Multiculturalism vs Assimilation; another option?

[Die Rote Fahne]

I used to be a staunch supporter of Multiculturalism.

But I also recognize that assimilation has much support.

Which corresponds with Marxist thought? Or is their another option that corresponds?

[#FF0000]

If there was no multiculturalism and if everyone assimilated completely to the culture of their new community, then how would I have ever found out about hummus, sushi, and grape leaves?

[Fulanito de Tal]

Multiculturalism celebrates ethnic diversity. It posits that people come from diverse backgrounds and that we should work together while respecting each others values. It allows for people to keep their ethnic identity.

Acculturation is when people with non-dominant ethnic identities leave/change their ethnicity to match the dominant ethnicity. An obvious example of this is the acculturation of white immigrants in the US. Typically, within 2 generations, descendants of white immigrants acculturate to the dominant culture. This provides them with more privilege than if they would have kept their original culture.

I believe multiculturalism is more functional. All cultures have their advantages and disadvantages. What may be a disadvantage in one culture, may be better tackled through the application of the norms and values of another culture. Hence, people from different cultures can learn from each other. Acculturation posits that only the dominant culture is acceptable. This leaves much room for disadvantages to exploit the lack of other methods of addressing phenomenon. Therefore, it is not as resilient.

Lastly, multiculturalism is much more aesthetically pleasing. Imagine a world with art from only one culture. How boring.

[Die Rote Fahne]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interculturalism

This idea has been brought to my attention and I like it. The idea of a common civic culture, not necessarily the dominant majority culture, but one that focuses on freedom, liberty and respecting human rights.

This is also another option:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitanism

My issue with multiculturalism is that, while it allows for all cultures to distinctly represent itself, it allows for an open divide of ethnicity. That, while they are Canadians, they are Indo-Canadians, they are Chinese-Canadians. This distinction, I think, is antithetical to Marxian thought that a worker is a worker is a worker. Not an african-canadian worker, not an indo-canadian worker and not a french-canadian worker.

It all comes back to my idea of nationalism and patriotism being a hindrance. Supporting the idea that just because you look different, because you have a different language, because you were born and raised elsewhere, that you are somehow distinctly different from me or another person. It creates that divide among workers, not just internationally, but also within the nation and within the provinces/states.

I think it should be important to teach the majority language to all people's. It should not cost the new immigrants anything to learn it.

Personally, I don't see it as advantageous to have "china town's" and "little Italy's". It's essentially choosing to segregate from wider society, instead of adding to it. Am I wrong here?

While, yes, I understand that immigrants want to keep their culture, their heritage, because they came here not to be like us necessarily, but to escape a regime which is threatening them, or some other reason. I wish to do this in a way that prevents worker division, that prevents promotion of nationalism and racial difference, and allows for them to function as any Quebecer, any Newfoundlander, any British Columbian, or any Canadian would function within the wider society of their province and country.

My apologies for being incoherent, I'm fairly tired at the moment. I may be wrong here. So please, tell me.

[red cat]

We want to terminate unequal development. Culturally, assimilation is opposed to this. With equal development and the termination of national boundaries, the natural consequence would be amalgamation, not assimilation. At present, the best way to support this culturally is to support multiculturalism.

I appreciate your concept of uniting the working class, but the working class itself is not developed equally, and it would be something of a cultural-imperialist stand to try to "integrate" the most underdeveloped communities to the dominant culture. Rather the more privileged sections of the working class should respect the efforts of cultural minorities to uphold and preserve their cultures. Amalgamation will be automatic when everyone has equal rights.

[hatzel]

I don't think it's accurate, as it is often claimed, that multiculturalism means the simultaneous existence of multiple, distinct, segregated, communities who end up as rival factions. Or, factions which refuse to interact with those members of other communities. Hence I'm critical of something like interculturalism, in attempting to 'merge' the cultures, though I consider it superior to assimilation. Still, I consider interculturalism to effectively be synonymous with assimilation, in its naturally occurring form. As #FF0000 pointed out in his trademark way, the majority culture in cosmopolitan cities isn't some 'pure' traditional culture, but one that has already adopted various elements from the minority cultures around it. That is to say, if there are plenty of Middle Eastern immigrants in a city selling falafel, or Malians playing their traditional 'blues', chances are these elements of the foreign culture, that is to say, the most attractive elements, will be implemented into the new 'city culture'.

