Multiculturalism and the Dialectic of the Universal and the Particular

Cultural Diversity and the Democratic State

Two possible answers to how diverse cultures should coexist in a democratic state:

• Cultural Emphasis: Prioritizes cultural and ethnic differences, advocating for "struggle for recognition" to compensate for inequalities and enable social integration while preserving those differences.

• Socio-economic Emphasis: Shifts focus from culture to socio-economic factors, advocating for public policies that promote integration into the labor market as a prerequisite for citizenship and shared societal values, aiming to prevent cultural differences from becoming rigid and threatening democracy.

These answers lead to considering the nation as either:

• A collection of distinct ethnicities.

• An assimilationist view that values hybridity as integral to nationality and citizenship.

This opposition manifests in the political arena as a conflict between:

• Particularist rights (for "minorities") advocated by social movements.

• Universal rights of citizens established since the French Revolution of 1789.

Arguments For and Against Particularism and Universalism

• Defenders of Particularism: Argue against the abstract nature of universalism, which they see as promoting a false notion of equality before the law while ignoring real-life inequalities. They criticize universalism, labeling it as WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant) in the United States.

• Defenders of Universalism: Criticize the overemphasis on particularist interests, arguing that it hinders democratic coexistence and understanding among people.

This conflict spans culture, politics, and philosophy.

Multiculturalism and the Struggle for Recognition

The struggle for recognition predates multiculturalism, originating in France with the Algerian War (1954-1962) and its impact on existentialist philosophy.

• Albert Memmi and Franz Fanon: Their ideas, stemming from the Algerian anti-colonial war, influenced existentialist thought.

• Alexandre Kojève: His lectures on Hegel's philosophy, particularly the master-slave dialectic in Phenomenology of Spirit, resonated with intellectuals.

The master-slave dialectic, involving a struggle for recognition, connected philosophical reflection with political action. Writings by Memmi (1985) and Fanon (2010) on colonialism had a strong impact on French intellectuals protesting the Algerian War. Fanon argued that:

• Colonizers impose a negative image on colonized people, which, when internalized, hinders their emancipation.

• The primary task is to change this image through self-awareness and a struggle for recognition.

Sartre (1971) observed that "the slave sees himself through the eyes of the master, thinking of himself as an Other with the thoughts of the Other". The gaze became a central theme, with objectification occurring through the gaze of the other. Simone de Beauvoir (1960) in The Second Sex explored women's condition, drawing from Hegel's master-slave dialectic.

• Women, conditioned by patriarchal society, internalize assigned roles, losing self-determination and seeking to fulfill the Other's expectations, thus alienating their identities.

• The feminist movement emerged to combat women's alienation, critiquing imposed social roles and advocating for gender equality.

The struggle for recognition initially consolidated civil rights, such as:

• Women gaining the right to vote.

• Enactment of anti-racist laws for Black people.

Thus, the democratic state implemented universalism, enshrining equality for all citizens. Later, the struggle shifted from equality to the recognition of differences, posing a challenge to the democratic state to accommodate particularist claims of collective subjects within a legal framework centered on individual rights.

Liberals and Communitarians

Charles Taylor's (2009) work on the politics of recognition, influenced by the multiculturalism debate in Canada (specifically, Quebec's efforts to preserve French language and culture), is a key reference.

• Quebec: Sought to maintain its French language and culture, including mandating French-only education for children of French speakers.

• Other minorities: Aboriginals, immigrants, and women also fought for cultural preservation.

Taylor argues that the politics of recognition addresses:

• Psychological needs of individuals.

• Needs of entire communities, as identity is shaped by recognition, lack thereof, or misrecognition imposed by others.

Taylor notes this is a problem for democratic regimes. Feudal societies had inequality expressed through honor, a principle of distinction for nobility not extended to commoners. The end of the estate system brought the principle of legal equality among citizens to preserve "human dignity". However, multiculturalism has led to demands for equal status for marginalized "minorities" discontent with formal equality that masks existing inequalities and oppressive conditions.

