MULTICULTURALISM, DIFERENTA, RECUNOASTERE.<br/> CUM SA INTERPRETAM VALOAREA DIFERENTELOR CULTURALE?

Résumé

Globalization is often accompanied by parallel processes with opposite direction. When national borders become irrelevant, when multiple identities and various ways of life are brought together in large multicultural communities, the tendency to focus on local experiences and to adopt particularistic cultural perspectives as a leading point of view may seem entirely natural. The multiculturalism and “the politics of recognition” are meant to provide a political theory of civic solidarity for this kind of social contexts. Our paper examines in a critical manner the issue of equal recognition of the cultural values - as stated by Giovanni Sartori in one of his polemical writings - which is, in our view, a key point of the justification of the politics of recognition. Following a broad anthropological standpoint, we argue that the cultural difference has an authentic intrinsic value, and that the contemporary western culture is fully compatible with a tolerant, non-ethnocentric understanding of cultural values, which may foster (if consolidated by widely available, enlightened public education) the mutual respect, the acceptance and the enjoyment of culturally diverse ways of life.