What do you think?
Rate this book
Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory
This important and much acclaimed book rapidly became a classic on first publication. In it, Bhikhu Parekh shows that the Western tradition of political philosophy has very limited theoretical resources to cope with cultural diversity. He then discusses how it can be revised and what new conceptual tools are needed. The core of the book addresses the important theoretical questions raised by contemporary multicultural society, especially the nature and limits of intercultural equality and fairness, national identity, citizenship, and cross-cultural political discourse. The new second edition includes a substantial additional chapter addressing key issues.
424 pages, Paperback
First published September 11, 2000
14 people are currently reading
188 people want to read
About the author
Bhikhu C. Parekh
48 books14 followersBhikhu Chotalal Parekh is an eminent political theorist in Britain and an active member in the House of Lords. During his tenure, he has contributed immensely towards societal changes that were once a major cause of concern to Britain's culture in the early 70's.
He was born in a small hamlet known as Amalsad in the state of Gujarat to a middle class family. He enrolled into Mumbai University to earn his degree and masters before Bhiku went on to pursue his studies from London School of Economics. He completed his Ph.D. in the year 1966.
He has pioneered many concepts on multiculturalism, collective rights and responsibility and other socio-cultural issues that have influenced the governance in UK. Commonly addressed as Lord Bhiku, he has worked to bring about a noninterventionist and tolerant political view where people of different ethnicities could live in harmony. It was through his ideologies and his unrelenting dedication towards his work that he managed to bring a significant understanding of Indian culture on a global platform. During his lifetime, he has been conferred with a number of awards such as the Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize, Distinguished Global Thinker Award, Padma Bhushan, etc. by many international forums.
He was born in a small hamlet known as Amalsad in the state of Gujarat to a middle class family. He enrolled into Mumbai University to earn his degree and masters before Bhiku went on to pursue his studies from London School of Economics. He completed his Ph.D. in the year 1966.
He has pioneered many concepts on multiculturalism, collective rights and responsibility and other socio-cultural issues that have influenced the governance in UK. Commonly addressed as Lord Bhiku, he has worked to bring about a noninterventionist and tolerant political view where people of different ethnicities could live in harmony. It was through his ideologies and his unrelenting dedication towards his work that he managed to bring a significant understanding of Indian culture on a global platform. During his lifetime, he has been conferred with a number of awards such as the Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize, Distinguished Global Thinker Award, Padma Bhushan, etc. by many international forums.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 28, 2010
By an academic, for academics, using academic argument forms, and with an academics meanness of spirit. Although there's a lot to interest the general reader I had trouble getting past the formulaic "There are n theories of x; all are defective; n+1 is correct and is mine."
Parekh argues that conflicts between subcultures in a society are only resolved in circumstances that allow the cultures to argue according to their own logic, but then assumes throughout the existence of a vague transcendent realm of reason whereby claims can be adjudicated.
I'm reading Kymlicka in search of better exposition.
Parekh argues that conflicts between subcultures in a society are only resolved in circumstances that allow the cultures to argue according to their own logic, but then assumes throughout the existence of a vague transcendent realm of reason whereby claims can be adjudicated.
I'm reading Kymlicka in search of better exposition.
Read
April 5, 2024“During the Second Word War, the British rightly thought that their way of life was worth dying for, not only because it was theirs but also because it represented a great human achievement of universal and permanent value.” P160
Modern society is diverse in various distinct ways. Multiculturalism is concerned specifically with “communal diversity” – which refers to self-conscious and more or less well-organized communities living by their own different systems of beliefs and practices. They include newly arrived immigrants, established communities like Jews or Gypsies, religious communities, and territorial groups such as indigenous peoples, the Quebecois or the Welsh. P3,4
The book falls into three parts. The first is historical and traces two major traditions, naturalism and culturalism respectively. The second part sets out a theory of multiculturalism and the third discusses specific, practical problems of multicultural societies.
