Insight into 'The politics of Recognition' by Charles Taylor

Insight into 'The politics of Recognition' by Charles Taylor

by Dhruv Singhal

Charles Taylor plays with the Rosseauian idea that honor and hierarchy are interdependent as the other-dependent person is a slave to “opinion”, thus providing a critique for Pride (amour-propre). This renders humanity into a paradoxical condition where despite inequality in power, there exists dependence between the various strata of society. A perfectly balanced reciprocity of recognition on the other hand makes it compatible with liberty.

The importance of esteem is not to be disregarded, but for valuing a system of equality, reciprocity, and unity of purpose, for the defense of general will, all virtuous citizens are to be equally honored. Thus the age of dignity becomes existent. With reciprocated recognition among equal men, the problem of depravity of recognition is thus resolved.  The problem arises when the situation is analyzed from the perspective of differentiated purposes, which renders such reciprocated recognition impossible. If this difference in purposes is overlooked, a so called “homogenizing tyranny“ arises.

Some critics on the other hand choose to analyze recognition in a more negative light. Hegelian recognition is considered to have an inevitable aspect of hierachy characterized by domination of peoples over other.  According to Sartre, “our relations with other people are always conflictual as each of us attempts to negate the other in an intersubjective dual. The realisation of our own subjectivity is dependent upon our turning the other into an object. In turn, we are made to feel like an object within the gaze of the other.” Sartre further provides a crucial example which relates the shameful, objectifying experience of suddenly feeling the ‘look’ or ‘gaze’ of another person upon us when carrying out a contemptible act to the notion of mutual conflictual recognition. “In this moment of shame, I feel myself as an object and am thus denied existence as a subject. My only hope is to make the other into an object. There are no equal or stable relations between people; all interactions are processes of domination.” Levinas explores ethical issues regarding once methodology involved in ‘recognizing’ others. According to Levinas, “Hegelian recognition involves an unavoidable appropriation or assimilation of the other into one’s own subjectivity.” He posits that while recognizing others we inadvertently deem them knowable, fathomable, thus depriving them of the altered differences. He argues that this is infact the greatest ethical sin as one fails to recognize other in their full exteriority and the differences they might possess. “In effect, to recognize someone is to render them the same as us; to eliminate their inescapable, unapprehendable and absolute alterity.”

Paddy Queen from Queen’s University of Northern Island regards the inevitability of globalization and immigration, an important factor for the increased value of politics of recognition. In her own words, “Despite the criticism of the concept of recognition, there is an ever increasing value attached with recognition as a functional socio-political principle. The increasingly multicultural nature of societies throughout the world seems to call for a political theory which places respect for difference at its core. In this regard, recognition theories seem likely to only increase in influence. It should also be noted that they are very much in their infancy. It was only in the 1990s that theorists formulated a comprehensive account of recognition as a foundational concept within theories of justice. To this extent, they are still in the process of being fashioned and re-evaluated in the light of critical assessment from various schools of thought. For many thinkers, the concept of recognition captures a fundamental feature of human subjectivity. It draws attention to the vital importance of our social interactions in formulating our sense of identity and self-worth as well as revealing the underlying motivations for, and justifications of, political action. It seems particularly useful in making sense of notions of authenticity and the conditions for agency, as well as mapping out the conditions for rational responsibility and authority. As a result, recognition can be seen as an indispensable means for analyzing social movements, assessing claims for justice, thinking through issues of equality and difference, understanding our concrete relations to others, and explicating the nature of personal identity. Although there remain concerns regarding various aspects of recognition as a social and political concept, it is entirely possible that many of these will be addressed and resolved through future research.”

The question that Charles Taylor seeks to answer concerns the homogenizing effects of politics of equal dignity. He presents the Canadian case regarding the same, which involves a universal Charter of Rights applicable to all its citizens. It guarantees equal rights and treatment of all Canadians.

At it’s stake is the survival and autonomy of Quebec and aboriginal nations as distinct societies.

On the other hand there exists in self-governance and survival policies, like language laws to preserve different cultures. Special laws, for example, about language  exist (in order to ensure survival of francophone culture):

- Children of francophone or immigrant parents are not allowed to enter English schools.

- Businesses with more than 50 employees must be run in French.

- No advertisements in any other language than French.

