multiculturalism

You’ve written a great deal in support of multiculturalism. In short, you describe systems in which individuals wear different “hats”–that of the citizen, a religious affiliation, a union, etc.–and forge alliances with others in different groups. While many critics claim that multiculturalism dilutes the common glue (national identity) which binds society, you maintain that the real culprit is rampant individualism.
Actually, multiculturalism can work in both directions. Some cultures are coercive and need an individualist corrective. But when individualism is all powerful, the society needs the corrective of community and cultural cohesion.
I was recently in Jerusalem–where an Israeli leftist intellectual turned to a visiting American communitarian political theorist and said: “For you, community is a dream. For us it is a trauma.” In Israel, the structure of religious communities is so powerful that it divides the polity in frightening ways. Very strong ethnic national and religious communities are often oppressive to many of their members, most importantly to women. To be committed to a democratic society of which these women are supposedly equal citizens, you have to find some way to break into these communities and reshape their internal life. The only agent for doing that is the state and that means you need a strong sense of citizenship and common values in order to foster resistance or intervention in the groups.

And what about more individualist societies?
In the U.S., for example, individuals are radically focused on themselves, on their careers, their partners or a rapidly shifting series of partnerships. The individual has little, if any, sense of being obligated or connected. In such a society, there is a real necessity to foster and strengthen the bonds of community. For these bonds to be authentic, they have to be local or parochial in some sense. They aren’t going to connect every American to every other American. They connect much smaller groups of people to one another–neighbours, faith communities or people with common ethnic history. These connections are essential for a society to be capable of caring for its most vulnerable members. Radical individualism does not make for the kinds of ties that are necessary for basic decency–not for justice, either, which is another two stages away.