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The multicultural mirage
Thursday, October 7th, 2010
Oct. 06, 2010
Casting differences among groups in terms of culture is asking for trouble. Because you can’t ask the state to treat cultural traditions with equal respect. Homophobia and honour killing may be cultural traditions. That doesn’t mean a liberal democratic state is obliged to respect them; it’s obliged not to. What you can ask of the state is that it treat individuals of different identities with equal respect. In practice, this means that, if something matters deeply to an identity group, the state will try to reach an accommodation with them, so long as doing so isn’t too costly, or irreconcilable with liberal democratic values (including those of basic morality).
Tags: ideology, multiculturalism, participation, rights
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