They fear that their cultures -understood comprehensively as dynamically tensed and politicized articulations of way of life- will turn into the lifeless folklore of a museum diorama.

For a number of people in ‘English Canada’, a political society’s espousing certain collective goals threatens to run against both of these basic provisions of the Charter. The prominent reasons cited for this are:

1. Collective goals might put restrictions on the behavior of individuals that might violate their rights granted by the universal charter.

2. Espousing collective goals on behalf of a national group can be thought to be inherently discriminatory.

Dworkin’s liberalism considers two kinds of moral commitment: procedural and substantive. This implies that a liberal society cannot adopt a substantive view about the ends of life, aim to make people virtuous, because this would involve a violation of its procedural norm -it would not be treating the dissident minority with equal respect.

At the same time, a society with collective goals like Quebec’s violates this model as policies intended to facilitate survival seek to induce members of the community -not simply providing a facility to already existent people. Quebeckers therefore tend to opt for a different model of a liberal society.

This is achieved by distinguishing the fundamental liberties that should never be infringed from privileges and immunities that are important, but can be revoked or restricted for reasons of public policy.

There is a form of the politics of equal respect, which is enshrined in a liberalism of rights, that is inhospitable to difference, because (a) it insists on a uniform application of the rules defining these rights, without exception, and (b) it is suspicious of collective goals. Inhospitable because it cannot accommodate what the members of distinct societies really aspire to, which is survival.

Amelie Oksenberg Rorty argues, “But even if Taylor is permitted the accordion movement, expanding and contracting his definitions of culture and of language, he doesn’t provide an account of cultural differentiation. He focuses cultures as the immediate and proper objects of "the politics of recognition," he requires a criteria for distinguishing them that are narrower than the demarcation of natural languages and more precise than the differentiation of "ways of life." If cultures differ from other identity-defining groups by virtue of their solidarity and historical continuity, we need criteria for cohesive identity and continuity.

There are only few philosophers which consider themselves sensitive to the political aspects of apparently neutral philosophic issues than Charles Taylor. “By taking Quebec’s cultural survival as his primary example he has made his case easier for himself than it should be.” As Taylor presents them, the issues over Quebec’s recognition have focused almost exclusively on the preservation of a specific language and on the policies and institutions required for-and legitimated by-that preservation. With such a simplified and abstracted characterization of the constituents of culture, it is not too difficult to argue that liberalism can, without jeopardizing its primary commitments, extend certain rights of self-preservation to the dominant culture and to subcultures as long as the basic rights of individual citizens remain protected. But when cultures are more fully described, as including economic and political practices and attitudes, the politics of cultural definition and recognition becomes entangled in determining public policy on a vast range of substantive issues. For instance, how far might the preservation of Irish-American culture commit us to subsidizing the parochial schools of the Catholic population, recognizing that Catholic schools typically attempt to develop specific attitudes to many morally and politically charged divisive issues (publicly supported abortion, euthanasia, etc.) In funding parochial schools, does the state become an active party in determining not only their curricular standards, but also the direction of teaching?” Is it therefore necessary to assure that the day to day practices of such schools follow general anti-discrimination practices.

The paper revealed the struggle between equality and identity based justifications for affirmative action in liberal societies. It is a critique to the notion that liberalism is a possible meeting ground. It is on the other hand shown to be the political expression of one range of cultures, and quite incompatible with other ranges.

It has to be considered that all societies are becoming increasingly multicultural, while at the same time becoming more porous. There is, then, an intense vulnerability to personal relationships that has arisen from the collapse of honor and from the conflicting notions of what its substitute, recognition, can bestow. A new note has been struck in the history of friendship and marriage: that of desperation. For Taylor, this desperation comes from the inherently irresolvable tensions between conflicting views of human nature, each of which forms an indispensable foundation stone to contemporary liberal society:

“With the politics of equal dignity, what is established is meant to be universally the same, an identical basket of rights and immunities; with the politics of difference, what we are asked to recognize is the unique identity of this individual or group, their distinctness from everything else. The idea is that it is precisely this distinctness that has been ignored, glossed over, assimilated to a dominant or majority identity. And this assimilation is the cardinal sin against the ideal of authenticity.”