Parekh uses the term monism for theories that assume one way of life is the highest or most truly human. In this heading he describes the rationalist monism of Greek philosophy, the theological monism of Christianity and the regulative monism of classical liberalism, exemplified by Locke and Mill. “For the monist, the content of the good life is determined in the light of the central truths about human nature, … because the good lacks an ontological basis unless it is grounded in human nature.” P18 He finds monism inadequate, with the assumption that alternative ways of life can be graded and rank ordered. They view differences as deviations from some common standard, failing to recognise the need to consider alternative ways of life as viable alternatives and lack awareness of the role culture plays in the lives of individuals and whole communities.
He contrasts these with forms of pluralism, for which he describes the work of Vico, Montesquieu, Herder and Montaigne. Despite their merits and influence, he feels it is a mistake to visualise cultures as discrete and internally complete, each community sealed in its own cultural space, fearful of change and of external influence. unable to develop with time.
He then considers more recent political philosophers who have attempted to incorporate a better awareness of the role played by culture and the evident cultural diversity of modern societies, with discussion of John Rawls, Joseph Raz and Will Kymlicka. He is sharply critical of their ideas and thinks they share common deficiencies. They remain wedded to the conviction that diverse cultures express or satisfy the same, universal human nature, so that they can be rank ordered, and they habitually classify them as liberal and non-liberal. Some confront non-liberals with a “full-blooded liberal vision” and attack them for failing to measure up to it. Others insist upon a minimum set of liberal values which can be demanded of non-liberals without violating their moral autonomy, not noticing that if these values do have the universal status claimed for them then they are not specifically liberal values.
Moving into more theoretical terrain, Parekh critiques the concept of human nature and the implications we attempt to construct from this concept. He is deeply critical of the notion that we can demonstrate universal rather than diverse values, or a unified scale by which to rank societies and cultures.
“Since human beings are culture creating and capable of creative self-transformation, they cannot possibly inherit a shared nature in the same way that animals do.” P122.
“Human worth is not a natural property, like eyes and ears, but something we confer upon ourselves and hence a moral practice. Since human beings have worth, it extends to all that they deeply value and to which their sense of worth is inextricably ties. This is why we rightly confer value on objects of art, culture and religious communities, pet animals, rare manuscripts and ancient buildings, and consider then worth preserving even, sometimes, at the cost of human life.” P130
Culture is then explored. “The beliefs or views human beings form about the meaning and significance of human life and its activities and relationships shape the practices in terms of which they structure and regulate their individual and collective lives. I shall use the term culture to refer to such a system of beliefs and practices… It is a way of both understanding and organizing human life.” P142 “The cultural embeddedness of morality is evident in the way in which the customs, ceremonies and rituals of a culture embody and give meaning to its moral values.” p145 Culture and religion also tend to be closely related. (“Christ may be divine, but Christianity is a cultural phenomenon.” P147). Every culture is internally varied and since culture develops over time, there will be both residual (historical) and emergent (often dissident) strands. (p144) "They do not have a single overarching Herderian spirit of Montesquieuean principle which an outsider can use to individuate and define them. Their identity is complex and diffused, cannot be summed up in a neat set of propositions, and can only be grasped by a deep and intimate familiarity with them.” P149
“Some individuals are culturally footloose, owing loyalty to no single culture… In some but by no means all postmodernist literature, there is a tendency to romanticize this approach to culture, based on the mistaken belief that all boundaries are reactionary and crippling and their transgression a symbol of creativity and freedom. Boundaries structure our lives, give us a sense of rootedness and identity, and provide a point of reference. ... Since they tend to become restrictive, we need to challenge and stretch them, but we cannot reject them altogether for then we have no points of reference with which to define ourselves and decide what differences to cultivate and why. A nomadic cultural voyager, driven by a morbid fear of anything that is coherent, stable, has history and involves discipline and delighting in difference for its own sake, has no basis to decide which boundaries to transgress, why, what new world to build out of such acts of transgression and which differences do really make a difference. As Hegel showed in his analysis of the French Revolution, culturally unbounded and unguided freedom, the culture of the pure will, destroys both itself and the world around it. (pp150, 151)
“A cultural community performs a role in human life that a voluntary association cannot. It gives its members a sense of rootedness, existential stability, the feeling of belonging to an ongoing community of ancient and misty origins, and ease of communication. And it does all this only because it is not a conscious human creation and one’s membership of it is neither a matter of choice nor can be easily terminated by oneself or others. … Both cultural communities and voluntary associations have their proper places in life, and the recurrent liberal tendency to reduce the former to the latter must be resisted.” p162
It is useful to keep in mind that the nation state is a modern, European innovation. (A key date in its development is surely the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia.) “In many earlier polities, individuals had multiple identities, for example ethnic, religious, social and territorial, since some of these identities cut across territorial boundaries, individuals remained relatively free to cross these for social, religious and other purposes. The identities and concomitant loyalties were accepted as an inescapable feature of social life and regarded as independent sources or tights and duties, that limited the government’s authority. The modern state is almost unique in privileging territorial identity. … Unlike premodern polities which were embedded in and composed of such communities as castes, clans, tribes and ethnic groups, it has increasingly come to be defined as an association of individuals. … To be a citizen is to transcend one’s ethnic, religious and other particularities and to think and act as a member of a political community. " p181
To illustrate the need and some possible way to refine this model of the unitary state, Parekh discusses the Canadian debates over French Quebec and the attempts to recognise various minorities in the constitution of India. He goes on to review different models for a multicultural state, pointing out that diversity is simply unavoidable and complete assimilation is practically unattainable, logically incoherent (there can never be an entirely homogeneous society), and on examination also undesirable. “Paradoxical as it may seem, the greater and deeper the diversity in a society, the greater the unity and cohesion it requires to hold itself together and nurture its diversity. A weakly held society feels threatened by differences and lacks the confidence and the willingness to welcome and live with them.” P196
The task of constructing a successful multicultural society, however, throws up a whole range of challenges, and much of the book wrestles with the political problems and choices arising. Some real examples are discussed very thoughtfully, such as the Satanic Verses controversy, but Parekh is not a sociologist and approaches his subject almost in the form of thought experiments. Most of the material remains abstract and analytical. For someone interested in shaping policy decisions in Britain or other Western democracies, this approach is constructive, and the book would also supply ample material for the sort of panel discussions and audience participation beloved of our media.
The book shows its age, being published in 2000 and reissued in 2006. The issues seem to have a much harder edge in 2024. On the one hand, the possibility of a successful multicultural politics will seem to many to have become more remote. On the other hand, the importance of recognizing and addressing the challenge has never been greater. Authoritarian and often violent approaches to cultural conflicts seem more prevalent and more influential. At the same time, it seems obvious at least to myself that multiculturalism has little to gain from the postmodern identity politics of the current left. That leaves a dangerous gap in our political market-place, which would be better served if we could pay more attention to thinkers like Bhikku Parekh.
Modern society is diverse in various distinct ways. Multiculturalism is concerned specifically with “communal diversity” – which refers to self-conscious and more or less well-organized communities living by their own different systems of beliefs and practices. They include newly arrived immigrants, established communities like Jews or Gypsies, religious communities, and territorial groups such as indigenous peoples, the Quebecois or the Welsh. P3,4
The book falls into three parts. The first is historical and traces two major traditions, naturalism and culturalism respectively. The second part sets out a theory of multiculturalism and the third discusses specific, practical problems of multicultural societies.
Parekh uses the term monism for theories that assume one way of life is the highest or most truly human. In this heading he describes the rationalist monism of Greek philosophy, the theological monism of Christianity and the regulative monism of classical liberalism, exemplified by Locke and Mill. “For the monist, the content of the good life is determined in the light of the central truths about human nature, … because the good lacks an ontological basis unless it is grounded in human nature.” P18 He finds monism inadequate, with the assumption that alternative ways of life can be graded and rank ordered. They view differences as deviations from some common standard, failing to recognise the need to consider alternative ways of life as viable alternatives and lack awareness of the role culture plays in the lives of individuals and whole communities.
