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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 June 2009
A society is culturally plural when it contains a variety of cultural groups. A common view is that just societies are likely to be culturally plural. This view assumes that human beings have rights to remain in the cultures in which they were born, or even to adopt whatever culture they choose. It is also widely believed that cultural pluralism tends to have good consequences. For example, many people suppose that the variety of cultures in a culturally plural society adds savor and interest to the lives of its inhabitants. This view evidently assumes that culture is a consumer good. Another view that cultural pluralism tends to have good consequences rests on the premise that each culture has claims to moral knowledge.
1 I first came across this idea in Du Bois, W. E. B., “The Conservation of Races,” in The Seventh Son: The Thought and Writing of W. E. B. Du Bois, vol. 1, ed. Lester, Julius (New York: Vintage Books, 1971), pp. 176–87Google Scholar. Apparently the idea has a long history. See the discussion in Berlin, Isaiah, The Crooked Timber of Humanity (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), pp. 8–12.Google Scholar
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14 Ibid., p. 76.
15 Ibid., p. 93.
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21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., p. xlviii.
23 Ibid., pp. xlviii, xlix.
24 Ibid., p. li.
25 Ibid., p. xliv.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid., p. xliii.
28 Ibid., pp. xlv, xlvi.
29 Ibid., p. xlvii.
30 Ibid., p. xlviii.
31 Ibid., p. xlv.
32 Ibid., p. xlvii.
33 Ibid., p. clviii.
34 Ibid., p. xlv.
35 Ibid., p. li.
36 Ibid., p. lii.
37 Ibid., p.xlv.
38 Ibid., p. lii. To be at all reasonable, I expect that Lewis means “social work” rather than “psychiatric treatment.”
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid., p. xlix.
41 Ibid., p. lii.
42 Ibid., p. xliii.
43 Ibid., p. lii.
44 Ibid., p. li.
45 Ibid., p. lii.
46 Gans, Herbert, The Urban Villagers (New York: The Free Press, 1982), p. 284.Google Scholar
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50 Ibid., pp. 315, 316.
51 Ibid., p. 316; emphasis in original.
52 Hannerz, Ulf, Soulside (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 183.Google Scholar
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54 Ibid.
55 Hannerz, , Soulside, p. 185.Google Scholar
56 Ibid.
57 See for example, Gans, Herbert, “Culture and Class in the Study of Poverty,” in On Understanding Poverty, ed. Moynihan, Daniel P. (New York: Basic Books, 1968), p. 208.Google Scholar
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59 Lewis, , La Vida, p. xlivGoogle Scholar. This suggests that Lewis's culture of poverty is different from the “slum” or “lower-class” concept of Davis and Miller, ; supra nn. 8 and 9.Google Scholar
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73 Hayek, F. A., The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 59.Google Scholar
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77 Ibid., pp. 204, 205.
78 See Plato, , Republic, trans. Grube, G. M. A., rev. Reeve, C. D. C. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992), Book IX, 592B.Google Scholar
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81 See, for example, ch. 7, “The Legislator,” in Book II of Rousseau, Jean Jacques, The Social ContractGoogle Scholar. In an earlier version of this essay, I had associated Rousseau's views with Plato's. I now believe that this was a serious error. Although Rousseau was, of course, strongly influenced by Plato, he did not share Plato's dismissive attitude toward the culture a people happens to have. He made it clear that the legislator must respect and draw on that culture. See, for example, The Social Contract, Book II, ch. 9.
82 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, On the Social Contract with Geneva Manuscript and Political Economy, ed. Masters, Roger D., trans. Masters, Judith R. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978), p. 69.Google Scholar
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84 The most famous argument for this claim is in Murray, Charles, Losing Ground (New York: Basic Books, 1984), p. 157.Google Scholar
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88 Ibid., p. 134. For further examples of this phenomenon, see West, Cornel, Race Matters (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), p. 56.Google Scholar
89 See, for example, Keil, Charles, Urban Blues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968)Google Scholar, and the discussion in Valentine, Charles, Culture and Poverty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 84–87 and 123–25.Google Scholar
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97 Ibid.
98 Festinger, Leon, A Theory of Dissonance (Evanston: Row, Peterson and Co., 1956), pp. 3–7.Google Scholar
