This posting continues this
blog’s focus on the polarization plaguing this nation. The last posting looked at one source contributing
to that state of affairs: “the
incubation of problems the body politic had not addressed over extended periods
of time.” And the first point it made
was that these problems were not the product of incompetency, per se,
but came about because they do not fall within the prevailing paradigm a people
hold at a given time – that is, it is a case of not knowing what is not known.
Specifically, the posting looked at the lack of fully incorporating
the members of the various ethnic, national, or racial groups into the nation’s
recognition of rights and disbursement of benefits it shares among those of the
Anglo-Saxon base. This problem, among
the dominant group, is a problem not known to exist. It was, therefore, incubating. But it is now known due to polarization.
Within
the situation today, any affected party of what seems to be any existing
problem, needs allies to meet what it perceives is its interests since the “other
side” is so numerous. That is, there are
now two grand alliances, that of the left and that of the right constituting
what the nation faces, a polarized political landscape.
One side of the divide, the nationalist side, seeks to
maintain what it sees as the “American way” of life it attaches to its
perceived base, the Anglo-Saxon base. The
other side of that divide, though, has a history of division that not so long
ago generated a bit of heat. This
posting continues to explain how this left side of the divide varied in its
views about how one should see the challenge of a culturally varied nation.
If the reader has not read the last posting, it would help
him/her to do so to appreciate the context of what follows, but the general aim
here is to explain the conflict between those who have argued for assimilation
or centered pluralism and those who have argued for multiculturalism,
particularly critical multiculturalism that that posting describes.
In
relatively simple terms, centered pluralism deals with social settings of
multiple cultures by respecting each culture but insists that there be a
unifying role played by the dominant culture.
This is particularly true in the realm of that dominant culture’s governmental-political-legal
institutions.
But in America, at least, there is a relevant attribute that
characterizes the dominant culture that one should keep in mind. It has historically been an evolving attribute
of this society. That dominant culture,
while being central and stabilizing, is not nor has been dormant or immune from
change. Instead, it is dynamic and
continuously renewed by the various cultural forces within the nation.
Through
active interaction among the elements of its population, the dominant culture
is continuously affected as it incorporates aspects of the various immigrating cultures
into its views, promoted attitudes, values, beliefs, and favored modes of
behavior. Of particular note are the
effects on the shared aesthetics the people as a whole adopt; that includes
music, food, fashion, and language from an array of colorful immigrant groups. This adoption of a centered pluralism has led
to a rich and enriching culture that defines Americanism, not for all times,
but for what is “in” today.
The
change is not always so dynamic or smooth.
It tends to manifest itself on a generational pace. One’s grandmother’s America is a lot
different culturally than what his/her grandchildren will experience through
the course of their lives. But through
those evolving aspects, by having a single cultural base at any given time, it
has served a unifying function. And
unification provides reliable expectations that are essential to a nation’s
legal, economic, and even political dealings.
What,
for example, would happen to legal proceedings if they did not sustain reliable
rulings and assumptions? Many efficiencies
would be lost as concerns would become paramount that under established modes
of operations are just taken for granted.
As
such, the culture provides guardrails as to acceptable behaviors that are not etched
in stone but provide comfort zones that allow for levels of cooperation and
collaboration not otherwise possible.
Not to foist here an argument that bolsters federation theory (what this
blog promotes), but that theory depends on a minimal level of a common way of
being. And this view, therefore, can be
called centered pluralism.
Critical multiculturalism basically rejects this image –
one of a “melting pot” – as either being real or optimal. Back in the 1980s and 1990s much was written
by critical multiculturalists. One such
theorists was/is Henry A. Giroux.
According to one of his published works,[1] he launches an attack
against centered pluralism (the term he uses is “normative pluralism”).
Tracing
the argument of Giroux, who focuses on how this issue affects schools, American
schools do not lead or encourage immigrant and racial minority students to realize
or define what their interests are. As
marginalized people, they are characterized as low income, ethnic minorities. And schools, unfortunately, function to
oppress these students by emphasizing management and control.
More specifically, the following general strategy is instituted
as to how these students are treated or “handled.” Authorities insist on the use of language and
other symbols to steer these students toward accepted behaviors. In turn, the symbols help define ways of acceptable
practices that maintain existing power relationships. They, in part, do this by expressing what the
base sees as ideal or as being included in the common knowledge. The effect is aimed at upholding existing
curricular assumptions or values.
Those
assumptions and values are noted for promoting knowledge – empirically and
traditionally based – that ignore relevant issues facing these other populations. Result:
with this lack of relevancy, these minority students find such lessons
as being unimportant or meaningless. In
sum, the legitimacy of this sort of instruction becomes suspect in those
students’ eyes.
Beyond lacking relevancy for these students, centered
pluralist lessons ignore the various cultural views these students represent
particularly those aspects relating to their cultures’ capital in the form of their
narratives, traditions, and other messaging.
By ignoring these cultural elements, the message, by omission, is that
their cultural elements lack value, that they are somehow lacking in worth. Other descriptive terms one might use to
describe the effects these curricular choices have are deficient, deprived,
deviant, underprivileged, or uncultured.
It
encourages the teachers of these students, when confronted with the inevitable clashes
caused by culturally-based conflicts or misunderstandings, to adopt biases that
blame those students for their perceived shortcomings. In turn, it leads to potentially humiliating
experiences for those students. These
incidents are not just humiliating in their interactions with the teacher but
serve as fodder for inter student conflicts including being instrumental in
bullying.
What both sides of this “debate” agreed upon was that
immigrants or people of minority culture groups were being mistreated to vary
degrees. The argument was not about what
was/is or even what specifically should be done, in the short term, to right
the wrongs stemming from any mistreatment immigrants or racial minorities might
experience. The disagreement was/is on
the direction any policy should take in righting those wrongs.
One
side envisions a sort of kaleidoscope of cultural flavors all equally
appreciated or, at least, tolerated. The
other vision is not so different, but the elements are tied together with a
theme. A future posting will further
develop this distinction because it serves as a very pertinent example of problems
that were virulent to those affected, but beyond them, ignored. They were, in other words, incubating and
have now exploded upon the tapestry of what is known as polarized politics.
[1] Henry A. Giroux, “Critical Pedagogy, Cultural
Politics, and the Discourse of Experience, in Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Learning,
edited by Henry Giroux (Westport, CT:
Bergin and Garvey, 1988), 86-107.
No comments:
Post a Comment