He contrasts these with forms of pluralism, for which he describes the work of Vico, Montesquieu, Herder and Montaigne. Despite their merits and influence, he feels it is a mistake to visualise cultures as discrete and internally complete, each community sealed in its own cultural space, fearful of change and of external influence. unable to develop with time.
He then considers more recent political philosophers who have attempted to incorporate a better awareness of the role played by culture and the evident cultural diversity of modern societies, with discussion of John Rawls, Joseph Raz and Will Kymlicka. He is sharply critical of their ideas and thinks they share common deficiencies. They remain wedded to the conviction that diverse cultures express or satisfy the same, universal human nature, so that they can be rank ordered, and they habitually classify them as liberal and non-liberal. Some confront non-liberals with a “full-blooded liberal vision” and attack them for failing to measure up to it. Others insist upon a minimum set of liberal values which can be demanded of non-liberals without violating their moral autonomy, not noticing that if these values do have the universal status claimed for them then they are not specifically liberal values.
Moving into more theoretical terrain, Parekh critiques the concept of human nature and the implications we attempt to construct from this concept. He is deeply critical of the notion that we can demonstrate universal rather than diverse values, or a unified scale by which to rank societies and cultures.
“Since human beings are culture creating and capable of creative self-transformation, they cannot possibly inherit a shared nature in the same way that animals do.” P122.
“Human worth is not a natural property, like eyes and ears, but something we confer upon ourselves and hence a moral practice. Since human beings have worth, it extends to all that they deeply value and to which their sense of worth is inextricably ties. This is why we rightly confer value on objects of art, culture and religious communities, pet animals, rare manuscripts and ancient buildings, and consider then worth preserving even, sometimes, at the cost of human life.” P130
Culture is then explored. “The beliefs or views human beings form about the meaning and significance of human life and its activities and relationships shape the practices in terms of which they structure and regulate their individual and collective lives. I shall use the term culture to refer to such a system of beliefs and practices… It is a way of both understanding and organizing human life.” P142 “The cultural embeddedness of morality is evident in the way in which the customs, ceremonies and rituals of a culture embody and give meaning to its moral values.” p145 Culture and religion also tend to be closely related. (“Christ may be divine, but Christianity is a cultural phenomenon.” P147). Every culture is internally varied and since culture develops over time, there will be both residual (historical) and emergent (often dissident) strands. (p144) "They do not have a single overarching Herderian spirit of Montesquieuean principle which an outsider can use to individuate and define them. Their identity is complex and diffused, cannot be summed up in a neat set of propositions, and can only be grasped by a deep and intimate familiarity with them.” P149
“Some individuals are culturally footloose, owing loyalty to no single culture… In some but by no means all postmodernist literature, there is a tendency to romanticize this approach to culture, based on the mistaken belief that all boundaries are reactionary and crippling and their transgression a symbol of creativity and freedom. Boundaries structure our lives, give us a sense of rootedness and identity, and provide a point of reference. ... Since they tend to become restrictive, we need to challenge and stretch them, but we cannot reject them altogether for then we have no points of reference with which to define ourselves and decide what differences to cultivate and why. A nomadic cultural voyager, driven by a morbid fear of anything that is coherent, stable, has history and involves discipline and delighting in difference for its own sake, has no basis to decide which boundaries to transgress, why, what new world to build out of such acts of transgression and which differences do really make a difference. As Hegel showed in his analysis of the French Revolution, culturally unbounded and unguided freedom, the culture of the pure will, destroys both itself and the world around it. (pp150, 151)
“A cultural community performs a role in human life that a voluntary association cannot. It gives its members a sense of rootedness, existential stability, the feeling of belonging to an ongoing community of ancient and misty origins, and ease of communication. And it does all this only because it is not a conscious human creation and one’s membership of it is neither a matter of choice nor can be easily terminated by oneself or others. … Both cultural communities and voluntary associations have their proper places in life, and the recurrent liberal tendency to reduce the former to the latter must be resisted.” p162
