Saturday, July 17, 2010

Thema Film Tranvestis

Think plurality. Cultural pluralism in the age of "identity politics"

The plurality, diversity, variety and diversity we always give the impression of disorder, chaos, the An-archy in the sense of a lack of principle, a foundation, a raison d'etre of the phenomena as perceived. This is part of our own cognitive structure: finding a principle of order, see a series of abstract figures and faces certain signs, as is well known to psychologists. The Gestalt laws of grouping (proximity, similarity, closure, continuity, symmetry) teach us that our minds are just looking for symmetry, similarity, continuity rather than asymmetry, inconsistencies and discontinuities.
In other words, the perceptual point of view we have been "equipped" (in evolutionary sense) to see structures in order more or less uniform instead of the chaos. However, the problem remains in that the plurality troubles us and disturb us, as evidenced by many proverbs and sayings of common sense: "tot capita tot sententiae," "too much crippled," "can not serve two masters" ... But when does a plurality becomes "too much"? How much diversity (in a secular and / or Inter) we can take?
If today the physical and natural diversity is no longer a problem, however, is that socio-cultural. If the logic of identity which is based on the entire Western philosophical thought from Parmenides German idealism was able to ensure a metaphysics of substance, and being a Christian theology (and Islamic, as is too often forgotten) based on the idea of permanence and immutability, the advent of modernity, with its idea of \u200b\u200ba free individual, autonomous, capable of self-determination and to evaluate (and criticize) rationally traditions, rules, authority has radically changed the picture of that logic. While the logic of identity has radically separate identity from difference, marginalizing otherness, with Hegel seeing - I think for the first time - to attempt to think of the identity that otherness, to understand their mutual involvement. Hegel puts that into question this principle or law of identity by which we reason, I think we represent reality. Hegel writes in § 115, 'Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences that " No conscience think, nor representation, nor speak, according to this law, no existence of any kind, according to this law exists. " Hegel argues that the very identity is to ask the difference, or that the difference is the moment where you think your identity. Plurality means then that when we think one thing we always think in relation to another: for Hegel, then, the relationship is constitutive of thinking in general.
This acquisition of the Hegelian dialectic implies a major change: the transition from a logic of identity to a logic of recognition . But this is not a simple logical-conceptual revolution, that is the simple record of the report "for Plato to think, means to connect, bind, with the-wire (the famous Platonic symploké ). This revolution has in fact at least three consequences and ethical practices. If the identity is not fundamental, but based, one gets that:
1. Per sapere chi sono “io” devo pormi necessariamente in relazione, ho cioè bisogno prima ancora di essere tale, che ci sia qualcun altro che mi riconosca come un “io” (si pensi alla relazione asimmetrica madre-figlio: ciascuno di noi è divenuto tale perché la madre lo ha riconosciuto, prestandogli cure, tempo, affetto, amore).

2. In questo senso l’altro, ciò che io non sono, è la vera condizione del mio comprendermi come “io”, come “me stesso”, come “identità personale”.

