Against Multiculturalism
        -"Let tousand flowers bloom"-
        by Hakim Bey
        
        (Peter Lamborn Wilson -- Mao Tse-tung (revised))
        
        The USA was always supposed to be a "melting pot." Canada, by
        contrast, calls itself a "mosaic", which may explain thy
        Canadians seem to suffer a kind of long-drawn-out and perpetual
        identity crisis. What does it mean to be "Canadian" as opposed to
        (or as well as) Quebecois, Celt, or Native?
        
        In the 1950s the USA was supposed to be immune to such headaches.
        All cultures would "melt" and fuse into the American character,
        the main stream. In truth, however, this "consensus" culture was
        simply English colonial culture with amnesia, and a faded patina
        of frontier bluster.
        
        Immigrant cultures which resisted meltdown were considered simply
        abnormal; the Irish, for example, were viewed as savage
        recalcitrants until quite recently. Of course it was hard to tell
        if certain cultures remained "outside" because they wanted to or
        because they were excluded. In the 1960s blacks were identified
        as an unfairly excluded culture, and steps were taken to absorb
        them into the mainstream (through school integration for
        example). Native Americans were still excluded by law, which
        defines them by blood rather than by culture, and maintains
        "segregation" by the reservation system. Jews, Hispanics, Asians,
        each followed their own trajectory toward assimilation or
        resistance.
        
        By the late 1970s or early 1980s it became obvious that the
        Melting Pot had somehow failed. Black culture, the test case, now
        appeared impossible to absorb. The "consensus" was in danger. The
        Right, with its schizophrenic attitudes toward race and culture,
        had faltered. A new "liberal" consensus was proposed. It was
        called multiculturalism.
        
        Let there be no mistake: multiculturalism is a strategy designed
        to save "America" as an idea, and as a system of social control.
        Each of the many cultures that make up the nation are now to be
        allowed a little measure of self-identity and a few simulacra of
        autonomy. School textbooks now reflect this strategy, with 1950s
        illustrations of happy historical whites retouched to include a
        few blacks, Asians and even Natives. A dozen or so departments of
        multiculturalism spring up at university level. Each minority
        must now be treated with "dignity" in the curriculum.
        Conservatives raise a stink: the Canonical Shibboleths of Western
        Civilization are in danger! Our children will be forced to study
        ... black history! This babble on the Right lends
        multiculturalism an aura of "radical" righteousness and political
        correctitude, and the Left leaps forward to defend the new
        paradigm. In the middle according to theory - balance will be
        restored, and the consensus will function again. The trouble is
        that the theory itself emanates neither from the Right nor Left
        nor Center. It emanates from the top. It's a theory of control.
        
        The old textbooks depicted all ethnic/cultural particularity as a
        taint which could only be overcome in the great pot of conformity
        to the Norm. Yet the Norm was itself so clearly and simply a form
        of hegemonic particularism that the textbooks wore thin and
        eventually grew transparent. They had to go - I agree. Now we
        have a few texts which admit, for example, that Columbus was a
        mixed blessing and that Africans were not morally responsible for
        being slaves. This is a step forward - I agree. However, I remain
        interested in knowing precisely who has given us permission to
        hold such opinions - and why?
        
        In the first place, it seems obvious that each of the "many"
        particular cultures is being measured against or assimilated to a
        mainstream "universal" culture. The only difference is that the
        mainstream now, apparently, values a bit of "diversity," and
        feels a bit of permissible nostalgia for colorful ethnic customs.
        At the heart of the discourse however, the very discourse which
        now defines itself as "lmulticultural", there remains a "solid
        core curriculum" made up of the same old Euro-rationalist
        axiomata, scientistic triumphalism, and ruling-class teleology.
        
        This mainstream constitutes Civilization, and only on the
        periphery of this centrality can the cultures find a place.
        Whatever the cultures may possess which might be of use to
        Civilization will of course be accepted with gratitude. Each
        quaint little local culture has something to offer, something to
        be "proud" of. A museological passion inspirits the Center;
        everyone collects little ethnic particularities; everyone's a
        tourist; everyone appropriates.
        
        The multicultural conversation as totalist monologue might go
        something like this: Yes, your little handicrafts will look good
        in my living room, where they'll help disguise the fact that my
        house was designed by - and perhaps for - a machine. Yes, your
        sweat-lodge ceremony will provide us with a pleasant week-end
        "experience". Gosh, aren't we the Masters of the Universe? Why
        should we put up with this bland old Anglo-American furniture
        when we can take yours instead? Aren't you grateful? And no more
        Imperial Colonialism either: we pay for what we take - and even
        what we break! Pay, pay, pay. After all, it's only money.
        
