever be considered fully intergrated.
Lastly, my own views on integrating into the societies I visit don't stem from nativism, but from mulitculturalism, so its uncomfortable for me to take a position that rejects accomodation. I don't accomadate out of a sense of to-each-their-own, but rather because if I am going to respect Middle-Eastern cultural values when I visit the Middle East, then it would be hypocritical not to respect the same values when Middle-Easterners choose to live here? And vice-versa.
The strangeness comes in the implicit bargain that this sets up: I'll respect your culture to the best of my ability, therefore you should respect my culture to the best of your own ability. Unfortunately, this bargain is set up only by the person who makes it: its unfair of me to create an implicit obligation that someone respects my culture solely because I've unilaterally elected to respect theirs. Especially since many of my own fellow Americans reject that same bargain and willfully, gleefully (sometimes inadvertedly) try to impose American culture on others, and extra-especially when (here's the crux) the people I'm lavishing all this passive-agressive respect on don't necessarily have the same cultural value of respecting others' culture.
This is why I sympathize with the French in the riots. They made a great good-faith effort to accomodate other cultures as best they could without compromising their own indigenous culture, but the cultures they accomodated didn't respect the "mutual good faith" bargain because that sort of bargain isn't part of their own culture. I don't sympathize because I think the French should retreat, or because I think the French should be more assertive, but instead I sympathize because I'm sad to see the situation turn out so badly despite the extension of an open hand that I would have also extended if I were in the same boat.
So that's where I'm stuck. Multiculturalism can't work, but it has to work anyway. Western societies need immigration to maintain their social and economic vibrancy, but the means of fullfilling that need erodes the feeling of trust and accomodation needed to fill the need in that way.
(
I'm due for some clarifications at this point: When I say 'French' I refer to a pointlessly nebulous idea of "indigenous" French ethnic geography...specifically, a group that is very narrowly defined and exclusive when my argument needs it to be, and magically expands to encompass a broader spectrum of personalities when that same exclusivity contradicts what I'm trying to say. Essentially, 'French' in the context of my discussion could be better defined as "French-French-you-know-what-I-mean-French," to the exclusion of whomever is not-French.
In any case, I deliberately try to avoid getting bogged down in the tricky specifics of the French/NonFrench dichotomy, because I have no special sympathy for the French themselves and want to move very quickly into the broader (narrower?) context of my own feelings re: multiculturalism in general.
In other words I'm working on what are nonsense definitions, and admit this. But these definitions will suffice for a personal meditation on personal impressions.
)
Multiculturalism is tricky to me: its one of the few positive and inclusive "isms" among a swarm of exclusive and intolerant "isms" (rasicm, sexism, ethnocentrism, et al) that it partially counteracts, and because fundamental tolerance is fundamental to both my politics and worldview, I can never truly reject it. Multiculturalism is troubled by a major irony however, in that it protects every culture except the culture that practices is.
This is the irony that I need to work through (for my own sake), because, oddly enough the handful of cultures that have made the greatest strides in espousing political and cultural tolerance are those that are most at risk of being diluted back into intolerance by their own very tolerant acceptance of intolerant ideas. Western Europe's recent difficulties in coping with cultural misogyny is an example of this: to protect the cultural values of immigrants (as per multiculturalism), a gender-egalitarian society has to compromise its own views w/re: women's rights. But its of course more complicated that clean-cut ethical dilemmas: In terms of ethnocentrism, tolerating the right-to-exist of immigrant language and culture forces some dilution of the language and culture of the host nation...without easy and emotionally evocative issues like gender equality to lean on, how does one approach the moral bargain of compromising your own cultural right-to-exist to preserve another's?
I think back to my own experiences abroad: each time I've left the US, I've gone to extraordinary lengths to accomodate local cultural norms and blend-in as much as possible. I've never once left without learning at least a few sentences of the local language, without reading extensively about the history and etiquette of the places I'll be staying, without emotionally preparing myself to accomodate local situations rather than having the local situation accomadate me. So that should be my position right there: If I struggle to accept the cultures I visit, even despite occasional hardship and moral outrage, then everyone else should struggle to do the same, including North African immigrants in Clichy-Sous-Bois.