3. Non posso conoscere se non sono stato prima “riconosciuto” da altri, che hanno reso possibile “me stesso” come coscienza: know, therefore, means recognizing .
You should pay attention to these consequences and their conceptual implications and ethical practices, because they have implications important and decisive in our moral and political life. They imply
fact that they can never give absolute no identity or think it can be defined once and for ALL. The complexity of plurality rather derives from the fact that we are people, the result of a totality of relations that do not have, and then we share always already an identity with other members of a particular group. As Amartya Sen writes in his Identity and Violence, "The world divided according to a single allocation is much more confrontational universe of plural and distinct categories that shapes the world in which we live. (...) Such an image contrasts with the idea that we are otherwise different. The hope of harmony in the contemporary world lies largely in a clearer understanding of pluralities of human identity, and recognition that these are cross-sectional and plurality are an antidote to a clear separation along a dividing line fortified and impenetrable. "
From cultural point of view, the logic of identity leads us to think of culture as a compact fortresses, castles with drawbridges, with clear boundaries and territories stabiliti una volta per tutte o, per riprendere un'immagine usata da vari antropologi, "palle da biliardo" lisce e lucide, senza alcuna porosità. Non siamo abituati - perché la logica identitaria che governa la nostra cultura ci ha imposto di associare continuità, permanenza, stabilità, ordine all'identità - a pensare alla nostra identità culturale come qualcosa di plurale, di composito, frutto di innumerevoli stratificazioni storiche, processi di riconoscimento (ma anche di misconoscimento), ibridazioni e incroci. Di fronte all'"altro" - lo straniero, l'estraneo, il "foresto" - scatta subito la legge gestaltica di raggruppamento: esso deve venir inserito in una categoria, rubricato, classificato in base alla provenance and origin, as if the arche, the source, could tell his whole story, could run out of his "identity."
Similarly for our logic of identity is difficult to accept the fact of political pluralism, often confused with relativism, with a general idea that all cultures are equally important, have the same value (which is different than recognizing the equal dignity ). Pluralism, in fact, is to take diversity, difference, otherness itself as a value in itself (very different thing to say, as a certain relativism, that all values \u200b\u200bare equal) and therefore does not amount to a generic " multiculturalism. " This is infatti la moltiplicazione delle identità culturali in nome della loro "differenza specifica"; e che esso sia "thick" o "thin", come vogliono alcuni autori (Fullinwider, Kukathas, Chandran, Galston), resta il fatto che esso è in linea di massima ostile alla diversità, alle affiliazioni multiple, alla possibilità - che invece il pluralismo garantisce - di trovare un terreno comune di convivenza civile, valori laicamente condivisi. Esso vede l'integrazione dell'identità culturale di gruppo nella società come il male da evitare a tutti i costi e quindi propugna una sorta di separatismo culturale (la "mia" identità - tirolese, ladina, carnica, gaelica, scozzese, basca, ecc. è intoccabile, sacra, inviolable, because in the past has been neglected, misunderstood, colonized, etc..), putting end to the idea of \u200b\u200bmulticultural society as an archipelago of communities separated by clear boundaries, I decided once and for all. The identity is preserved only in the separation, even in the segregation of each other.
In this way the company would have splintered into a patchwork of minorities (self) segregation or, better, autosegregantisi, which are not allowed multiple affiliations, membership of a group of more culturally defined (multiculturalism thick), or everything becomes extremely problematic (thin multiculturalism ). But a society in which affiliations are multiple problems, which are suspicious of plural identities, in which otherness is still perceived as a threat and danger, not even a pluralistic society and plural society is a fragmented, atomistic, reminiscent of a patchwork fragmentation feudal and where the state should only seek to resolve the disagreements that inevitably arise from claims culturalist (minimal house).
Clearly, then, that this "will of the community" brings "the company under siege" to connect only the titles of two famous works of Zygmunt Bauman: an archipelago of communities autosegregantisi, lacking harmony with that environment that once called "society" as a set of constraints, obligations, refer to norms and values \u200b\u200bderived from the sense of belonging to a community that produces shared collective representations (the idea of \u200b\u200ba common good that you can better pursue cooperation rather than hinder each other). This idea of \u200b\u200bsociety was made possible by the idea of \u200b\u200bcultural pluralism described above, as a result of the liberal idea of \u200b\u200bsociety in which many can stay together , where everyone achieves better their projects by limiting the their freedom (or rather to their will, their own subjective will), knowing that working for the good of all is il modo migliore per realizzare il proprio e di essere più liberi . Individualismo, mediatizzazione, globalizzazione, crisi delle ideologie, teorie sociali postmoderne e "multiculturalismo" hanno decretato la "morte del sociale", la "fine della società", in un "individualismo senza individui" e in una "socializzazione senza società" dove trionfano le identità esibite, esposte, spogliate, confessate come nei reality show che vanno per la maggiore. Ma la "morte della società" accade quando gli altri sono percepiti e/o raccontati solo come ostacolo, intralcio, fastidio: quando la pluralità è il nemico da battere, quando si esclama trionfalmente “ne resterà uno solo!”, emphasizing non-virtue as cunning, deception, stupidity calculated, the ability to manipulate others to suit your purposes. Identity that becomes a "political" as "identity politics", both at the policy level in the strictest sense, in the sense of personal calculation. Their "difference" (whether personal, cultural, social, religious or political) should be recognized, accepted, received, maintained and protected. It happens a bit 'like at school, when parents have recourse against the "no promotion" (politically correct term if not failures) is claimed a "right to promotion" justified by a "special" family situation, una "particolare" condizione psicologica, un "particolare" disagio (con i compagni, con i professori, con l'ambiente scolastico...). Ognuno è una storia a sé, una "differenza" che va tutelata e garantita nel suo "diritto al successo scolastico": bocciare significa, secondo queste teorie, negare la possibilità di "realizzare il proprio progetto di vita".

