Toward a Multicultural Middle

_"Multiculturalism in History: Ideologies and Realities" by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, in Orbis (Fall 1999), Foreign Policy Research Institute, 1528 Walnut St., Ste. 610, Philadelphia, Pa. 19102–3684._

If there’s one thing that both advocates and critics of multiculturalism can’t seem to stand, it’s inconvenient facts, complains Fox-Genovese, a historian at Emory University.

For the critics, who employ multiculturalism as "an automatic epithet of opprobrium," the inconvenient fact, she says, is the reality of multicultural society, "the increasing intermingling of peoples throughout the world." In Europe and America, "a tide of immigration" is challenging established institutions and national cultures. It is sparking controversies about jobs and social services and about balancing "the rights of individuals and the cultural autonomy of groups." High unemployment and cutbacks in welfare programs have exacerbated conflicts in countries such as France and Germany. As the global economy expands, she says, the "multicultural character" of the populations of developed nations is bound to increase—and with it will occur "an intensification of multiculturalist passions."

Proponents of multiculturalism, meanwhile, also avert their eyes from "unpleasant facts, especially about the [non-Western] culture with which they identify," Fox-Genovese notes. Preferring to believe that slavery was a uniquely Western crime, for example, they ignore its historical "prevalence throughout the non-Western world, especially among Islamic and African peoples. . . . And the attempt to convince them that until the late 18th century few people of any culture viewed slavery as a moral evil inevitably shipwrecks upon the shoals of their unyielding presentism." Nor, she notes, are American academic multiculturalists much interested "in learning the languages of other cultures, much less in respecting their hierarchical principles and traditions."

Though multiculturalists are reluctant to face it, the fact is that, to a large extent, they "embody the very Western traditions they claim to deplore," says Fox-Genovese. "Multiculturalism as ideology owes more to Western individualism than it does to non-Western traditionalism, and the evocation of specific cultures has more to do with self-representation than with immersion in a traditional culture."

Neither party to the debate provides much help in adjusting to the world’s new multicultural reality, Fox-Genovese concludes. "What we need is a capacious worldview that invites respect for the cultures of others and loyalty to one’s own"—and a historical understanding of the multicultural present that pays attention to the past and to the facts, convenient or not.