Hence he demands for recognition of equal value of different cultures. Decolonization of peoples and  a World of education. In all the debates about multiculturalism-about Afro-centered curricula, for example, or affirmative action, or perhaps above all, feminism-it is not sufficiently noted how inherently irresolvable this issue is when taken on its own terms. Society is being asked to provide two mutually contradictory supports to each individual: one based on his abstract humanity and the other on his unique particularity, and the two simply cannot be made to parse in the same political syntax, a point that Taylor, an Anglophone from Quebec, notes with rare acuity:

“These two modes of politics, then, both based on the notion of equal respect, come into conflict. For one, the principle of equal respect requires that we treat people in a difference-blind fashion. The fundamental intuition that humans command this respect focuses on what is the same in all. For the other, we have to recognize and even foster particularity. The reproach the first makes to the second is just that it violates the principle of nondiscrimination. The reproach the second makes to the first is that it negates identity by forcing people into a homogeneous mold that is untrue to them.”

Logic behind some of his demands seem to depend upon the premise that we owe equal respect to all cultures and there is something valid in this presumption, but the presumption is by no means unproblematic, e.g., not all art is of equal or even considerable value; every culture can go through phases of decadence.

It is to be noted that by explaining the right to identity as a need for original recognition, the tension between the tripartite justification of minority protection has disappeared. Consequently in the case of politics of societal differentiation, the three traditional justifications of minority rights are complementary: for if minorities are able to nurture their original recognition they will be able to take part in society on equal footing, without being or becoming identical to majority. Taking part in society on equal footing would mean being supported by a secure cultural structure, the minority feels that it has a voice outside the bounds of it’s own community.

The presumption should instead be thought of as a starting point. The very understanding of what it is to be of worth will be strange and unfamiliar to us. We require a “fusion of horizons” hosting the spectrums of cultures regardless of time.  Among the responses to Taylor's lecture, Michael Walzer's (the shortest) does remark on the hypocrisy behind Enlightenment liberalism ("no doubt state neutrality is often hypocritical, always incomplete"). Taylor, of course, does not characterize the Enlightenment/Romantic program as hypocrisy but rather as inherently contradictory, a point brought out, seemingly unconsciously, by Steven Rockefeller, another respondent, who juxtaposes these two sentences without appearing to notice how the one unravels the other:

“From the democratic perspective, particular cultures are critically evaluated in the light of the way they give distinct concrete expression to universal capacities and values. [Yet] the objective of a liberal democratic culture is to respect-not to repress-ethnic identities and to encourage different cultural traditions to develop fully their potential for expression of the democratic ideals of freedom and equality, leading in most cases to major cultural transformations.”

As Edward T. Oakes puts it, “But these transformations don't come cheap, which is precisely why the issue is so neuralgic. The contradiction lurking in all this rhetoric is the quite unspoken presupposition that governs this debate: that some culture has to be the chump and play the role of the fall guy, an admission that perhaps only comes to light in this telling line from respondent Susan Wolf: "And the problems of those who have been urged to ignore or suppress or remove their differences from white Christian heterosexuals can remind us of the dangers of trying to deny the significance, say, of gender differences that may run very deep." But what goes unrecognized in the book is how a Christian perspective on human nature might actually not only illuminate these difficulties but point a way, if not to their resolution, at least to an identification of their source. For example, one odd feature of the book is Taylor's assertion that the trend toward a politics of recognition can be seen as "just a continuation and development inaugurated by Saint Augustine, who saw the road to God as passing through our own self-awareness." What is insufficiently noted is how diametrically opposed are St. Augustine's view of human nature and that of Rousseau. Taylor at one point even quotes Rousseau to the effect that "with liberty, wherever abundance reigns, well-being also reigns"-scarcely, to say the least, a continuation of Augustine's pessimistic view of human nature. This Rousseauian optimism is perhaps the root of the modern pathos, for nothing could be so obviously self-refuting. In fact, it is out of the Rousseauian view of human nature that the politics of recognition first grew, and nothing more characterizes that politics than its sheer insatiability, as the German sidewalk streaker amply demonstrates.”

Sources

Paddy McQueen, 2011, Social and Political Recognition

Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, 1994, Political Theory, Sage Publications Inc.

Edward T. Oakes, 1993, Attention must be paid

F.F Mansvelt Beck,  Liberalism, Minorities & the politics of Societal Differentiation

Andreas Bucher, 2003, Ethnicity & State in Africa.