Prof. Vedrana Spajic-Vrkas, Ph.D.
University of Zagreb
Basic explanatory model of human personality developed in social sciences rests on the presumption of three layers of identity. First one is related to universal traits of human species, the second one to diversified characteristics of human groups, and the third one to individual characteristics of human beings. Similarly, one of the most often heard conviction of, e.g., anthropology is that, while all persons share some traits with all others, all persons also share other traits with only some others, and all persons have still other traits which they share with no one else.
If we, ether as groups or as individuals, are different and similar at the same time, it is very much important to determine which of the two is chosen to approach the issue of identity, for what purpose a particular approach is selected, what makes its goal and content, and on what level of exclusivity it is defended as truth. Importance of the answers comes from the fact that selection gives impetus for (re/de)construction of social and individual reality and produces particular cultural models comprising particular worldviews, systems of values and beliefs, and patterns of behavior.
Until recently, theoretical and practical solutions of the West to the issues of human personality were mostly informed by the unilinear evolution scheme of human development. Differences were seen either as social anomalies or as stages of universal evolution. Assimilationism blended with functionalism in a famous melting-pot philosophy, on one side, and cultural imperialism with its "Samaritan" philosophy of "civilizing the savage", on the other side, were widely (self)approved on the basis of progressive developmentalism and were, as the ultimate truth, cast all over the world. The peak was reached when "blame the victim" strategy was invented to explain the failure of the Great Promise that was for decades, if not for centuries, building up a network of self-approval.
This modernistic project of desire + instrumental rationality + technology = progress failed for many reasons. Some authors stress shifts in ways of thinking which are likely to occur whenever existing explanatory paradigms became too narrow to help us understand and control social changes. Some mention the post-second-world-war need for stability and security. Others point at the post-war mass migrations and processes of decolonization, as well as at the break of communist ideology, as major factors of a growing social, political and cultural self-awareness. Lately, more and more social scientists see these shifts as direct outcomes of a process of cultural unification, namely of series of extensive changes aiming at transforming the world-as-a-whole on the basis of an eclectic, universal, timeless and technically conducted global culture.
Whatever the reason, instead of universality and similarity, uniqueness, particularity and difference have become a "global compression" of the "post-modern" human condition. Search for roots, need to regain a cultural past and to be connected with traditional identity have become global imperatives of today. Critics see them as new primitivism and exoticism that are lost in libido and intuition, while the followers speak of self-determination, liberation from imposed identities and stress the need for cultural continuity as a basis of self-respect and dignity.
What is important here, is that the shift to difference and uniqueness has produced a counter- effect on individual identity. Persona does not live any more in individual human being. It has moved to human groups. Individuals are attached a unique personality mostly through the personality of a group they belong to according to a set of characteristics some of which are ascribed from within while others are imposed from without. Personal identity is subordinated to social identities arranged in hierarchical order, from the most to the least important. In this context, Charles Tilly writes that the "emerging view (...) locates identities in connections among individuals and groups rather than in the minds of particular persons (...). It therefore breaks with both the sorts of individualism that have dominated recent analyses of social life: both 1) methodological individualism with its independent, self-contained, self-propelling rational actors and 2) phenomenological individualism with its deep subjectivity as well as its penchant for solipsism." Besides, Tilly further argues, "The emerging view is not only relational but cultural in insisting that social identities rest on shared understandings and their representations. It is historical in calling attention to the path-dependent accretion of memories, understandings, and means of action within particular identities. The emerging view, finally, is contingent in that it regards each assertion of identity as a strategic interaction liable to failure or misfiring rather than as a straightforward expression of an actor's attributes."
According to Tilly's theses, the newly emerged world-wide occupation with differences introduces them as predominantly: 1) group-oriented; 2) culturally defined, and 3) relationally constructed. If this is true, we have to find the answers to the following questions: 1) what groups attract most attention nowadays; 2) what culture or what part of culture is singled out as the evidence of a group's uniqueness and difference; 3) do relations among groups lead to boundaries or to co-operation and exchange construction?