It is useful to keep in mind that the nation state is a modern, European innovation. (A key date in its development is surely the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia.) “In many earlier polities, individuals had multiple identities, for example ethnic, religious, social and territorial, since some of these identities cut across territorial boundaries, individuals remained relatively free to cross these for social, religious and other purposes. The identities and concomitant loyalties were accepted as an inescapable feature of social life and regarded as independent sources or tights and duties, that limited the government’s authority. The modern state is almost unique in privileging territorial identity. … Unlike premodern polities which were embedded in and composed of such communities as castes, clans, tribes and ethnic groups, it has increasingly come to be defined as an association of individuals. … To be a citizen is to transcend one’s ethnic, religious and other particularities and to think and act as a member of a political community. " p181
To illustrate the need and some possible way to refine this model of the unitary state, Parekh discusses the Canadian debates over French Quebec and the attempts to recognise various minorities in the constitution of India. He goes on to review different models for a multicultural state, pointing out that diversity is simply unavoidable and complete assimilation is practically unattainable, logically incoherent (there can never be an entirely homogeneous society), and on examination also undesirable. “Paradoxical as it may seem, the greater and deeper the diversity in a society, the greater the unity and cohesion it requires to hold itself together and nurture its diversity. A weakly held society feels threatened by differences and lacks the confidence and the willingness to welcome and live with them.” P196
The task of constructing a successful multicultural society, however, throws up a whole range of challenges, and much of the book wrestles with the political problems and choices arising. Some real examples are discussed very thoughtfully, such as the Satanic Verses controversy, but Parekh is not a sociologist and approaches his subject almost in the form of thought experiments. Most of the material remains abstract and analytical. For someone interested in shaping policy decisions in Britain or other Western democracies, this approach is constructive, and the book would also supply ample material for the sort of panel discussions and audience participation beloved of our media.
The book shows its age, being published in 2000 and reissued in 2006. The issues seem to have a much harder edge in 2024. On the one hand, the possibility of a successful multicultural politics will seem to many to have become more remote. On the other hand, the importance of recognizing and addressing the challenge has never been greater. Authoritarian and often violent approaches to cultural conflicts seem more prevalent and more influential. At the same time, it seems obvious at least to myself that multiculturalism has little to gain from the postmodern identity politics of the current left. That leaves a dangerous gap in our political market-place, which would be better served if we could pay more attention to thinkers like Bhikku Parekh.
September 26, 2019
Buku yang lumayan untuk membuka perspektif luas akan multikulturalisme serta dalam memandang sudut budaya liberalisme dsb yang dangkal dalam banyak sisi, tetapi ada yang sedikit menohok yang mungkin saya perlu kritisi pada poin halaman 201 yang isinya begini:
",karena agama tidak pernah meliputi semua bidang kehidupan manusia dan mengantisipasi segala situasi."
Dalam hal ini apakah perspektif penulis sudah berpandangan "Liyan" akan syarat agama maupun tradisi dari persepektif nya orabg Islam secara komplementer.
",karena agama tidak pernah meliputi semua bidang kehidupan manusia dan mengantisipasi segala situasi."
Dalam hal ini apakah perspektif penulis sudah berpandangan "Liyan" akan syarat agama maupun tradisi dari persepektif nya orabg Islam secara komplementer.
March 12, 2022
yüksek lisans derslerimden birinde belirli chapter'ları okumuştum, ama bütünen okumak çok daha faydalı oldu.
türkçe'ye de çevrilmişti, ona da bakılabilir.
türkçe'ye de çevrilmişti, ona da bakılabilir.
April 17, 2024
Sure it has really good points and theories a, but it gave me a headache. Or maybe the class I had to read it for did, can't remember
June 8, 2016
maybe somewhat difficult to read if you are new to the topic but priceless analysis of modern Indian philosophical tradition.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews