Deep Cultural Diversity: A Governance Challenge

Chapter 6 Diversity, Egalitarianism, and Cosmopolitanism

6 Diversity, Egalitarianism, and Cosmopolitanism Diversity asfraternity lite.—RaymondD. Boisvert Canada,like many other countries, has chosen to cope with diversity by adopting an official policy of "laissez-faire multiculturalism plus." This has meant allowing deep cultural diversity to crystallize, helping it to do so with some financial support, and conferring enormous moral authority upon it, chiefly through the provision in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that the Charter itself has to be interpreted in "a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians." Laissez-faire multiculturalism plus thus strengthens and institutes deep cultural diversity, which entails not only consecrating it as a primary good, but also some hardening of the membership-governance axis (see Figure 2 in Chapter 1) in order to promote nations and ethnics to a foundational role. The additional thrust of the human rights ideology and of financial support for multicultural activism has helped a particular regime crystallize in Canada and in kindred countries that emphasizes the differences among diverse groups, the place and rights of minorities, and the centrality of recognizing the identity of such groups. These characteristics tend to promote the emergence of multiplex relationships within which each of these dimensions reinforces the others. The emphasis on difference, identity, and recognition can only ensure that minorities develop an entitlement mentality and are "invited"to make use of the full power of the Charter to proclaim and enforce group claims. It is hardly surprising that a certain apartheid ensues, however much it may be suppressed and denied, and even though it was not necessarily the objective pursued. In fact much theorizing over OPTIMIZING DIVERSITY 77 the past thirty years has suggested that consolidating the symbolic recognition of minorities and their legitimacy was a meaningful way to foster integration. This "multicultural assumption" (Berry) is indeed the foundational premise of the first three families of approaches referred to in Chapter 3. Yet this emphasis on diversity has not led to any reduction in the emphasis on equality and egalitarianism, which remain pillars of modern 'progressive' social democracies. In this chapter we raise two questions. First, are multiculturalism and egalitarianism compatible? Second, if there is a dilemma involving multiculturalism and egalitarianism, is there a way in which one might escape it through cosmopolitanism? Multiculturalism and Egalitarianism One of the consequences of defining diversity as a primary good has been that it has been pursued as such. This could only mean that it might at times be pursued to the detriment of other objectives, such as freedom, efficiency or equality. There have been debates, for example, about whether the multicultural approach might limit the freedom of the members of various groups; about whether the tribalization it generates might, on the positive side, provide beach-heads from which to conquer foreign markets, but might also, on the negative side, underpin the emergence of segmented labour markets in the host country; and about whether the balkanization of the host country's population might reduce the degree of effective solidarity underpinning the redistributive schemes of the welfare state. None of these tradeoffs is insignificant, arid it can reasonably be asserted that, in most cases, the determination of the nexus of costs and benefits attached to the multicultural approach is complex, and does not necessarily lead to any consensus. Probably the most sensitive trade-off for those who claim to be progressive is the one between multiculturalism and solidarity. Since progressives are clearly of the opinion that both these goals are absolutely desirable, they would face a serious dilemma if it were to be discovered that the multicultural approach generates lower levels of social cohesion and solidarity, and might thereby undermine the egalitarianism-driven welfare state. This question was raised explicitly by Brian Barry (2001) and generated a heated debate. The main points in contention were aptly synthesized by David Goodhart (2004) in response to a more specific question: "is Britain becoming too diverse 78 DEEP CULTURAL DIVERSITY to sustain the mutual obligations that underpin a good society and a generous welfare state?" The issue has since received a fair amount of attention (Banting and Kymlicka 2006; Banting et al. 2007), and a synthesis of the recent findings emerging from work done by a consortium of Canadian researcherson this general theme has recently been prepared by Keith Banting (2007). Banting's nuanced summary directly tackles the two central questions: are there deep tensions at work...