One Talking Head
Although somewhat out of keeping with the general theme of my blog, I wanted to highlight David Byrne’s journal. The thing that’s great about David Byrne (besides decades of fantastic music) is that he has limitless energy for manifold projects – he is an artist, a bike advocate, a travel writer, a fiction writer, a meta-fiction writer, and, occasionally, a cultural theorist.(If one were to criticize Byrne, which I am loathe to do, one would have to say that he suffers from the affliction of all Renaissance men – their dabbling sometimes produces genius results, other times it dribbles off into dilettantism.) His article here on “The Limits of Multiculturalism” uses the fight between Brooklyn Hasids and biking hipsters as a jumping-off point for a discussion about tolerance and multiculturalism. It is problematic – and I’m not sure that I agree with the tactics of said bikers as he does, especially having read more even-handed takes on the story. Nonetheless, his take on clashes between Muslims and European governments is interesting. He makes some good points.
As most people know, similar issues exist in France as philosophies of multiculturalism, assimilition-ism (if one could call is that), laïcité, and so on jostle for primacy. Issues are often sparked by the presence of large Muslim minorities here. (‘Minorities’ and not ‘minority’ because they come from many other countries and different cultures of Islam. And there are plenty of second generation Muslims, too.) I also say ‘presence,’ because it is not necessarily the minorities that create problems, but their presence within the social body. Conflicts come from within and without.
Some French think that Americans have too stark and simplified a view of the problems of integration in France – and that the history of American immigration is too different from their own to be comparable. This is probably true, although I have found many French people to be prickly and defensive about the issue, largely because so many negative attitudes have been expressed in the American media about the suppression of veil in schools and state buildings (and about Sarkozy, although I see little love for the president in my university). They see that Americans focus on one small issue only, ignoring the larger picture.
It should be said that conflicts in Western countries about multiculturalism and tolerance frequently arise around women – whether about the veil or the too-sexy Brooklyn biker. I believe that this is because Western governments – and peoples – are trying to negotiate a tricky problem. Must they tolerate cultural differences when those differences tend to repress women in a way that dominant culture does not accept? And should they weed out cultural or religious practices that do so? The issue becomes one of degree – authorities (and citizens) would not respect the rights of a population living within U.S. borders that allowed the stoning of female adulterers. But it is impossible to step into homes where women are prevented from voting, say, if they do not make a formal complaint to authorities. And the issue is not just one of law – of course beating women is against the law, but it also goes against fundamental philosophies in our culture about what is acceptable and about the limits of tolerance. The government will let Native Americans “poach” certain animals and not be prosecuted (the controversial ‘eagle feather law’) – so we do allow (and even legislate, paradoxically) the breaking of some laws. But the government has recently cracked down on polygamy among Mormon fundamentalists – a practice that seemed to be tacitly tolerated – mostly because of the possibility of underage girls being married off, not so much because of the act of polygamy itself. (To be clear, the practice has not been officially tolerated by the LDS or the government for a century.) Nonetheless, the latter issue is less one of violence and more one of philosophy – and even of a certain squeamishness, of discomfort.
I think that we need more intellectual input on these problems – in part, because so many of them are hard to legislate, and harder to enforce. At a certain point, we reach a wall of philosophic difference – and isn’t that point where intellectuals come in, where think-tanks are formed, where lawyers, politicians, and police are insufficient? This was something that the French have always understood well – they see that intellectuals are a fundamental part of politics and that they are engaged in a way that doesn’t happen nearly as much in the U.S. I would say that the most influential books in the realm of engaged thinking, if we can use this umbrella term, tend to come from law professors and, oh-so-occasionally, breakout names in the humanities. Journalists have a monopoly on the loudspeaker – and now journalistic or para-journalistic blogs. When do the philosophers get their turn at the podium?
