Deep Cultural Diversity: A Governance Challenge

Chapter 4 Multiculturalism as National Policy

4 Multiculturalism as NationalPolicy Let us value the obstacles between human beings ... not in order that they communicate less, but that they communicate better. —-Jean-Pierre Dupuy Multiculturalism is a label for many things in Canada. It describes our multiethnic cultural mosaic, it denotes a policy of the federal government, and it refers to an ideology of cultural pluralism. As a Canadian policy it is one of the most daring initiatives of the past forty years, but it has been assessed in varying ways, ranging from being hailed as "enlightened" (Jaenen 1986) to being denounced as a "manipulative device used to perpetuate control over ethnic groups" (DeFaveri 1986) or as a policy that "undermines the foundation for national unity" (Kallen 1982a). These differences of opinion stem to a large extent from the vagueness of the language in good currency and the Rorschachian interpretations that this vagueness nurtures, but also from the difficulty inherent in the assessment of such a bold policy move. Our purpose is to deal with this complex question from the point of view of policy research and cultural economics. What is sought is some clarification of the underlying issues—for there is much confusion about this policy domain—and some provisional conjectural evaluation of the Canadian multiculturalism policy of the past forty years. We have to be satisfied with conjectures because it may not be possible to evaluate such a policy meaningfully except in the very long run. Our approach emphasizes two major points. First, multiculturalism poses an ill-structured problem for policy analysts. Ill-structured problems have two characteristics: the goals are not known or are very ambiguous; and the relations between means and ends are highly uncertain and poorly understood. These ill-structured problems call OPTIMIZING DIVERSITY 53 for special policy research programmes (Ansoff 1960, Friedmann and Abonyi 1976). Second, the central feature of the multiculturalism policy has to do with symbolic resources and the reallocation of these resources with a view to generating equality of recognition and status. Economists have little experience with the analysis of the economicsof symbols or of the sociocultural underground of truth, trust,acceptance, restraint, obligation, social virtues (Hirsch 1976). We shall argue that multiculturalism, as an operation of production and redistribution of symbolic resources, may have had positive effects on ethnocultural pride, and therefore on the efficiency of the economic system, but that such a policy has also a dark side that has been occluded and may be of even greater importance. Consequently, any provisional and conjectural evaluation of this policy must be prudent because of the ill-structured nature of the problem, and somewhat inconclusive because of the limited development of the economics of symbolic resources. When dealing with such issues one finds oneself in what might have been the predicament of Alfred Marshall when he presented, at the beginning of the twentieth century, his disquisition on the social possibilities of economic chivalry (Marshall 1907). In the next section we sketch the contours of what we call the paradigm of social practice,which we claim is called for in dealing with issues such asmulticulturalism.The two sections that follow present two major characterizations of the policy of multiculturalism in Canada, as containment policy and as symbolic policy. The subsequent section looks at the dynamic that this policy has triggered. The concluding section gives some reasons for the necessary unfinishedness of the current policy, and mentions some of the pitfalls and challenges lying ahead. Social Learning 111-structured problems pose great difficulties for policy research. Analysts must learn on the job about both the configuration of facts and the configuration of values, but they must also manage to learn from the stakeholders in the policy game and from the many groups at the periphery who are in possession of important local knowledge, for, without their participation, no policy can be implemented. Friedmann and Abonyi (1976) have stylized a social learning model of policy research to deal with these ill-structured problems. It combines a 54 DEEP CULTURAL DIVERSITY detailed analysis of four subprocesses: the constructionofappropriate theories of reality; the formation of social values;the gaming that leads to the design of political strategies; and the carrying out of collective action. These four interconnected subprocesses are components of a social learning process, and a change in any one affects the others (Friedmann 1979). This paradigm of social practice in policy research in depicted in a graph by Friedmann...