Cultural Pluralism, Identity Politics, and the Law

Responding to the Demands of Difference: An Introduction

Responding to the Demands of Difference: An Introduction Austin Sarat and Thomas R. Kearns "The other" remains to be discovered.... [W]e want equality without its compelling us to accept identity; but also difference without its degenerating into superiority/ inferiority.... [H]uman life is confined between ... two extremes, one where the I invades the world, and one where the world ultimately absorbs the 1. ... And just as the discovery of the other knows several degrees, from the other-asobject , identified with the surrounding world, to the other-as-subject , equal to the I but different from it ... we can indeed live our lives without ever achieving a full discovery of the other. -Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest ofAmerica; The Question ofthe Other As the twentieth century draws to a close, we are witnessing the growing assertiveness of racial, ethnic, and other social groups both in the United States and abroad.1 These groups are demanding recognition of their distinctive histories and traditions as well as opportunities to develop and maintain the institutional infrastructure necessary to preserve them.2 As Charles Taylor notes, "The development of the modern 1. See Michael Walzer, "The New Tribalism: Notes on a Difficult Problem," Dissent (1992): 164. See also Edgar Epps, ed., Cultural Pluralism (Berkeley: McCutchan Publishers, 1974); and Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Times Books, 1995). 2. Adeno Addis describes the efforts of groups to "find conceptual and institutional ways by which those who are defined to be different by the dominant culture, and consequently marked out to be marginal in the social and political life of the polity, will be able to actively participate in the formation and reformation of the social and political space they inhabit." See "Individualism, Communitarianism, and the Rights of Ethnic Minorities," Notre Dame Law Review 67 (1992): 618. See also Charles Lawrence, "Foreword : Race, Multiculturalism, and the Jurisprudence of Transformation," Stanford Law Review 47 (1995): 819. 2 CULTURAL PLURALISM, IDENTITY POLITICS, AND THE LAW notion of identity has given rise to a politics of difference."3 Whereas once it seemed that the ideal of American citizenship was found in the promise of integration and in the hope that none of us would be singled out for, let alone judged by, our race or ethnicity,4 today integration is often rejected, and new terms of inclusion are sought.5 Critics allege that integration is a mask for cultural domination (if not a form of cultural genocide) and that it signals the triumph of dominant identities over the rich mosaic of social and cultural difference.6 Integration is now often taken to mean assimilation, and that, in turn, means the denial of identity and history for disadvantaged or subordinated racial, gender, sexual, or ethnic groups.7 Advocates of cultural pluralism seek a kind of cultural autonomy for themselves; for the larger society they call for toleration. The cultural pluralism they seek refers to a "loosely connected set of attitudes and practices sharing ... the notion that American society should be understood as a collection of diverse cultural groups rather than as a single, unified national body or as simply an aggregate of atomized 3. Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism and "The Politics of Recognition" (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992),38. Taylor notes that "a number of strands in contemporary politics turn on the need, sometimes the demand, for recognition. The need, it can be argued, is one of the driving forces behind nationalist movements in politics. And the demand comes to the fore in a number of ways in today's politics, on behalf of minority or 'subaltern' groups, in some forms of feminism and what is today called the politics of 'multiculturalism'" (25). 4. See Nathan Glazer, "Individual Rights against Group Rights," in The Rights of Minority Cultures, ed. Will Kymlicka (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 137. 5. Michael Middleton, "Brown v. Board: Revisited," Southern Illinois University Law Journal 20 (1995): 19; Joshua Limerling, "Black Male Academies: Re-Examining the Strategy of Integration," Buffalo Law Review 42 (1995): 829; Alexandra Natapoff, "Madisonian Multiculturalism," American University Law Review 45 (1996): 751. Natapoff criticizes the Supreme Court for imposing "a color-blind mandate on an increasingly multicultural, racially diverse body politic" (761). 6. Alex Johnson, "Bid Whist, Tonk, and United States v. Fordice: Why Integration Fails African-Americans Again," California Law Review 81 (1993): 1401. Johnson says that "integrationism has failed to help African-Americans to achieve progress in this society" (140 9). 7. For a description of the drive for assimilation...