Personally, I can't envisage a situation where 'pure' interculturalism could operate. In a city / country with 95% of people from culture A, and 5% from culture B, it doesn't seem at all feasible to expect their shared culture to end up 50% A and 50% B, for example. The only realistic result of interculturalism will be for culture A to freely adopt those elements of culture B they themselves find attractive, and for the minority to then assimilate into this 'new' culture A. A very similar situation would however result from assimilation, as it could never operate so efficiently that all elements of the minority culture would be dropped, and that those attractive ones wouldn't be adopted by the majority beforehand, creating the culture to assimilate into. For me, although they are different proposals in theory, in practice it's one and the same thing.

As said, multiculturalism doesn't necessarily involve the creation of rival factions, divided along cultural lines. I admit that it creates a very obvious difference between communities, which could be of benefit to discriminatory...types, but this is far more likely to realise itself primarily as majority discrimination against the minority/ies, which is much better approached by education (as has been the case for generations) rather than trying to level the differences. As it turns out, there is unity between the cultural groups, particularly amongst different minority groups, in issues that concern the common good. We can see that this has, historically, been a rather prominent trend; minority groups often feel a stronger connection to each other, across cultural boundaries, than they do to the majority culture, usually as a result of discrimination from the majority. Even in cases where discrimination is not widespread, however, where minorities happily coexist with the majority, the minorities have a tendency of standing together (at least) in times of necessity. One can look at the historical close relationship between the Jews and the Roma in previous centuries as an example of this.

These other systems seem to concern themselves with creating a unified national culture, which is unfortunately somewhat similar to the intentions of national romanticism. Although they're different in the details, and perhaps in the order of operation, the end results seem to be the same, to justify the existence of a given state and ensure stability and loyalty within it by creating a single culture, for the people to adhere to and associate with. If we are truly to embrace the free movement of people, cosmopolitan 'citizen of the world' type stuff, then these ideas must be done away with. All of these other systems have the unfortunate result of asserting that there is a particular culture that should be tied to a particular area; even if that culture is a fusion culture intended to represent the people best, it still remains that immigrants are thrust forth into a foreign culture, which they will have to adapt to.

In truth, the link between culture and geographical location should be broken, and the only way to do this is through complete multiculturalism, that is to say, that each person / group should be equally free to adhere to any culture, irrespective of where they live. A German community who moves to France should not be coerced into becoming French, as a French community who moves to German should be free to retain their distinct Frenchness; if they themselves wish to adopt the surrounding culture (I'm reluctant to talk about majority cultures, as this is reliant on our assuming that the world can be cut into sections, probably countries, in which one culture can be classed as the majority), then they should of course be allowed to do that, but they should not be coerced into doing so. This includes coercion through seduction, by allowing one cultural group to have an inherently beneficial position in society.

[Die Neue Zeit]

From what Hailtothethief pointed out, interculturalism's first basis is requiring ethnic minorities to speak the majority language. In Quebec, anglophone whites and ethnic minorities have to speak French.

That's quite different from the so-called American "melting pot" (anything but) or Russification in the Soviet era.

[Gorilla]

One of the things that Stalin found as Commissar of Nationalities (I'll track down the letter on MIA if I have the time) was that as Bolshevik policy brought literacy and economic development to a wider range of people, all sorts of new peoples started making themselves known. So on top of Georgians, Armenians, Abkhazians, and Azerbaijanis, they were now dealing with Mingrelians, Nogais, Kumyks, two kinds of Ossetians, etc. etc. - populations who had once just been "those people in the village down there who speak backwards" now started to develop their own literature and demand their own schools, cultural foundations etc.

What he found was the very opposite of Kautsky's prediction that all languages would merge into one under socialism. I think it's one of Stalin's geniunely interesting theoretical insights (shame he didn't retire to become a professor of ethnolinguistics).