        Thus multiculturalism is seen in the first place to propose both
        universalism and particularism at once - in effect, a totality.
        Every totality implies a totalitarianism, but in this case, the
        Whole appears in friendly face, a great theme park where every
        "special case" can be endlessly reproduced. Multiculturalism is
        the "Spectacle" of communicativeness - conviviality which it
        renders into commodity form and sells back to those who have
        dreamed it. In this sense multiculturalism appears as the
        necessary ideological reflection of the Global Market or "New
        World Order," the "one" world of too-Late Capitalism and the "end
        of History."
        
        The "end of History" is of course code for the "end of the
        Social". Multiculturalism is the decor of the end of the Social,
        the metaphorical imagery of the complete atomization of the
        "consumer". And what will the consumer consume? Images of
        culture.
        
        In the second place, multiculturalism is not just a false
        totality or unification, but also a false separation. The
        "minorities" are told in effect that no common goals or values
        could unite them, except of course the goals and values of the
        consensus. Blacks have Black Culture, for example, and are no
        longer required to assimilate. So long as Black Culture tacitly
        recognizes the centrality of the consensus - and its own
        peripherality - it will be allowed and even encouraged to thrive.
        Genuine autonomy, however, is out of the question, and so is any
        "class consciousness" which might cut across ethnic or
        "lifestyle" lines to suggest revolutionary coalitions. Each
        minority contributes to the Center, but nothing is allowed to
        circulate on the periphery, and certainly not the power of
        collectivity. A diagram would look like this:
        
        
        
        Unlike a flower, which opens its borders to bees and breezes and
        flows out into life, the "consensus" draws all energy inward and
        absorbs it into a closed system of rigid control a death-like
        process which must eventually end in sterility and hysteresis.
        
        Living as we do in the era of total Global order and the physical
        and cultural environment it secretes, it should be obvious that
        particularise can represent a form of resistance. The Totality
        has therefore undertaken to appropriate the energy of the
        resistance by offering a false form of particularism, empty of
        all creative power, as a commodified simulacrum of
        insurrectionary desire. In this sense multiculturalism is simply
        the recto of that page whose verso is "ethnic cleansing". Both
        sides spell disappearance for any authentic particular culture of
        resistance.
        
        At the same time the Consensus secretly encourages race and even
        class hatred. In the mysterious absence of that "Evil Empire"
        which once provided an excuse for every act of violent repression
        and corruption carried out in "defense of Western Civilization",
        the Consensus must now seek out or even create its "enemies"
        within itself. Intelligence orgs fall in love with violent
        nationalists, separatists, and chauvinists of all kinds. In such
        circles, multiculturalism means: "let them tear out each others'
        throats, and save us the trouble". Thus every act of rebellion
        and violent hatred simply increases the power of the "Security
        State". Already we see that the Discourse of Power is running out
        of patience with these "darned minorities and all their P.C.
        blather. We offered them multiculturalism and look! Still they
        rebel. Criminals!"
        
        The Left has believed so long in the "International" that it has
        - so far - failed to adjust to the post-1989 situation with a
        clear response to the "New Globalism." When the Berlin Wall fell,
        in the moment of freedom which opened there, a new form of
        internationalism rushed to fill the breach. As United States
        politicians crowed about how "the Cold War is over and we won"
        international Capital declared the end of all ideology. This
        means not only that Communism is "dead" but also that "democratic
        republicanism" has served its purpose and transformed itself into
        an empty idol. Henceforth only one force will "rule" - the
        rationality of money. Abstracted from all real valuation,
        representing nothing but itself, money is etherealized, and
        finally divinized. Money has "gone to Heaven" and left mere life
        behind.
        
        In this situation both Right and Left will rebel - and in some
        cases it will be hard to tell the difference. A myriad forms of
        particularism will arise, consciously or unconsciously, to oppose
        the false totality and pitiful booby-prizes of multiculturalism's
        "New World Order". The Social has not ended, of course, no more
        than everyday life itself. But the Social will now involve itself
        with the insurrectionary potential of difference. In its most
        unconscious and deeply deluded form, this passion for difference
        will simply repeat the old and empty rhetoric of classical
        nationalism or racism. Hence, ''ethnic cleansing" from Bosnia to
        California.
        