The debate involves complex relationships between identity politics and law. Taylor contrasts two liberal positions:

• Liberalism 1: Affirms universalism of law, demanding uniform application and rejecting difference, maintaining indifference towards diverse cultures.

• Liberalism 2: Actively works to preserve cultures. It integrates diversity into state conservationist policies.

Taylor aligns with Liberalism 2. These positions are associated with:

• Liberals: Prioritize individual choices over cultural context, viewing different cultures with indifference. They hold an atomistic view of society where the individual is a self-sufficient monad making rational choices, free from social constraints.

• Communitarians: Prioritize community ties that shape individual identities, emphasizing that individuals are social beings embedded in cultural contexts. They consider culture a value to be preserved, not merely a sum of individuals.

A key point of contention concerns who should protect differences. Liberals tend to favor civil society institutions, while communitarians see the state as the appropriate vehicle for implementing policies that recognize and protect minority group differences. Liberals advocate for a neutral state and legal equality, whereas communitarians question state neutrality, viewing it as captive to a dominant culture, and distrust the notion of individual equality. They reject liberal universalism in favor of compensatory public policies sensitive to the recognition claims of diverse cultural groups.

This debate has generated extensive literature. Some authors like Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth have tried to move beyond these positions. Habermas (2002) argues that Taylor's comparison between preserving species and preserving cultures is flawed. Legal guarantees for cultural preservation risk fundamentalism by attempting to restore a "decayed substantiality" in a modern society that undermines fixed ways of life. Cultures survive through self-transformation that depends on individuals' freedom to critically engage with their cultural heritage.

Culture and Politics

The discussion on multiculturalism revisits the opposition between universal and particular, now framed by the clash between universal rights from the French Revolution and particularist demands from social movements seeking recognition of their specific identities. Rouanet terms the former "abstract egalitarianism" (abolishing particularities) and the latter "abstract differentialism" (valuing difference itself).

The critique of "abstract egalitarianism" is valid. However, multiculturalism's focus on culture has led to:

• A static, essentialist view of culture.

• An extreme relativism.

Relativism has led to political debates, given that culture is a contested space where alterity is amplified in opposition and contradiction. There's an erroneous understanding of culture as a neutral sphere above social contradictions.

• Historical Context: This elitist view has appeared in various historical contexts. In England, it emerged with industrial capitalist society and democracy, as culture previously enjoyed by a select few faced challenges from the complexities of society and the rise of the working class.

• Authors like Matthew Arnold, T. S. Eliot, and F. R. Leavis: Focused on preserving high culture values.

• Latin America: Literature was assigned the role of fostering national identity, often erasing cultural differences.

  • Romanticism: Mythically integrated the Indian as a symbol of Brazilianness.

  • Naturalism: Naturalized the Black individual, relegating them to animalism, to suppress the critique of slavery.

In all cases, literature was floating above social life, fulfilling an integrating mission. Fredric Jameson (1994) stresses the inherently conflicting nature of culture due to its insertion in contradictory social relations. Culture, being a weaker version of religion, isn't a substance, but emerges from relations between at least two groups. No group "owns" a culture alone; it's a perceived aura when one group encounters and observes another. This only transcends into politics, with a long history tied to nation-state formation. Habermas argues that the nation-state in Europe affirmed a united community and democratic citizenship, prioritizing a cosmopolitan over an ethnocentric view of the nation. "Threadbare traditional forms of social integration" were replaced “by the integrative force of democratic citizenship”. Habermas (1995) notes this didn't eliminate the tension between the universalism of an egalitarian legal community and the particularism of a cultural community of origin and destiny.

This tension is increasing. Homogeneous populations have given way to pluralistic societies unable to reconcile differences. Social tensions, driven by poverty and marginalization, are creating an explosive situation.