Except for the troublesome realities:
First, the ethical choices of a traveler are completely different from those of an immigrant. I know from my own extended stays abroad (principally West Africa, South Africa less so) that since individuality and culture are tightly intertwined, complete acceptance of another culture entails some suppression of one's own personality. While this is an easy feat to pull off for a few day or weeks, its akin to holding your breath. At some point you'll have to come up for air, and your personality will manifest itself along with your culture and your cultural values. I left West Africa with a much stronger sense of my American-ness, not least because I realized how many treasured parts of my own personality only made sense and could only be fully actualized in an American cultural context. (As I type this, another subtle example rang into my phone: Anna's visiting Polish aunts are apparently a hassle to take around town because they didn't like the idea of drinking tea out of paper cups. In less than 24 hours of being in the US all of their attempts to accomodate American society were undercut from a simple commericial choice: they completely reject a manifestation of fundamental American values (convenience and cost) through an innocuous preference of bevergae containers. Inadvertently, I'm sure). In any case, If one can't expect people to accomodate local culture for two whole days, its laughable to expect entire families to permanently and completely suppress all public manifestations of their culture simply because they chose to live in another country.
Second, I know that in the end, there's really no such thing as integration, not least because of my wishy-washy sentiment expressed in the parenthetical comments above. There's really no such thing as integration because nobody is really sure of what boundries lie on the edge of the Culture/NotCulture dichotomy. For example, I've been blessed to have close friendships with several naturalized Spanish immigrants...all of these have made major strides towards integrating into American culture: they speak English, pay taxes, buy houses in the suburbs, raise families, go to Starbucks, study political issues and vote. However, some of their personal ethics do indeed fall outside that of mainstream American culture, particularly with regards to religious tolerance and defined gender roles. The trouble is, many "indigenous" Americans (a term even trickier than "indigenous French") have the same views, but their Americanness is not considered compromised because of them. Hell, a great many of my own personal habits and perspectives are diffrent from "normal" American culture because, frankly, that's part of what makes us individuals. My own rejection of some American cultural norms (e.g. consumerism, paper cups) doesn't make me less American in the eyes of anyone but a few fundamentalist screwballs. The difference is that the cultural standing of the native is seen as almost undbreachable (an oddly Gemeinschaft characteristic of our generally Gesellschaft culture), whereas the integration of the immigrant is seen as very tentative and subject to constant evaluation. Like it or not, "integration" has a strong fundamental connection to nativism, and its very unlikely that an immigrant can ever be considered fully intergrated.
Lastly, my own views on integrating into the societies I visit don't stem from nativism, but from mulitculturalism, so its uncomfortable for me to take a position that rejects accomodation. I don't accomadate out of a sense of to-each-their-own, but rather because if I am going to respect Middle-Eastern cultural values when I visit the Middle East, then it would be hypocritical not to respect the same values when Middle-Easterners choose to live here? And vice-versa.
The strangeness comes in the implicit bargain that this sets up: I'll respect your culture to the best of my ability, therefore you should respect my culture to the best of your own ability. Unfortunately, this bargain is set up only by the person who makes it: its unfair of me to create an implicit obligation that someone respects my culture solely because I've unilaterally elected to respect theirs. Especially since many of my own fellow Americans reject that same bargain and willfully, gleefully (sometimes inadvertedly) try to impose American culture on others, and extra-especially when (here's the crux) the people I'm lavishing all this passive-agressive respect on don't necessarily have the same cultural value of respecting others' culture.
This is why I sympathize with the French in the riots. They made a great good-faith effort to accomodate other cultures as best they could without compromising their own indigenous culture, but the cultures they accomodated didn't respect the "mutual good faith" bargain because that sort of bargain isn't part of their own culture. I don't sympathize because I think the French should retreat, or because I think the French should be more assertive, but instead I sympathize because I'm sad to see the situation turn out so badly despite the extension of an open hand that I would have also extended if I were in the same boat.
So that's where I'm stuck. Multiculturalism can't work, but it has to work anyway. Western societies need immigration to maintain their social and economic vibrancy, but the means of fullfilling that need erodes the feeling of trust and accomodation needed to fill the need in that way.