In questo modo si fa della propria "differenza", cioè della propria specificità di condizioni umane e personali, un grimaldello per aprire tutte le porte e per ottenere vantaggi legati alla propria particolarità. Singoli individui o gruppi chiedono di essere riconosciuti perché sono stati umiliati, perseguitati e/o misconosciuti in the past (eg, women, Native Americans, gays) say they do not ask to be "included" in the human race, but to be respected in their diversity, in their "difference" They thereby advance a "claim recognition ", the" cultural right "to be respected and free to make their own choices, with significant ethical and legal consequences (marriage, inheritance, etc..): this takes the form of policies of preferential treatment (affirmative action ) that often give rise to bitter controversy, as "positive discrimination".
Identity Politics "to remove discrimination discrimination "(G. Sartori), that is to protect the differences, diversity, life forms plural claiming the right to recognition as their" other "that seeks to activate compensatory mechanisms of past discriminations. The result is a huge ethical problem that reconfigures the question of diversity and pluralism: it is to understand what it means, here, recognize.
We have already seen, that the condition of my identity, my "be myself", and being recognized by others (even the non-recognition, not having been acknowledged, has made me who I am): But now here "recognize" significa piuttosto “accettare la differenza” di questi gruppi, “tutelare” il loro essere minoranza, rispettare la loro “peculiarità”, garantendo loro dei “vantaggi sociali”, dei “privilegi”, finanche dei “diritti”. Si innesca in questo modo “una reazione a catena perversa: o che i discriminati chiedano per sé gli stessi vantaggi accordati agli altri, e/o che le identità favorite dalla discriminazione chiedano per sé sempre più privilegi a danno delle identità non favorite. Nel qual caso la identità che viene attaccata e sminuita finisce per risentire il proprio misconoscimento e magari reagisce riaffermando una sua superiorità” (G. Sartori). In questo modo non più l’identità, ma la differenza diventa il vero problema. Perché, per restare all'esempio, si evita di bocciare Tizio piuttosto che Caio? (oppure, più spesso: perché non si boccia né Tizio né Caio?) Risposta: i genitori di Tizio potrebbero fare ricorso e far perdere tempo all'organizzazione scolastica. Quindi per non farsi problemi, per non creare disparità di trattamento, tutti promossi, todos caballeros .

La "politica dell'identità" diventa così un mezzo per tutelare chi fa più rumore, chi è più disposto a mobilitarsi o a mobilitare l’opinione pubblica, perché non esiste un criterio oggettivo per preferire a minority to another, an affiliation to protect against another affiliation. This results in a conflictual social situation permanently and full of resentment (the real key to understanding the social according to R. Girard), which absorbs any energy that could be channeled for the betterment of society as a whole: words like " politics of recognition "," protection of minorities ", etc.. raise negative passions like anger, bitterness, resentment, anger, and lead many people to ignore the political life or extreme political choices, with the risk of racist and xenophobic tendencies. In this way, moreover, it is easy banalizzare il pluralismo confondendolo con un generico relativismo morale e culturale (grave errore concettuale, come si è visto), accusando il primo di aver messo sullo stesso piano tutte le “verità”, riducendole a banali “credenze”.

Nel dialogo fra l’antropologo Marco Aime ed Emanuele Severino c’è un bel passo che vorrei citare in conclusione di questa riflessione sulle difficoltà di riconoscere e accogliere la pluralità. Citando Ralph Linton, un antropologo che a lezione chiedeva ai suoi studenti di fermarsi a riflettere su quanto fosse “americano” quello che facevano ogni giorno, Marco Aime scrive:

“Hai sollevato the cloth woven cotton fiber discovered for the first time in India in the sixth century BC, then you got stuck slippers, shoes of the Algonquian Indians, then you've had breakfast in a bowl, ceramic, made by a process invented in China, you put the coffee that comes dall'Abissinia or tea coming from China or the cocoa that comes from South America. Then you left, you bought a newspaper printed on paper, a process invented in China, printed with movable type, a process invented in Europe, and broke it paid with a coin, invention of Numidia, and according to the news you thanked or cursed a god Middle East have you given birth to American (M. Aime, E. Severino, The Different as an icon of evil , Boringheri Bollati, Torino 2009, pp. 29-30).

We are therefore faced with a problem at the same time philosophical, anthropological, socio-political and ethical. We must address (but we are prepared to do that?) A new human condition, the challenge of open and plural identity, never final, never finished, never fully claimable. The plurality and diversity are now a challenge: the effort to hold together different sizes of thinking about diversity and plurality as a value; to understand every dimension plural (in itself) but with its roots in common ground as many flowers in a garden. A garden: a living space of the richness of the look of those who cultivate it, a living image of plurality and pluralism.
The effort that we do together is to recognize that we are not compact identity, definitive, unitary, we are more like sponges than billiard balls polished and impenetrable. There are foreigners, strangers, aliens, "foreigners" extra-something. Because each of us is pass through the other, by a number of others, ourselves, others, "the rest of us."