EDIT: Here we go, it's from "The National Question and Leninism" (a much more interesting work than "Marxism and the National Question"):


Some people (Kautsky, for instance) talk of the creation of a single universal language and the dying away of all other languages in the period of socialism. I have little faith in this theory of a single, all-embracing language. Experience, at any rate, speaks against rather than for such a theory. Until now what has happened has been that the socialist revolution has not diminished but rather increased the number of languages; for, by stirring up the lowest sections of humanity and pushing them on to the political arena, it awakens to new life a number of hitherto unknown or little-known nationalities. Who could have imagined that the old, tsarist Russia consisted of not less than fifty nations and national groups? The October Revolution, however, by breaking the old chains and bringing a number of forgotten peoples and nationalities on to the scene, gave them new life and a new development.http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1929/03/18.htm

[El Chuncho]

I support the right for a base culture in regions, but I am a ''fan'' of multiculturalism; it is a sign of diversity and a sign that people can live together despite the differences. I detest monoculturalism because it is boring, if there was monoculturalism I wouldn't be able to find something new in cultures other than my eyes.

[Dimentio]

I think that diversity in humanity is as important as biodiversity in nature. All cultures, languages and subcultures are valuable.

Some behaviours though, are reactionary, and should be fought either by opinion pressure or by outright bans (female genital mutilations, racist discrimination, abduction of females to forced marriages, lynching). Such behaviours are not a part of a culture, but means to control people.

[unfriendly]

Before I say anything here I'd like to acknowledge that I have white privilege, and while I've made every effort to check it, the fact that I am white does change the way I relate to what I'm talking about here.


My issue with multiculturalism is that, while it allows for all cultures to distinctly represent itself, it allows for an open divide of ethnicity. That, while they are Canadians, they are Indo-Canadians, they are Chinese-Canadians. This distinction, I think, is antithetical to Marxian thought that a worker is a worker is a worker. Not an african-canadian worker, not an indo-canadian worker and not a french-canadian worker.

I don't know about you, but I have plenty of friends of different nationalities who I coexist peacefully with, and even cooperate with for various goals. If, on the other hand, I were to start insisting that they drop their cultural practices and identities and assimilate into a culture that, by the way, just so happens to value my language, dialect, skin color, etc, over theirs, I think that would potentially cause some difficulties in our friendship.


I think it should be important to teach the majority language to all people's. It should not cost the new immigrants anything to learn it.

Personally, I don't see it as advantageous to have "china town's" and "little Italy's". It's essentially choosing to segregate from wider society, instead of adding to it. Am I wrong here?

It's really patronizing of you to assume that everyone wants or needs to learn the "majority language." The problem with you saying this is that the "majority language" just so happens to be yours. I'm sure you think you're advocating some great thing by saying that everyone should have free access to drop everything and learn a new language, but really it's just a really privileged and arrogant thing to say, as if everyone wants to be like you.

I don't disagree with the statement that courses in the "majority language" should be free. I just disagree with you saying it while also toting the "benefits" of cultural assimilation.

As for why you don't see it as advantageous for people of a culture to live together, that's because it's not all about your presumably white ass. Choosing to segregate from "wider" (whiter) society is a perfectly legitimate thing to do. There are groups of people I try not to go out of my way to spend a whole lot of time with either, because they oppress me.


While, yes, I understand that immigrants want to keep their culture, their heritage, because they came here not to be like us necessarily, but to escape a regime which is threatening them, or some other reason. I wish to do this in a way that prevents worker division, that prevents promotion of nationalism and racial difference, and allows for them to function as any Quebecer, any Newfoundlander, any British Columbian, or any Canadian would function within the wider society of their province and country.

Well, like I said, if I were to start insisting that my friends of other nationalities drop their culture, language, identities, etc, that would probably agitate some tensions between us. The destruction of other cultures is genocide, so if you want to avoid causing worker divisions you might want to start by not entertaining a conversation about the merits of genocide.

Your assumption that they want to or should function in the same way as any QuebecOIS, Newfoundlander, or whatever other kind of white person you're talking about, is exactly the problem here. Maybe they don't want to and that's to be celebrated. Not everyone has to be like you.

[Fulanito de Tal]

Cultural competence is the ability to have effective interactions between people of different ethnicities. Unfriendly has demonstrated some cultural competence in the post above by acknowledging her or his ethnicity as the lens used to view the world.

It's something that would could spend resources on in order to keep ethnic diversity instead of focusing on acculturating people.