Seyla Benhabib 'The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era'
Comments by Katharina Schramm
Benhabib’s text links up very closely with recent (and sometimes also not so recent) debates in anthropology and related fields, as she is touching on the issues of culture and identity, global-local dynamics, multiculturalism and legal pluralism. She follows a social constructivist view of culture - arguing against such notions of culture which regard it as a bounded entity, inherent to a certain people and well-defined place. While those ideas may no more be acceptable in anthropological discourse, they are nevertheless still very powerful in popular imagination as well as in the sphere of political counselling and decision-making (an example for this would be the extreme popularity of the idea of a "War of Civilisations" à la Huntington). Benhabib is not so much interested in the content of those cultural constructs but rather in the politics of their application. She claims (rightly) that culture has become an arena of intense political controversy and consequently asks why this is the case and how political elites and other groups make use of the culture-concept to reinforce their particular interests. She also addresses the role of the state in a world that is characterized by transnational flows. Against such views in which cultures are perceived as bounded and easily identifiable wholes she places an idea of cultural complexity and mutual entanglement that should not be perceived as a threat, but rather as the basis for the creation of public arenas of discourse, where issues such as human rights, including ’cultural rights’ can be negotiated. The precondition of this, according to Benhabib, is the recognition of a ’universal humanity’ which goes hand in hand with the moral stance to accept ’the Other’ as an equal participant in ’our’ conversation. Moreover, she doubts the ’otherness’ of ’the Other’, given the crosscutting ties and ’systems of reference’ (shared and/or contested) that go back at least to the times of European colonialism and expansionism. In a similar vein she doubts the existence of a homogeneous Western ’self’, pointing out the ever-existent global dialogue across cultures and civilizations. She argues for the recognition of the "radical hybridity" and "polyvocality" of all cultures (p. 25). At no point, however, does she address the criticisms that have been voiced against the (once so fashionable) idea of cultural hybridity. Neither does she pay much attention to existing regimes of power and representation; not to speak of global economic interdependencies and inequalities that cannot be framed in ’dialogical’ terms. This, to me, is the major weakness of the text. Yet it is easier to criticize than to resolve, because Benhabib’s philosophical discussion goes hand in hand with a strong sense of political pragmatism - how is it possible to face the problems contemporary societies are presently confronted with? Is there something like a universal code of ethics that everyone needs to adhere to? She answers to this question in the positive and continues to ask about the forums and procedures through which such a code could be set in place. Following Habermas, she favours an ethics of discourse that builds on the idea of a commonly shared, non-hierarchical space. Yet, whereas Habermas saw this space already unfolding in the bourgeois public sphere (for which he has been widely criticized), Benhabib is more cautious and rather regards discourse ethics as a process in which this very space is constantly negotiated and in the making.
Let me now turn to some specific points in her text that have raised my objections or at least deserve an in-depth discussion.
First of all I would like to question her view of anthropological concepts and methodologies. She argues that "much contemporary cultural politics today is an odd mixture of the anthropological view of the democratic equality of all cultural forms…and the … Herderian emphasis on each form’s irreducible uniqueness." (p. 3) I wonder which anthropological view she is referring to? Is she talking about 19th century evolutionist anthropology? About the important (structural-)functionist schools of the 20th century? As I said before, her own view on culture as inherently diverse, overlapping, and fluid mirrors dominant debates in anthropology as they have unfolded over the past twenty years. Yet she does not acknowledge those developments. The same holds true for her view of methodology. She develops an insider/outsider dichotomy: outsiders construct cultures as clearly delineable wholes, whereas insiders have no problem with diversity and contradictions, since culture, for them, appears as "a horizon that recedes each time one approaches it" (p. 5). To me, this is a somewhat naïve distinction. Again, the methodological debates in anthropology have addressed these problems of the observer and the insider-outsider dynamics long ago (see our discussions during the first study-day). What those discussions have shown is that one cannot easily dissolve the dilemmas that go along with it, but that one needs to be constantly aware of them. This awareness seems to be lacking from Benhabib’s own analysis. If, for example, she outwardly rejects cultural essentialism of any sort (p. 5), she does not take into account the possibility of a strategic use of essentialisms, or if she does, she does so in the negative, regarding this practice (the politics of culture) as something that we need to do away with. But again this becomes an unconvincing argument if one does not take into account issues of power hierarchies and (historical) inequalities - and Benhabib does not. When she suggests an "interactive universalism" (p. 14), she argues that "I can learn the whoness of the other(s) only through their narratives of self-identification." (p. 14). This point deserves more attention than that is given to it by Benhabib. Who has the power to create such narratives? Are they really considered on an equal basis? Who determines the scale? What about the power to disguise one’s own narrative of self-identification as a universal truth, as the recent criticisms of ’white invisibility’ have pointed out? Her arguments against the thesis of the ethno- (or euro-)centrism of universalism do not consider those criticisms - yet it would certainly be worthwhile to explore them further.
She calls for the creation of "impartial institutions in the public sphere…where (the) struggle for the recognition of cultural differences and the contestation for cultural narratives can take place without domination." (p. 8). As I said before, she views this as a process, not a given. What she does not take into account, however, is the possibility of the need for exclusive spaces for the negotiation of political standpoints etc. Again this boils down to the problem of inquality and recognition. There are certainly limits to the establishment of a discursive space and its accessibility.
Finally, she argues that "most human encounters…occur in (the) in-between space of partial evaluations, translations, and contestations." Then she goes on to say that "it would be just as foolish to deny the existence of regimes of annihilation…as to forget that they are the exception and not the rule in human history." (p. 41) What makes her think so? What about theorists like Paul Gilroy ("The Black Atlantic") or Zygmunt Bauman ("Modernity and the Holocaust") who have both argued that the annihilation of the Other, the non-recognition of him- or herself as human (but rather as chattel or weed) are not the pathological exception from, but rather stand at the beginning (Gilroy) or occur as the logical consequence (Bauman) of modernity? These are certainly points we should consider in our discussion of ethics as a global system of reference.