This is interesting.

Thank you, Anthony. I will follow every answer with special attention.

Dear Maria, thank you for your comments. I will be glad to get further your comments and remarks.

I think we just have the discussion in German public life. It is the debate whether "political correctness" abolishes every chance for a ciritical view- shared in public.

I think it is possible to express critical aspects to a debate - but I think as well that the level of "being hurt" or "hurting" will increase - and this has to be kept in mind.

It is always good to ask "Can you agree?" or keep in touch with somebody, if possible.

Maybe it is a simple answer, but it is according to my daily experience.

Regards

Ulrike

Hello Ulrike:

Thank you for your contributions to my question. I appreciate your comments.

Your ideas about 'political correctness', 'being hurt', and/or 'hurting', are at the root of the question I asked about sustaining or invalidating the framework for 'Cross-Cultural Criticism/Evaluation'. I thank you for those ideas. Yet, those are the same ideas that have continued to make several authors - especially, authors of African origin and/or sympathizers of Africans - insist on respecting each culture as it presents itself. This insistence seems to almost imply a silent law which reads: "TO AVOID THE HUMILIATING AND DEHUMANIZING EXPERIENCES OF COLONIALISM, DO NOT CRITICIZE! DO NOT TRY TO UNIVERSALIZE ANY STANDARD! DO NOT COMPARE!"

For the clarifications your comments offered to my question, I thank you once again.

I must comment also that the question you asked on whether one can agree (you asked "Can you agree?") reminded me of the views of one of your Frankfurt scholars, Jürgen Habermas, on Communicative Rationality. I think that I was convinced by Habermas' ideas that there are possibilities of agreeing; that means, I can agree to keep in touch with the other person - even when the person has some reservations about my cultural practices, including the underlying principles that give meaning to these practices. But I think that, following Habermas' position, your question can be stretched to read: 'Will my cultural pride allow me to agree when the other person's views are rationally stronger than mine?" Or, in a more reflective and challenging words: "Must I insist on the correctness of my ideas and principles even when it is evident the other person's views are more humane and sustainable?"

Thus, if persons of several cultures keep aside the fears of being hurt as a result of criticism(s) from the 'outsider', and rather focus more on the possibilities of agreeing - especially, the improvements that result from intercultural communication - the fears about 'being hurt' or 'hurting' will reveal themselves as empty fears.

Regards.

Anthony

Hello, Petek,

Thanks for your comments. I appreciate them.

Thanks once again. I am looking at multiculturalism as a global issue - no matter the setting that is involved. My interest is to find out whether it could be justified for any culture to try to close itself up, or for its scholars to involve themselves in erranticism - that is, justifying all aspects of their cultural practices (humane or inhumane, development-enhancing or development-impeding) - simply because they want to sustain their heritage, their 'identity' (whatever that means), and their cultural pride.

it is also good to ask at the very beginning of any debate if persons engaged   in debate can agree to disagree. Multiculturalism can be understood variously,i.e "melting pot"theory, where all cultures have equal  value, or as a situation where minority cultures undergo forced assimilation also known as "integration" in many western countries. It might be helpful to consider  the concept of culture as socially constructed.Consequently  the  social worlds/worldviews(cultures) constructed by various societies will have strengths and weaknesses.( in  addressing problems of daily existence) No single culture has all the answers, therefore any   constructive criticisms should be viewed as well meaning attempts to suggest reconstructing some aspects of certain cultures so that the equilibrium  in the value of all cultures  is maintained .Doing so would avoiding any form of  ethnocentrism. Constant evaluation/criticism is essential and healthy for concepts such as culture as they are subjected to constant change through various modes of trans-cultural contacts that have become the norm through globalization.  Perhaps the question should be where does multiculturalism fit in the debate of cultural relativism vs universalism?    Should for example immigrants living in a multi-cultural society  retain both heritage culture and   host country culture or discard their heritage culture and assimilate to the dominant local  culture? In a truly multicultural society all cultures should have equal value....hence the need for constant evaluation/critical reviews  by using whatever  frame or theory.             

Hello, Washington: Thanks for yours.

Thank you for bringing into perspective another aspect of the question I asked which, as it were, makes some authors to resist cross-cultural evaluation/criticism. You had written: "Perhaps the question should be where does multiculturalism fit in the debate of cultural relativism vs universalism?"

The cultural relativist would gladly argue that there should be no framework for cross-cultural criticism since any such framework would be claiming some degree of universalism among so many cultures. This is the place of multiculturalism in any debate about cultural relativism and universalism. It is due to some of my reservations against the position of the cultural relativists, as well as the erranticism that they sustain, that I started wondering in the first place whether the cultural relativist's hatred for universalist frameworks will allow him/her to accept the validity of any framework that supports cross-cultural criticism. By erranticism I mean a person's insistence on the errors and weaknesses, as well as inhumane, and development-impeding elements of a culture, not because he/she does not realize that these elements are inhumane and development-impeding, but because he/she thinks that to accept the constructive criticisms and the econstructive views of the cultural outsider is to be humiliated (once again).

Washington, do you think it is sustainable to argue for what you described as "constant evaluation/critical reviews by using whatever frame or theory"? This sound more like Fayerabend's position. But, can just any framework/theory be trusted to have what it takes to, as you very correctly noted, carefully and successfully reconstruct any aspect of any culture?

Kind regards, with gratitude

Anthony

Why don't we look for a definition of multiculturalism that is not necessarily  Western (and remember, Marxism is as annoyingly Western as its annoying cousin, Capitalism). For example, among the Mayan Indians in central America, for the past hundreds of years, well before the Spanish Conquest, they cohabited and continue to cohabit with Lenca, Xica, and Zoque indians, while maintaining their cultural separateness. Now, it's great for people to blend if they want to; at the same time, we cannot force, nor should we force, our own perceptions of "blending" on other people. In Honduras there are Mayan Indians who use, proudly, the nickname "caracal" meaning snail: they have red hair from Irish refugees who fled to the Caribbean, fleeing both British and later Spanish empires, during the colonial period. They chose to blend-that's also fine. the Mayan Indians have survived over three thousand difficult years by allowing both options in their civilization. Perhaps we can learn from them.

I would suggest that you consider transculturalism that takes things a step further than multiculturalism. Richard Slimbach states the following: "Transculturalism embraces the idea that cultures are shaped by continual interactions and overlapping relationships." (2015, p. 3).

To answer the question we need to know what kind of multiculturalism we are talking about.

I think one of the most influential theoreticians in multiculturalism is John Berry (and his paladins - Kymlicka, Banting, Ward). Berry discerns three meanings of multiculturalism:

1. Multiculturalism as a demographic fact. Basically just people from different cultures living together. This does not invalidate any frameworks as it is simply a fact of life.

2. Multiculturalism as an ideology. That, I think, is closer to what you refer to - an individual-level positive attitude towards people who live in different social worlds, and tolerance to differences. This, I think, is not very compatible with cross-cultural criticism, but it, again, does not "invalidate" any frameworks. This is not a theory, but an ideology, a value judgement. When people want to celebrate diversity, criticism does not help. 

3. Multiculturalism as a policy. This is what I work with, and it has little to do with ideology. Multicultural policy is an approach to managing cultural diversity that has two major components: maintenance and affirmation of cultural diversity and equitable participation of cultural groups in social and political life. Multicultural policy is a policy, and is evaluated as a policy - by its outcomes. There is rather convincing evidence that multicultural policy improves outcomes of immigrants (e.g. education, employment, quality of life, political participation, etc.), and has no negative and may be some positive effects for the host population. Multiculturalism as a policy, again, does not invalidate cross-cultural criticism. Political theorists who work with multiculturalism would just say that the absence of criticism results in better social outcomes. 

The questions I would have for you are:

1. What exactly do you mean by the "framework for cross-cultural criticism"? I have my hunches, but checked if there are studies on "cross-cultural criticism" on google.scholar. That returned 400 results in art criticism.

2. How can this framework be invalidated in theory? What are the assumptions and  propositions of such framework?

If I get you right, what you are asking is if multiculturalism implies that there are no universal standards to judge cultures against. But then it's not a question of multiculturalism but ethical relativism/absolutism. And I also might just be getting your meaning wrong.

I think it depends on what you exactly mean by "Multicuturalism". On the one hand you have respect and equity for all cultures, with all having equitable access to resources.Then you have the coalition building/breaking (depends on the identity) colorblind Multiculturalism which says everyone is equal (not equitable) and has equal opportunities, and US identity politics. This 2nd outlook attempts to negate the histories of the Maafa, colonialism and Manifest Destiny by claiming an equal playing field for hard workers, ignoring the intersectionality of an individual that allow or deny one economic and political equity. 

It is important not to confuse ethnic identity with culture.

Ethnic identity can be defined as an assemblage of cultural and sometimes noncultural (for example, biological) elements or traits. It can be adopted or rejected at will by individuals and groups, and it adapts to changing circumstances.

Culture can be seen as a wide category including many elements, encompassing all shared, learned behavior and ideas.

If you break culture down into its elementary components (for example: language, social structure, rituals, dress, music, etc.), then plot individual cultural elements on a three-dimensional graphic matrix representing space and time, you will probably find that each element has a distinct spatial and temporal distribution. Borders between specific elements tend to be blurry, with gradations blending into each other. Even within cultural elements, their subcomponents can have distinct spatial and temporal distribution patterns. You can look into isoglosses within a given language as an example of this; languages have messy internal and external borders.

Thus cultures are not neatly bounded entities that can be labeled, in spite of people's efforts to do so. Cultural reality is complex and dynamic. Human interaction is necessarily cross-, inter-, and multicultural.

We share the common denominator of our biological heritage as Homo sapiens, and we like to try to get a conceptual handle on our shared experiences by constructing artificial categories. These generally fall short when we try to use them as conceptual tools for understanding ourselves and the people around us.

Cross-cultural evaluation is aimed at investigating Multiculturalism

I would say, in general, we need to stop approaching research on particular culture groups (i.e., Mexican-American) through objective measure. Being a Mexican-American is a subjective experience with multisystemic layers of intercultural differences as well as components of intersectionality, putting the subjectivity of cultural experience beyond the grasp of objective measure. My research proposes a theory that looks at cultural worldviews as the objective (i.e., independent) variable in and of itself within family and social systems. Integrating the empirical findings of Terror Management Theory, evidence supports that cultural worldviews serve to manage inherent fears of mortality and insignificance. Because death anxiety is a universal experience that transcends the particulars of various cultural groups, the framework lends itself to understanding culture from a macrosystemic perspective. From here, culture is understood universally in a way that allows for the fluid exploration of subjective cultural worldviews, shifting the lived experiences of various cultural groups to the dependent variable.  Check out the article introducing Global Family Therapy to get a better feel for the dynamics of a emerging Global Family Theory. 

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/RttKuet2IuHK4IgkhBDA/full

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/RttKuet2IuHK4IgkhBDA/full