Oldal 25 [25]
OCR
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. + 23 +
