Oldal 25 [25]
MULTICULTURALISM AS A DISCOURSE OF DISGUISE: A POSSIBLE CANADIAN SOLUTION
Culture and Multiculturalism in the Academy
The academy, including philosophers, began to seriously ask about the
multicultural identity of Canada. We shall consider four different responses
to issues raised by the Constitutional declaration that we are multicultural:
Charles Taylor, Will Kymlika, Colin Mooers, Darryl Le Roux.* In their
writings we find some possible roots of deception and disguise in the idea of
multiculturalism.
Charles Taylor published his book, Multiculturalism and the Politics of
Recognition in 1992.” It was the first major response to the multicultural
discourse that was gripping newspapers, political speeches, and future
curriculum foci. Taylor used Hegel’s principle of recognition® to support a
policy to deal with increasing complications North America was facing with
escalating arrivals.
Taylor identified two different ways the concept of ‘multiculturalism’ can
play out: one, as a collective of multiple cultures, and two, as a single concept
supporting multiple cultures. Taylor supports the former interpretation of
‘multiculturalism’, arguing that with good will we can find a way to get along.
He acknowledges that cultures have historical longevity and have provided
multiple interpretations of what is of worth or of value over centuries.**
He urges a “fusion of horizons” — with reference to Hans-Georg Gadamer -,
in order to find broader contexts within which to understand cultural
difference when referring to what is good.* Taylor thinks that all cultures will
have something we can admire and respect even though there could be much
51 These are selected to illustrate different kinds of disguise that multiculturalism began to
foster. They are in no way exhaustive of the considerable literature on the topic as Amazon
books will confirm.
Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition, Princeton, Princeton
University, 1992.
Taylor cites Chapter four of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, AN. Millar (trans.) Oxford,
Oxford University, 1977. Recognition through the ‘master — slave’ analogy, frequently
understood to refer to two separate selves, can be misleading. The earliest translation
by J.B Baillie, The Phenomenology of Mind, London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1931,
uses ‘lordship — bondage’ and interprets Hegel as explaining how the self comes to know
itself. Hegel does not address other selves until he has established reason as the source of
active engagement with things. Recognition of other selves occurs much later in the book
with the recognition of the power of conscious activity. Other selves come into being for
consciousness, in communities. Baillie, section C Reason, 373-382.
34 Tbid., 70.
#% Ibid. 71.
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