        Against this hegemonic particularism, we might propose a more
        conscious and socially just form of anti-hegemonic particularism.
        It's difficult to envision the precise shape such a force might
        assume, but it grows easier to identify as it actually emerges. A
        miraculous revival of Native-American culture steals the fire of
        the Columbus celebrations in 1992, and sharpens the debate over
        cultural appropriation. In Mexico the Zapatista uprising,
        according to the New York Times, the first "post-modern
        rebellion", constitutes the first armed actionagainst the New
        Globalism - in the particularise but antihegemonic cause of the
        Mayans and peasants of Chiapas. I regard this as a struggle for
        "empirical freedoms" rather than "ideology." In a positive sense
        one might say that all cultural and/or social forms of
        particularism deserve support as long as
        
        they remain anti-hegemonic, and precisely to the extent that they
        remain so.
        
        In this context we might even discover uses for
        "multiculturalism", since it may serve as a medium for the
        propagation of subversive memes, and the insurrectionary desire
        for radical difference. Such a subversive "entry into the media,"
        however, can serve only one ultimate purpose: the utter
        destruction of multiculturalist neo-imperialism and its
        transformation into something else. If the secret agenda of
        multiculturalism demands universal separation under the aegis of
        a false totality, then the radical response to multiculturalism
        must attack not only its ersatz universality but also its
        invidious alienation, its false separatism. If we support true
        anti-hegemonic particularism, we must also support the other half
        of the dialectic by developing a force to penetrate all false
        boundaries, to restore communicativeness and conviviality across
        a horizontal and random web of connectivities and solidarities.
        This would constitute the true force of which multiculturalism is
        merely the empty simulacrum. It would complement anti-hegemonic
        particularism with a genuine reciprocity among peoples and
        cultures. The "economy of the Gift" would replace the economy of
        exchange and cormodification. The Social would resume circulation
        on the level of experienced life" through the exercise of
        imagination and generosity.
        
        In this sense the answer to the problem of "appropriation" would
        arise from the concept of a "universal potlach" of giving and
        sharing. As a test case, examine the issue of cultural
        appropriation of Native-American values. The original identity of
        tribal peoples in the "New" World was tribal, not racial. Anyone
        could be adopted into a tribe, as were many drop-out whites and
        run-away blacks. The twentieth-century renaissance of Native
        Culture has discovered certain spiritual universals which it
        wants to give and share with everyone, and it has discovered an
        anti-hegemonic particularism which it desires for itself. The
        Elders charge that too many Americans want to appropriate or
        commodity the latter (sweat-lodges, sun-dances, etc.) but ignore
        or despise the former (reverence for Nature, love of place as
        topocosm, etc.) . The Native tradition is not closed, despite the
        just anger and bitterness of the tribes, but demands reciprocity
        rather than appropriation. Let us Euro's first evolve a serious
        revolutionary attitude toward the restoration of wild (er) ness;
        then it will be appropriate for us to make the fine Alexandrian
        gesture of "worshipping local spirits".
        
        The Situationists already envisioned this strategy when they
        coined that much-abused slogan: "think globally, act locally".
        Our true interests include global realities, such as
        "environment", but eff ctive power can never be global without
        being oppressive. Top-down solutions reproduce hierarchy and
        alienation. Only local action for "empirical freedoms" can effect
        change on the level of "experienced life" without imposing
        categories of control. A New-age Nietzsche might have called it
        "the will to self-empowerment".
        
        The poet Nathaniel Mackay calls it cross-culturalism. The image
        expresses a non-hierarchic, de-centered web of cultures, each one
        singular, but not alienated from other cultures. Exchange takes
        place as reciprocity across the permeable boundaries of this
        complex of autonomous, but loosely defined, differences. I would
        add a further refinement. This reciprocity will produce more than
        the mere sum of exchanges within the system, and this more will
        constitute a universal value in circulation among free
        collectivities and individuals. Hence the term cross-cultural
        synergetics might describe the precise term (or slogan) proposed
        as a replacement for "multiculturalism".
        
        Conclusion
        
        The multicultural paradigm presupposes a false totality within
        which are subsumed a set of false particularities. These
        differences are represented and packaged as "lifestyle choices"
        and "ethnicities", commodities to appease the genuine passion for
        genuine difference with mere "traces" and images of "dignity" and
        even of "rebellion". Against this, cross-cultural synergism
        proposes actual autonomy, whether for individuals or cohesions of
        individuals, based on radical consciousness and organic identity.
        In this sense, cross-culturalism can only oppose itself to
        "multiculturalism", either through a strategy of subversion, or
        through open assault. Either way, "multiculturalism" must be
        destroyed.





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