According to Habermas (1995):

In this context, the fight for recognition has politicized culture and ethnicity. Michel Cahen noted the politicization of ethnic relations, emphasizing political efficiency over strict definitions of race/ethnicity.

The struggle for recognition requires clear boundaries of cultural groups, defining their substance. Questions arise such as "Which groups deserve recognition?" and "What are the criteria for social policies?"

Anthropologists studied the ethnic differentiation of the Xocó and Mocambo in Sergipe, who felt threatened by land disputes. They separated in the 1990s, with the Xocó identifying as indigenous (though black, Catholic, and Portuguese-speaking) and the Mocambo claiming quilombola ancestry. The Xocó gained protection from FUNAI, while the Mocambo were under INCRA's protection, despite similar lifestyles. Paula Montero (2012) notes that ethnicity became a constructed category for specific rights, facilitated by external agents.

• Catholic priests and anthropologists collected memories, organized narratives, produced evidence, and convinced natives to self-identify.

• Lawyers helped frame the legal cause, shifting the claim from land possession (squatters' rights) to recognition of tradition.

Montero concludes that:

• "Juridicization" of identity production occurs.

• This involves a mechanism for distributive justice not based on class inequality.

• Identity shifts from culture to politics.

• This raises questions about the impact on national cohesion based on "mestiçagem" and assimilation, transforming the ideology of hybridity into a nation of parallel and pluriethnic heritages.

The affirmation of difference extends to the cultural sphere. Multiculturalism asserts all cultures are equally important, worth preserving. This aligns with the ecological movement's belief in the sanctity of all life forms. However, it also spurred an industry of ethnicity: legal battles over cultural heritage commercialization. Thus, the mercantile logic of global society colonizes minorities (Magagno, 2014).

Regarding education, the struggle for recognition clashed with the Eurocentrism of school curricula. Affirmative action in education (ProUni, quotas) led to the inclusion of "Afro-Brazilian and African History and Culture" in primary and secondary education. While challenging Eurocentrism and reclaiming African culture is necessary, culturalizing social life presents risks. Recognition shifts from minority rights to preserving cultural legacies.

A proposal in the Ministry of Education sought to replace universal history with fragmented histories centered on marginalized cultures (African, indigenous), prioritizing cultural traditions over the material basis of society (economic cycles). History curricula shifted focus:

• Elementary School: Emphasized subjects, social groups, communities, places of experience, and relationships.

• Middle School: Focused on representations, meanings of historical time, processes, analyses of historical processes.

• High School: Studied Amerindian, African, Afro-Brazilian, American, European, and Asian worlds.

This reveals confusion in multiculturalism. Only the last year involves "European worlds". Understanding colonialism and slavery requires discussing commercial capitalism. Dehistoricizing history leads to de materialization, autonomization of culture, and idealization of places and subjects, resulting in a distorted perspective.

Return to the Universal

In theory, the rejection of the universal leads to "micronarratives" (histories of Blacks, women, gays, etc.). This resembles postmodernism's critique of "grand narratives," hindering the existence of a shared universal history. Terms like "cognitive ghettos" or "progressive apartheid" critique this. Others note ideological proximity to liberalism and a democratic society where differences remain isolated. Zizek (2008) speaks of "inverted racism," criticizing the slogan "equal, but separate" as an idea for apartheid. The clash between culturalism and democratic ideals resurfaced in France with debates over religious symbols (burqas) in public schools. The government banned them with arguments ranging:

• Criticism of state intolerance.

• Defense of laicism against fundamentalism.

Again, the dialectic between universal and particular reappears. The author mentions an incident where a social worker excused a pedreiro's actions (sexual assault) due to his caiçara culture, highlighting the tension between cultural diversity and universal legal standards. While cultural diversity should be respected, a shared political culture is necessary. Cultures don't exist in isolation, and universal rules of coexistence (law) must be upheld. Therefore, rape and other crimes cannot be excused based on cultural context. This led to France's ban on Islamic veils in public schools, based on the principle that immigrants should accept the state's secularity. The fight for recognition has had negative consequences, including xenophobia and racial hatred. "Abstract differentialism" has fueled segregation and racial hatred.

After the 2001 attacks in the United States, Islamic extremism and racial intolerance rose. Angela Merkel declared "multiculturalism has failed". It's time to reassess the critique of the universal that is the starting point of multiculturalism. The claim that "the law is the same for all" is, in essence, a valid claim, but it does equate unequals and imposes uniformity. Originating in the enlightenment, it conceived of men as rational beings, ignoring individual differences. Romanticism opposed this, exalting singularity. Dialectics seek to overcome this antinomy. Hegel asserted a relationship between the universal and the singular, where singulars constitute the universal and it's embodied in singular beings. The dialectical concept of "concrete universal" should not be confused with the levelling outlook of the "abstract universal". According to Hegel, the latter should be understood as the initial, immediate manifestation of the concept of universal, which is abstract, vacuous, and undetermined. For this reason, Hegel introduced into his dialectical concept the successive determinations that enrich the universal and that are its constituent moments. Thus, particularities can at last recognize themselves, integrating harmoniously into the universal and becoming consciously parts of it without, however, losing their specific qualities

The universal doesn't involve erasing unique properties or forcing incorporation into an undifferentiated unity. Marx defended Hegel, noting that the primacy of the general over the particular shouldn't dilute the latter. Such dilution is present in the false universality of globalization. On one hand, it has put the nation-state in crisis. On the other, it has imposed a pretended universal, the consumer society. In this society different commodities are equated via abstract exchange value, individuals from different social classes are labelled "citizens", and finally, consumers struggle for their rights in a market.

The divide between market universalism and identity fragmentations (multiculturalism) has caused some analysts to correlate the two. Zizek employs Lacanian psychoanalysis to suggest multiculturalism as a symptom of today's capitalism. Similarly, the psychoanalyst Conrado Ramos concluded that multiculturalism is a symptom of post-modern and neoliberal policies of fragmenting the consumer society by multiplying massified targets whose adherence it is propaganda to call, in the name of differences; and that the democracy, tolerance, political correctness, respect and equality of rights sustained by multiculturalism are only possible in fact within the abstract and universalizing relations of the market.

Outside the realm of market relations is a mass of individuals deprived of stable employment. But inside the market exists different social classes fighting not for recognition, but for the possession of wealth. The culture of multiculturalism has replaced contradiction with diversity. If, as Habermas notes, the field of culture is pre-political and historically has only produced traditional, tattered forms of social integration, it is necessary to reclaim the dimension of politics, of democracy, of the republican ideal, of social emancipation, because it is there that the universal can progressively realize itself. So it is, some authors, returning to the dialectical conception, prefer to speak of a concrete universalism to give an account of a process through which the law could produce equality for all. Only that way is it possible to get out of petty politics, out of the cultural fragmentation of private individuals who do not understand one another, and into great politics: the fight against economic exploitation, the primary source of inequality and of conflicts against the forms of social discrimination of differences.

Multiculturalism as Public Policy in Brazil

Multiculturalism appeared as a public policy in Brazil during a seminar on multiculturalism and racism on June 2, 1996, during Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government. Brazilian and North American intellectuals were invited to Brasilia to discuss introducing affirmative actions. The focus on race invited comparisons between Brazil and the United States. Monica Grin (2001) raises a key question:

• Do "racial subjects" of law exist in Brazilian society for whom such policies should be directed? The debate in Brasilia thus asked: what is the ontological status of "race" in Brazil? Do "racial" subjects exist? In other words, do social subjects define and perceive themselves on the basis of a clear racial division?

Affirming the existence of "racial subjects" like in the U.S. (as argued by some intellectuals and Black movements) results in politicizing differences and a racialized view of social life. This involves transposing the North American problematic with race-conscious to struggle for compensatory policies to abate inequalities. However, in Brazil, awareness arises from state action aiming to create "social subjects" to be included through focal compensatory interventions (targets). Fabio Wanderley Reis (1996) cautioned against importing the U.S. model.

Creating "racial subjects" in Brazil clashes with this context's specifics. The gradation of "races" establishes a continuum that blurs rigid divisions between whites and blacks in the U.S., expressed in the one-drop rule. The lack of a black bourgeoisie indicates that the racial and social questions are fused. Fabio Wanderley Reis (1996) deemed odious in the vast deprived strata of the Brazilian population the pretension of establishing discrimination among the races as a criterion for the action of social promotion of the State. Bear in mind that it is precisely at the base of the social pyramid, where obviously the most important potential targets of the social effort of the State are found, that racially diverse populations most mingle and integrate socially, not to mention the more intense occurrence of miscegenation.

George Reid Andrews (1996) noted that affirmative action in the U.S. mainly benefited the black middle class, doing little for the poor.

An American intellectual pointed out the error in seeking references for Brazil's problems in the U.S. example. The only government program in the world that reduced racial inequalities was the Cuban one, which eliminated racial gaps in health, life expectancy, education, and employment because government action focused on promoting the poorest population layers, not skin color.

The racial agenda led Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc Wacquant to criticize the "export" of categories from the U.S., such as multiculturalism. Referring to Brazil, they questioned.

Bourdieu and Wacquant openly denounce cultural imperialism in academic circles. The large American research foundations of philanthropy and research play a role in the dissemination of the North-american doxa within the heart of the brasillian university field, both in the plane of the representations as of the practices. Thus, the Rockefeller foundation finances a programme about ´Race and Etnicity´ in the Universidade federal do rio de janeiro, as well as the Centro de estudos afro-asiáticos (and its journal estudos afro-asiáticos) of the universidade cândido mendes, in such a way as to favour the interchange of teachers and students. For the obtainment of its patronage, the foundation imposes as condition that the research teams obey the criteria of affirmative actions in the american style, wich raises thorny problems given that, as it has been seen, the dichotomy white/black is of application, at the very least, risky in brazilian society.

A central point in the "American way" to treat the problem is criticizing Brazil's pretend racial democracy. There is another way to face the issue, that which is suggested by the best anthropology which understands brasillian racial democracy as a myth. And a myth, is neither true nor false. Before all, it´s a world view, a colective longing, a principle of social integration, a product of the colective consience. . The myth, therefore, is a story, a dream, that reveals deep social aspirations and latent values. That being so, mere denunciation is worthless, and this is because, one of the features of mith, is its permanent auto-transformation. Lévi-strauss (1970) stated that a myth is a native philosophy that intends to provide a logical model to solve a contradiction. In a free interpretation, the myth is a future of reconciliation, a new universal that encompasses/superates differences. In this case, a-racial democracy.

Logic and Politics

Logic and politics have close links. Singularity is old anarchist. Stirner's The Ego and Its Own. The exalting of the single expels the particular making “the whole” a collection of free-wheeling individuals (Hegel). In the current day, we see neo-anarchism in today’s youth social movements and cyberactivism. Toni Negri's (2003) cult of the multitude, defined as singularities in no way unified. Society lacks mediation, a particular, to represent in politics (unions, parties, etc).

Particularity is a mediation where one can surpass atomism thus coming to universality. This also can hinder this said possibility. One can just simply think of Economism, as well as just profession ethics, independently existing from common ethics. Positive actions, in particular shock against universal interests. Social interest is a path to injustice repairs. It is sought after by an council, one with a black being chosen over the equal white man. To do equal and justice, but makes an society break, in which there is contrary action and exacerbates prejudice. A social inclusion problem centric in that in 53% is black or pardo, is only a fix, an a localized action. Small politics in affirmation of one’s identity, leads to the great politics. The action could and/or have to make men superate singularities from them, an identifying themselves with the humankind. In the law right of Brazil politics public should and are aiming with these ideas.