240 CHAPTER 11
An alternative basis for pluralist multiculturalism has been advanced by Bhikhu Parekh (2005). In Parekh’s (see p. 241) view, cultural diversity is, at heart, a reflection of the dialectic or interplay between human nature and culture. Although human beings are natural creatures, who possess a common species-derived physical and mental structure, they are also culturally constituted in the sense that their attitudes, behaviour and ways of life are shaped by the groups to which they belong. A recognition of the complexity of human nature, and the fact that any culture expresses only part of what it means to be truly human, therefore provides the basis for a politics of recognition and thus for a viable form of multiculturalism. Such a stance goes beyond liberal multiculturalism in that it stresses that Western liberalism gives expression only to certain aspects of human nature.
KEY FIGURE
ISAIAH BERLIN (1909–97) A Riga-born UK historian of ideas and a philosopher, Berlin developed a form of liberal pluralism that was grounded in a lifelong commitment to empiricism. Basic to Berlin’s philosophical stance was the idea that conflicts of values are intrinsic to human life, a position that has influenced ‘postliberal’ thinking about multiculturalism. A fierce critic of totalitarianism, Berlin’s best-known political work is Four Essays on Liberty ([1958] 1969), in which he extolled the virtues of ‘negative’ freedom over ‘positive’ freedom.
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KEY CONCEPT PLURALISM
diversity is healthy and desirable, usually because it safeguards individual liberty and promotes debate, argument and understanding. More narrowly, pluralism is a theory of the distribution of political power. As such, it holds that power is widely and evenly dispersed in society, not concentrated in the hands of an elite or ruling class. In this form, pluralism is usually seen as a theory of ‘group politics’, implying that group access to government ensures broad democratic responsiveness.
Pluralism, in its broadest sense, is a belief in or commitment to diversity or multiplicity, the existence of many things. As a descriptive term, pluralism may denote the existence of party competition ( political pluralism), a multiplicity of ethical values ( moral or value pluralism), a variety of cultural beliefs ( cultural pluralism) and so on. As a normative term it suggests that
Beyond pluralist multiculturalism, a form of ‘particularist’ multiculturalism can be identified. Particularist multiculturalists emphasize that cultural diversity takes place within a context of unequal power, in which certain groups have customarily enjoyed advantages and privileges that have been denied to other groups. Particularist multiculturalism is very clearly aligned to the needs and interests of marginalized or disadvantaged groups. The plight of such groups tends to be explained in terms of the corrupt and corrupting nature of Western culture, values and lifestyles, which are either believed to be tainted by the inheritance of colonialism and racism (see p. 162) or associated with ‘polluting’ ideas such as materialism and permissiveness. In this context,
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