Claude L è vi-Strauss & Clifford Geertz in Debate

Claude Lèvi-Strauss & Clifford Geertz in Debate Ethnocentrism Versus A Plea for Empathetic Imagination Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

Saul Steinberg – ethnocentrism visualized Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

Claude Lèvi-StraussThe Future of Ethnocentrism “I had challenged a catechism….I rebelled against the abuse of language by which people tend more and more to confuse racism…with attitudes that are normal, even legitimate, and in any case, unavoidable.” -Claude Lèvi-Strauss inClifford Geertz, “The Uses of Diversity,”p. 254 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

An existential paradox: ethnocentrism  diversity “diversity results from the desire of each culture to resist the cultures surrounding it, to distinguish itself from them – in short, to be itself....in order not to perish, they [cultures] must, in other connections, remain somewhat impermeable toward one another.” -Claude Lèvi-Strauss, The View from Afar, Preface, p. xiv-xv Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

the problematic of connection for diversity… When integral communication with the other is achieved completely, it sooner or later spells doom for both his and my creativity…overly facile exchanges might equalize and nullify…diversity.” -Claude Lèvi-Strauss inClifford Geertz, “The Uses of Diversity,”p. 254 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

a “blasphemy” (p. xiii),or “complete frankness” (p. xiii) ? “I therefore asked my audience to question carefully, even sadly if they wished, the future of a world whose cultures, all passionately fond of one another, would aspire only to celebrate one another in such confusion that each would lose any attraction it could have for the others and its own reasons for existing.” -Claude Lèvi-Strauss, The View from Afar, Preface, p. xv Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

Geertz asks in response: “Is the alternative to moral entropy moral narcissism?” -Clifford Geertz, “The Uses of Diversity,”p. 257 Is there an alternative to: “making the world safe for condescension.” -Clifford Geertz, “The Uses of Diversity,”p. 260 Are we left to a “relax-and-enjoy-it ethnocentrism”? -Clifford Geertz, “The Uses of Diversity,”p. 260 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

Geertz asks us to consider Bernard William’s distinction between: “alternatives for us” and “alternatives to us” -Clifford Geertz, “The Uses of Diversity,”p. 260 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

diversity amongst “us” “More concretely, moral issues stemming from cultural diversity that used to arise, when they arose at all, mainly between societies…now increasingly arise within them.” -Clifford Geertz, “The Uses of Diversity,”p. 265 (emphasis added) Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

“the puzzles raised by the fact of cultural diversity have more to do with our capacity to feel our way into alien sensibilities, modes of thought we do not possess, and are not likely to, than they do with whether we can escape preferring our own preferences – ...” -Clifford Geertz, “The Uses of Diversity,”p. 261 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

“the sovereignty of the familiar impoverishes everyone...” -Clifford Geertz, “The Uses of Diversity,”p. 270 Mischa Richter, The New Yorker 6/27/1988 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

“something more is needed: an imaginative entry into (and admittance of) an alien turn of mind.... a working contact with a variant subjectivity.” -Clifford Geertz, “The Uses of Diversity,”p. 269-70 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

imagination and the other “We must learn to grasp what we cannot embrace.…It is in this, strengthening the power of our imaginations to grasp what is in front of us, that the uses of diversity, and the study of diversity lie.” -Clifford Geertz, “The Uses of Diversity,”p. 274 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

“It is in this, strengthening the power of our imaginations to grasp what is in front of us, that the uses of diversity, and of the study of diversity, lie.” -Clifford Geertz, “The Uses of Diversity,”p. 274 Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

Mary Hynes and Tariq Ramadan: Dialogue on Difference CBC Tapestry Podcast, 14 March 2010 http://www.cbc.ca/tapestry/podcast.html Prepared by Dr. Martin Barlosky, Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa EDU 6424: Ethics and Diversity in Educational Organizations

Claude L è vi-Strauss & Clifford Geertz in Debate