Instruction Manual for Life

I found the following YouTube video quite beautifully made and thought-provoking. I can think of a number of ways to interpret it.

It also reminded me of my own challenges with my religious, socially conservative Pakistani parents, because of how I’ve managed to turn out to be almost the exact opposite of what they had hoped, I guess — non-religious (though respectful of religion and deeply interested in spirituality), gay, someone who doesn’t really obey gender norms, and someone who doesn’t care much about what my (hopelessly bourgeois) family or society thinks of me. My parents, bless their souls, really have no idea why I or my two sisters are like this and I don’t think they have the capacity to understand us, so we just let it go now and try to be as compassionate toward them as we can be.

Anyway, enjoy the video.

Cosmopolitanism versus Multiculturalism

Kenan Malik is a British leftist and liberal critic of multiculturalism who has written a book that is just about to come out entitled From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy, an assessment of the post-Rushdie culture in the West. Last year, he gave a talk at The Institute of Ideas in London by the same title. You can watch/download the whole talk at Fora.tv. Below is a clip that I thought was relevant to this whole debate on multiculturalism, in which Malik talks about the effect of the Rushdie affair on publishing:
 

 
In the whole talk, Malik also talks about what multiculturalism should REALLY be. He and his co-speaker Amol Rajan make a distinction between cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism, which I think is an extremely pertinent and valid point. I think diversity in the sense of cosmopolitanism should be encouraged, but that diversity in the sense of tolerating extreme, oppressive ideas and beliefs in the name of multiculturalism has proved to be an absolute disaster. I’m glad I rediscovered this talk just now as I’ve realized that this is a great way of explaining how I feel about this topic: I am pro-cosmopolitanism, but highly critical of multiculturalism.

I could not find a YouTube clip of this part of the original talk, but I thought Malik hit the nail on the head and so I’m giving a partial transcript of it below (about 32 minutes into the talk):

Rajan: … you said, “We must choose between a plural and an equal society, you cannot have both.” I’m never quite sure what your alternative is. I mean, are you saying now that since the ’80s you’ve had all these state policies which are all about, sort of, sanctifying victimhood and race and saying, you know, if you want to have your own center in Bradford, you’ve got to be Muslim. Are you after more of a monoculturalism? I mean, how much do you rate pluralism? I mean, if we abandon multiculturalism tomorrow, what do you want? … I’d like a name for what you’re talking about.

Malik: Right, I think you need to distinguish between two kinds of pluralisms, two kinds of multiculturalisms. Multiculturalism has come to mean two different things.

Rajan: One is lived experience.

Malik: (nodding) One is multiculturalism or diversity as lived experience.

Rajan: I call that cosmopolitanism.

Malik: Yeah, you can call it cosmopolitanism. But the point is, that when people talk about multiculturalism, they mean two different things. One is the kind of diversity created, for example, through mass immigration. The other is a set of political policies to manage that diversity. Now it seems to me that a set of political policies to manage that diversity actually undermines much of what is valuable about that diversity in the first place. The point about living in a cosmopolitan world is that it allows you to expand your horizons, to think about other people’s ways of doing things, their lifestyles, their beliefs and values and so on. Ask: which is better and which is worse? Are my values better than their values? And have a dialogue, a debate, a political dialogue and debate about that. And through that process, create, ironically, a more universal language of citizenship.

The problem with multiculturalism as a political process, is that it stops that possibility of dialogue and debate in the name of respect and tolerance.

Rajan: And perhaps fetishizes hollow differences.

What Malik is advocating here is multiculturalism or pluralism or cosmopolitanism in a positive sense, not in the negative sense of imposing a thought police that forces us to withhold our true opinions and criticisms of different worldviews. Any and all beliefs and practices from different cultures cannot be accepted as beautiful or as an asset to human civilization. Our task is to subject what various human cultures have developed or discovered to a critical analysis, and to keep the good and throw out the bad. Chinese Taoism? Brilliant. Chinese Maoism? Horrifying. The Hindu Upanishads and the Bhagavad-Gita? Sublime. The Hindu caste system? Atrocious. Western science? A phenomenal achievement. Western materialism and unrestrained capitalism? Terribly oppressive. The Sufi tradition of futuwwah (spiritual chivalry)? Inspiring. Islamic traditions of jihad against the unbelievers? Very problematic. Christian teachings about love and peace? Mazel tov. Christian teachings about original sin and total depravity? Psychologically unhealthy.

And so on.

Our love of identity politics and of the politics of guilt, is a flight from intellectual, ethical and spiritual integrity, and has done nothing to improve peace and harmony in this world. I am in favor of a politics driven by truth-visions, and NOT identities. Read Malik’s essay, Against Multiculturalism, for an expansion of these ideas. Now here is a leftist after my own heart.

FYI: I read The Satanic Verses ages ago and hated it. Rushdie’s written much better books than that.