Social Justice Warriors, Misrecognition and Homogeneity






















Inclusion and Public Dialogue: Moving Beyond the Choice Between Tolerance and Identity Politics

A lot of ink has been spilled over the last 50 years concerning the question of how to deal with the problem of how a deeply diverse society can be made fully inclusive for all members of the society. There are two primary approaches to this problem and both of them are implausible because of the deep shortcomings that they possess. The first approach is the tolerance approach and it argues that in order to ensure inclusion within a diverse society we should respect the rights of individuals to pursue diverse practises as long as these practises do not violate the rights of others. The second approach is the identity politics approach which argues that we need to positively value the unique identities of all people in order to ensure society is fully inclusive. To show the shortcomings of each of these approaches I will look at how this approach deals with the question of how we ought to treat others within the context of public dialogue to ensure that society is inclusive. By public dialogue I mean the diverse set of dialogues that occur concerning how we ought to live together. Furthermore, I will sketch out an alternative that, at least at the level of public dialogue, overcomes the shortcomings of both the tolerance approach and the identity politics approach.

Within the context of public dialogue the tolerance approach merely suggests that we ought not violate the rights of others and allow them to espouse their opinions. In and of itself it does not require us to listen to others and try to learn from them in order to facilitate inclusion. It is a merely negative ethic in that it prohibits us from violating the rights of others, or inciting people to violate the rights of others. The problem with this is that members of groups can still be deeply marginalized if no one listens to them within public dialogue, even if their rights are not violated. So, this approach fails to ensure a robust enough form of inclusion to address the problem of inclusion within a deeply diverse society.

Contrastingly, the identity politics approach suggests that in the context of public dialogue we should recognize the value of all diverse perspectives and intently listen to all perspectives as they all provide a distinct value to the public dialogue of a political community. Surely, this would ensure a great degree of inclusion by ensuring that within the context of public dialogue there is real engagement with all perspectives, but the problem with it is that within the context of deeply diverse society it can only ensure this degree of inclusion at the expense of disrespecting people by asking them to say things that they do not necessarily believe. For example, if I believe that Christianity holds more wisdom than other religions and perspectives, it is disrespectful to me to suggest that I ought to affirm the value of other religions and perspectives, as I may not actually value these other religions or perspectives. Consequently, the attitude that the identity politics approach asks people to take within public dialogue may seem effective at ensuring inclusion, but the identity politics approach is disrespectful because it attitude may require me to espouse beliefs that I reject, and thus this approach seems deeply problematic.

Some defenders of identity politics suggest that it is bigoted or prejudiced to think that the perspective of one culture or religion is superior to another and consequently there should be no place in public dialogue for perspectives that adopt such an attitude, but this seems to me to conflate disrespecting a person’s perspective and disrespecting the person. I disrespect a person’s perspective if I say their perspective is inferior to mine, but I disrespect the person if I say they should adopt my values because I think my values are superior. It is absurd that we should avoid disrespecting people’s perspectives, because some perspectives merit disrespect (ie perspectives in favour of footbinding or honor killing) and disrespecting beliefs does not constitute disrespect for persons. Thus, there does seem to be a place in public dialogue for perspectives that say that one perspective is superior to another.

The key to inclusion is not to artificially try to affirm the value of all perspectives, but to develop a citizenry that is reflective enough to recognize that they may not have all of the answers to all questions and can learn from the wisdom of others. Such a reflective citizenry would facilitate inclusion through public dialogue because they would see others as possible sources of insight and consequently listen to them. This would facilitate inclusion as it would ensure that the voices of all members of society were heard and engaged with. Furthermore, it would not require anyone to say or do anything that violates their integrity or any reasonable belief that they hold. Consequently, we should endorse this approach over the tolerance approach and the identity politics approach on the question of how to make society inclusive at the level of public dialogue. Of course the development of such a reflective citizenry is not something that is easy to achieve nor something that we should hope to achieve anytime soon, but by better understanding the kind of citizenry and culture required for full inclusion, we are better equipped to begin making steps towards this goal, and understanding the shortcomings of our current state.