Amy Gutmann’s Introduction to Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition

1. Amy Gutmann’s Introduction toMulticulturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition “it is hard to find a democratic or democratizing society these days that is not the site of some significant controversy over whether and how its public institutions should better recognize the identities of cultural and disadvantaged minorities.” -Amy Gutmann, Introduction, Multiculturalism, p. 3 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

2. “what precisely are the moral limits on the legitimate demand for political recognition of particular cultures? Questions concerning whether and how cultural groups should be recognized in politics are among the most salient and vexing on the political agenda of many democratic and democratizing societies today.” -Amy Gutmann, Introduction, Multiculturalism, p. 5 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

3. “The anti-Rousseauean demand to be publicly recognized for one’s particularity is also as understandable as it is problematic and controversial.” -Amy Gutmann, Introduction, Multiculturalism, p. 7 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

4. “The demand for recognition, animated by the ideal of human dignity, points in at least two directions, both to the protection of the basic rights of individuals as human beings and to the acknowledgement of the particular needs of individuals as members of specific cultural groups.” -Amy Gutmann, Introduction, Multiculturalism, p. 8 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

5. Arnie Levin, The New Yorker, 18 December 1995 In Hell there are two caves, one “individual” and one “corporate.” Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

6. “Treat all people as free and equal beings.” “But there are two plausible and historically influential interpretations of this principle.” • Liberalism 1: “One perspective requires political neutrality among the diverse and often conflicting conceptions of the good life held by citizens of a pluralistic society.” • Liberalism 2: “The second liberal democratic perspective, also universalistic, does not insist on neutrality…but rather permits public institutions to further particular cultural values…” -Amy Gutmann, Introduction, Multiculturalism, p. 10 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

7. Cultural: nomothetic & idiographic perspectives A nomothetic understanding of culture speaks to what is morally universal subsuming identity politics to a normative neutrality towards all idiographic claims. An idiographic understanding of culture seeks to balance normative neutrality and universalism with diverse identity claims and a morality that may be more sensitive to local realities. Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

8. Whose culture? Which culture?Avoiding “dichotomic” thinking Is this an “either/or” dichotomy or a “both/and” conjunction? Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

9. “essentialism” “Here is Hutchins (John Maynard Hutchins) succinct formulation: ‘Education implies teaching. Teaching implies knowledge. Knowledge is truth. The truth is everywhere the same. Hence education should be everywhere the same.’” -John Maynard Hutchings in The Higher Learning in America, quoted in Gutmann, Introduction, Multiculturalism, p. 16 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

10. “deconstruction” “Although deconstructionists do not deny the possibility of shared standards, they view common standards as masks for the will to political power of dominant, hegemonic groups.” -Amy Gutmann, Introduction, Multiculturalism, p. 18 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

11. toleration & respect “we can distinguish between tolerating and respecting differences. Toleration extends to the widest range of views, so long as they stop short of threats and other direct and discernible harms to individuals. Respect is far more discriminating. Although we need not agree with a position to respect it, we must understand it as reflecting a moral point of view.” -Amy Gutmann, Introduction, Multiculturalism, p. 22 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

12. disagreements, democracy & deliberation “Respectable moral disagreements…call for deliberation, not denunciation. The moral promise of multiculturalism depends on the exercise of these deliberative virtues.” -Amy Gutmann, Introduction, Multiculturalism, p.23-4 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

13. Conversation as a model for inquiryListening to Michael Oakeshott “In conversation, ‛facts’ appear only to be resolved once more into the possibilities from which they were made; ‛certainties’ are shown to be combustible, not by being brought in contact with other ‛certainties’ or with doubts, but by being kindled by the presence of ideas of another order; approximations are revealed between notions normally remote from one another . . .” Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

14. Conversation & difference “Conversation is not an enterprise designed to yield an extrinsic profit, a contest where a winner gets a prize, nor is it an activity of exegesis; it is an unrehearsed intellectual adventure . . . . Properly speaking, it is impossible in the absence of a diversity of voices: in it different universes of discourse meet, acknowledge each other and enjoy an oblique relationship which neither requires nor forecasts their being assimilated to one another.” -Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, pp. 177-9 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa