Ok, now I know it might seem that this blog died a hasty and rather unseemly death - it’s really just having a brief winter/spring/summer snooze, followed by a minor refurbishment - I've been doing things, sort of. So... apologies for lack of posts (not that there were ever that many).
I'll do a real post soon, just you wait. Maybe.
Is Ken Livingstone’s support of multiculturalism in keeping with Millian liberalism? Or is it, as David Cameron claims, a Marxist and ‘discreditable attempt by an ageing far left politician to hang on to a narrative about race that sees people from ethnic minorities as potential agents of revolutionary change’?
Now, there’s a lot to untangle here. Livingstone uses the term multiculturalism referring to both the fact of multiculturalism – that modern society comprises many different cultures, races, traditions and religions – and the project of multiculturalism – that government and its agencies should not only permit the existence of these cultures, traditions and religions, but that it also has a responsibility to promote these cultures, traditions and religions through policies of diversity, group rights, difference-friendly liberalism, cultural programmes and the establishment of quotas. The interchangeability simply obfuscates two issues, in turn confusing two distinct objections: those from the lobotomized fringe of the hard right objecting to the very fact of multiculturalism, and those objections from progressive leftists that see multiculturalism as as a departure from a philosophy of individual rights, individual autonomy, universalism, difference-blind liberalism, and an embrace of relativism .
Livingstone declares that multiculturalism is simply a contemporary manifestation of Mill’s principle of liberty:
That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. (J S Mill, Stefan Collini (ed.) On Liberty, 1989, p.13)
For Livingstone, this simply means:
Multiculturalism asserts the right of a person to live their life as they wish, including culturally. If they wish to live in classically "English" style, then this is fine. But it is also fine if they want to lead a more Indian lifestyle, or a more Jamaican one, or if they wish to organise their life more around the ideas of Buddhism or Judaism. This is the basic principle of multiculturalism.
And the basic principle of liberalism. So why invent the new term? Is there any difference between Millian liberalism and multiculturalism? Certain elements are in keeping with the Millian legacy: the state has no warrant to interfere in matters of culture and tradition, and freedom of association is sacrosanct. So in this sense of a weak multiculturalism, Livingstone’s claims seem to stack up.
Yet this liberal principle was qualified by Mill. Mill sought to extend some of the state’s power to hitherto excluded areas. Mill was, in particular, scathing about men who regarded the family as his personal fiefdom, writing of the ‘almost despotic power of husbands over wives’. (J S Mill, Stefan Collini (ed.) On Liberty, 1989, p.105) In The Subjection of Women he noted: ‘[…] man had anciently […] the power of life and death over his wife. She could invoke no law against him: he was her sole tribunal and law.’ (Ibid. p.146) This clearly has implications for those promoting or embracing conservative cultures – would Mill really have welcomed this as a contribution to diversity, despite its subordination of liberty?
The notion of positive interference is even more problematic. In a sense, the notion of group rights, difference-friendly liberalism, and positive discrimination betray a certain Marxist critique of liberalism. Marx contended that oppression was primarily economic, that only through the overthrow of the capitalist forces of production, would oppression end. Because oppression was primarily economic, he declared notions of political individual rights to be both ‘ideological nonsense’ and ‘obsolete verbal rubbish’ – this seemingly fictitious legalistic freedom was contrasted with real freedom to be gained under Communism. Theorists of group rights and difference-friendly liberalism cling to a similar logic – oppression is practised against otherwise excluded minorities. While these groups possess a formal freedom, inequality and oppression remains. Only by bringing these minorities into a full and proportionate participation in the spheres of politics, economics and culture can the real root of oppression be erased.
Yet both Mill and Marx are quite opposed to any promotion of existing cultures. While Mill regarded cultural encumbrances as unavoidable, he also emphasized the importance of individual autonomy and the creative fashioning of the self. He spoke of the ‘despotism of custom’ as being opposed to the ‘spirit of liberty’ (Ibid. p.70). Mill called for ‘experiments of living’:
Where, not the person’s own character, but the traditions or customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress.
[…] He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best.
[…] He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation.(Ibid.p.57-59)
Marx is largely at one with Mill here – he lamented the role of tradition: ‘Tradition from all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.’ (T. Carver ed., Marx: Later Political Writings,1996, p.32) So clinging onto the remnants of any culture is quite an un-Millian position. This isn’t an argument against specific cultures as such – rather it’s an argument for an individualist, rather than a communitarian, mode of living. This isn’t, then, simply an argument against non-Western religions and cultures, but against all communitarian, anti-individualists ways of fashioning the self.
For Mill, diversity is never a good in itself. It’s a good if it highlights alternative modes of living that free individuals could potentially adopt. It also contributes to the search for truth and the revitalisation of thought. Yet these diverse modes of living are only a good when they express the individual’s chosen path, not the dictates of custom: ‘… his own mode of laying out his existence is the best, not because it is the best in itself, but because it is his own mode.’ (J S Mill, Stefan Collini (ed.) On Liberty, 1989, p.67)
So that’s the theory. In practice, Livingstone strays even further from Marx and Mill. He not only promotes all sorts of benign cultures and religions, but also embraces the malignant ones, embracing those leaders of a fundamentalist Islamism. Livingstone’s just a little too keen on, for instance, Yusuf al-Quaradawi, the latter a diverse proponent of wife-beating - ‘[…] far from being in any way countenanced by the principle of liberty, it is a direct infraction of that principle, being a mere riveting of the chains of one-half of the community, and an emancipation of the other from reciprocity of obligation towards them.’ (Ibid. p. 91-92) - clitoridectomy, death for apostasy, suicide bombing, and something of a hard-line opponent of the liberty principle for homosexuals. Mill, or Marx for that matter, wouldn’t have embraced any of this nonsense.
There might be the odd Millian or Marxist kernel within multiculturalism. But with Livingstone it appears it’s not only standing on its head, but performing intellectual pirouettes.
There I was, almost becoming quite disillusioned with blogging. But when you're second for 'appiah recognizing our obligations to other human beings offers world fanaticism intolerance cosmopolitanism', you know it's all been worth it.
This should be a bloggers dream, but...no, Christ, I'm off to read this instead. Maybe tomorrow. Hmmm:
Almost every thoughtful, educated Muslim in this country has been exposed to - and to varying degrees influenced by - the Muslim Brotherhood, the 20th century's most influential political Islamic movement. The obvious historical analogy to Bright is those US cold war warriors in the 50s who smeared anyone who had ever read Marx.
Yep, it's that obvious? Well, obviously.
UPDATE: Paul Anderson's resistance:
Madeleine Bunting is an affront to all that I hold dear. She is part of a mainstream media assault on atheists and secularists that insults us insistently and leaves us no option but militant resistance.
The Scarlett Johansson of blonde jokes...
From Shot by Both Sides:
Tangentially-relatedly, my perenially unsuccessful flatmate went speed-dating last week. One of the women he met said "my name's Sharon, S-H-A-R-O-N". He replied, "like the Israeli Prime Minister, you mean? But I bet you're not a war criminal." The date didn't go uphill from there...
Feeling ever-so slightly infantile, so let's start with...
Two jihadists trying on rucksacks in Millets.
One turns 'round to the other: "Does my bomb look big in this?"
The tone will improve a little in due course...
