Are We Talking Past Each Other on Multiculturalism?

Definitions and dichotomies. Part 2 of 4.

Photo by jean wimmerlin on Unsplash

(Audio version here)

In the introductory part of this series, an account of an exchange between investigative journalist, Jessica Parker, and conservative Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) supporter, Celina Brychcy, led me to think about ways in which we are prone to speaking past each other in our political discourse. Specifically, I am thinking about problems for communication that can arise when it comes to the different ways in which we understand and define issues of importance and the ways we can present them as stark ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ dichotomies, thus shutting down more granular and nuanced discussion of specifics on which we might find we have more common ground than we think.

One of those issues is multiculturalism and the exchange between Parker and Brychcy made me wonder if, when those who are more culturally progressive and those who are more culturally conservative discuss this, they are often talking about different things. The framing we often hear is one of “Are you for or against multiculturalism?” Does this present a false dichotomy that can get in the way of people with a wide range of positive and negative views - that can all be well-reasoned and principled - discussing specific issues that need to be discussed specifically? Does it help push people into blanket polarising ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ stances where we no longer hear each other?

I think it does and that this presents a problem because the issue of immigration is a primary cause of political polarisation, particularly in the UK and Europe. Very many Britons, who are not virulent racists and xenophobes, find that their valid concerns about ineffective immigration policy to address the increasing number of people arriving on small boats and process their claims for asylum quickly and according to high standards of evidence are dismissed as racist or xenophobic. Even more so are concerns about the cultural incompatibility of the beliefs and values of some arrivals from cultures which do poorly on women’s rights, the rights of sexual and religious minorities (especially Jews) and freedom of belief and speech which includes the right to criticise religion, even in strong terms with the values of liberal democracies. Islam is a particular concern here.

There are also many Britons, who are not identitarian ‘woke’ cultural relativists, who feel that some rhetoric about immigration and culture clash operates as a front for genuinely racist and anti-Muslim sentiment, impacting not only immigrants but black, brown and Muslim Brits who already live here and do so in ways that are entirely compatible with the values of a liberal democracy and are an asset to society. They fear the rise of ethnonationalist sentiment that correlates with other extreme right-wing positions and has very little to do with protecting the rights of women, same-sex attracted people and religious minorities (especially Jews) and is, in fact, hostile to those itself.

It is, of course, quite possible to both have valid concerns about inefficient immigration policies and the need to conserve the values of liberal democracy and be able to speak openly about beliefs and values held by members of some cultural subgroups that are hostile to that and oppose ethnonationalist and extreme right-wing views which are also hostile to those values at the same time. It is liberals on the left, right and centre who typically do have both concerns and defend the right of people to be able to discuss them. because we ultimately seek to uphold the liberal principles that our democracies rely upon and oppose illiberal threats to them whether they come from without or within those societies. We are therefore unlikely to have any tolerance for illiberal cultural or religious values such as those espoused by Islamists and oppose welcoming people who hold them and intend to live by them into our country. We are also likely to be opposed to people who wish to skip over the beliefs and values held by individuals entirely and evaluate people who wish to migrate here as well as people who already live here based on their skin colour or religious background (as distinct from their personally held beliefs). (More on this here)

It must be acknowledged that impediments to having these conversations in the UK have for many years, and under both Conservative and Labour governments, been more strongly imposed on those with concerns about immigration and culture clashes than on those concerned about ethnonationalism and far-right misogynistic and homophobic views. (Antisemitism is way more complicated). However, police overreach into people’s speech has also, at times, impacted those with ‘woke” allegedly anti-racist’ views and is a complex legal and institutional problem. On a cultural level, upon which we can all have some degree of small influence by the way we choose to understand and speak to each other, how can we get past the problems caused by different definitions and dichotomous thinking?

Currently, the concept of “multiculturalism” is so widely and varyingly defined as to be almost meaningless. It can be used to refer to people of different races or with different national, cultural or religious backgrounds coexisting and cooperating, integrated into a larger shared sense of national identity and commitment to liberal democratic values, while expanding the range of cuisine, music and fashion for the enjoyment of everybody. It can also be used to refer to the siloing off of people into different racial, national, cultural or religious communities with radically different values, some of them illiberal, characterised by intergroup hostility and intolerance and a rejection of the idea that recent arrivals to a country have any responsibility to coexist and cooperate with those already living there, integrate into the existing culture or feel any loyalty or commitment to the country.

Given how widely this concept can be defined and that only far-right identitarians (religious or ethnic nationalists) take issue with the first one while only radical elements of illiberal subcultural communities and far-left identitarians can see anything positive in the second, people discussing whether multiculturalism is a good thing or not frequently talk past each other. Many on the identitarian far-left have been known to engage in Motte and Bailey fallacies in which they paint anybody raising issues associated with illiberal subcultures - e.g., Islamists - as a problem for multiculturalism as objecting to people with varying skin shades and different religions existing in a country. Meanwhile, many on the identitarian far-right have been known to respond to those of us who don’t associate national identity with skin colour, believe a variety of religious views can co-exist in a society provided it has a strong secular framework and positively enjoy the variety of food, music, art, ideas and stories that results from multicultural input as though we are proposing the implementation of Sharia Law.

Most people, however, do not take such extreme views, and have a wide range of views on the positive and negative impacts of immigration that fall within the realms of ‘reasonable and evidence-based’ whether their conclusions on the subject are largely positive or negative. I think asking people whether they accept or reject multiculturalism presents a false dichotomy when most people’s considered answer if given time to set it out would be covered by, “I think these manifestations of multiculturalism are good and these other ones are bad.” This matters because specific manifestations are precisely what we need to be able to discuss with some degree of granularity rather than feel compelled to take a blanket “pro” or “anti” stance if we wish to address issues in a way that can generate solutions rather than escalate polarising and totalising narratives.

The increasing tendency of many to feel that they must take an absolutist ‘side’ and thus buy into such narratives should be a matter of some concern to liberals. Liberalism is the guiding principle which supports enabling well-reasoned and strong ‘for’ and ‘against’ arguments to be presented on any issue and opposes emotionally-driven narratives which seek to gain cultural dominance by eschewing reasoned argument altogether and designating dissenters as bad people. We take a long-term view of the benefits of a robust marketplace of ideas in which a wide variety of views that are well-reasoned and well-evidenced can be expressed as they really are and evaluated as they really are, enabling productive and balanced public conversations to happen which influence culture and thus politics. Some people are inclined to undervalue this approach and think that it advocates talking about things rather than doing things. This is an error. Unless one is a policy-maker, we are all talking about things and trying to influence public opinion and thus the policies that are made. We can choose to talk about issues in a reasoned, evidenced and granular way that addresses material realities that impact society specifically and try to understand the views of others as they really are or we can choose to buy into totalising narratives and call everybody who disagrees with any aspect of them a Nazi or a destroyer of Western civilisation. I think the former is both more ethical and more effective.

Anything that presses people to take a blanket “pro” or “anti” stance on a complex social issue like multiculturalism both stands in the way of this process of thinking and evaluating and pushes people into more extreme and polarised blanket positions. I recommend that we all try to address specific issues specifically and ask more specific questions that enable a more thoughtful and considered response, and address those responses as they really are. If pressed on whether we are pro or anti multiculturalism, we can decline to take a radical, absolutist stance on the grounds that doing so signals ourselves to be either an ethnonationalist who wishes to kick out all black and brown people or a cultural relativist who cannot say that a culture that enables same-sex couples to marry is better than one that throws them off high buildings.