Before the 1970s main categories of social differentiation were class, religion and nation. With the shift to premordial sentiments related to cultural roots, with the introduction of welfare, social and/or civil state models in which citizenship dominate over nationality, as well as with the non-national integration processes (e.g. European), old categories of social identification and loyalties have been redefined and/or blurred. Besides, ethnic, minority and indigenous identities have emerged as new types of "thick" identity based on both cultural and political interests. Following culture-laden understanding of identity, social group uniqueness has been reduced to the uniqueness in language, folk customs and ethnic-like symbolism. Stress on group exclusivity has given impetuses to renewed forms of internal cultural homogenization and new understandings of "us", on one side, and to the renewed forms of cultural differentiation vis a vis "them outside us" ("strangers", "enemies"), on the other side. Thus, instead of developing mechanism of cooperation and exchange, stress on cultural differences and uniqueness has (re)created more or less subtle boundaries among and between the groups on state as well as on inter-state levels. This is partly the meaning of concepts of "Orientalization" or "Islamization", "Balkanization" and "Africanization" in the West and of "Westoxication", "Americanization", "McDonaldization" and "Coca-Colanization" in the rest of the world, to mention only few.
Shifts from policies of cultural identity retention to policies of multiculturalism and/or interculturalism on state and international levels aims at recovering plural society on the basis of unity (not integrity?) in diversity. This means that issues of cultural dialogue, negotiation, exchange and cooperation, namely - cultural interlinks should be more stimulated as basis for both social policies and discourses of social reality at all levels.
This brings a question of structural prerequisites for cultural exchange and cooperation in culturally plural societies that are ordered as states. Modern states are inhabited by citizens who by self-ascription or by logic of administrative functioning culturally belong either to majority or to minorities (ethnic groups). Their position, at least culturally, is far from equal, despite constitutional and legal claims. Ignoring the majority-minority population ratio, the former are dominant by two facts: 1) state has originated as their political community to protect their national interests and 2) state keeps official language, values, customs, history and symbols as exclusively national. Consequently, equality of cultural differences is a problematic concept unless members of minorities (ethnic groups) engage in benevolent assimilationism, remain culturally encapsulated or develop parallel cultural models.
The unmatching of social objectives of cultural cooperation and exchange in culturally plural societies ordered as states with social reality, is a challenging issue. It could be approached from more than one point but, due to the limited time of presentations, I plan to focus on two important aspects of the problem.
First aspect is connected with conceptual and/or terminological imprecision. Cultural pluralism is most often defined by two terms: multiculturalism and interculturalism. If we ignore the fact that "multiculturalism" is mostly used in Anglo-cultures and "interculturalism" in the European Community member-states, it could be said that differences in terms reflect differences in conception not only in connection with the present reality of cultural plurality but in connection with social visions and objectives of cultural plurality, as well:
multiculturalism - based on descriptive-static approach; describes quantitative or external side of plural societies and ignores their internal qualities;
interculturalism- based on descriptive-dynamic approach; describes internal qualities of plural societies as relations but fails to recognize the nature of these relations. If used to denote social objectives, it fails to question the level of cultural interchanges which are prerequisites for development of unity in cultural diversity.
In culturally plural societies ordered as states with cultural majority and cultural minorities
(ethnic groups) these groups do relate but their relations could be of different nature: Let us
mention some of the possibilities:
Second aspect of the problem is connected with modes of cultural transmission in culturally plural societies ordered as states. Education in form of schooling is considered to be one of the most important instruments for cultural transmission and acquisition. As plural societies are characterized by plurality of cultures, we may ask what or better whose culture is transmitted through school and how it is transmitted? Is transmission based on hegemony, reciprocity, resistance, or exchange and cooperation? How objectives of cultural cooperation and exchange are achieved? If we take a bit from each side, is cultural plurality principle applied properly? Does multicultural/intercultural education meet needs of cultural unity in cultural diversity?
Here are some of the models of multicultural/intercultural education that have been devised to satisfy educational needs of culturally diversified population:
Analysis of the models lead us to conclude that objectives of plural societies connected with cultural cooperation and exchange are only partly met by multicultural/intercultural education. School should not be a place where cultural monologues are ordered but a meeting point where continuous cultural dialogues and exchanges are practiced and developed, in both contents and methods of instruction. Students and teachers should work together to turn the educational arena in the place where full awareness of cultural exchange is adopted, knowledge on cultural linkages acquired and skills for cultural cooperation developed. It means that stories of diversity should be packed with stories of similarities as together they could bridge cultural divisions of "us" and "them" and minimize new forms of stereotypization and prejudices which emerge when we think that by knowing something we know enough to judge the other side.
Therefore, I suggest a notion of acculturism for description of exchanged cultural qualities of plural societies. It is based on evaluative-dynamic approach and describes internal qualities of plural societies as negotiated cultural exchanges and as linkages between majority and minority as well as among minority cultures.