Multiculturalism as “model” in and outside the West

Abstract

  The role of commentator of this panel consists in finding links between actual debate on multiculturalism in United States, development of the notion of tolerance in England and in North America of 17th and 18th centuries, and difficult conciliation of liberalism with nationalism in modern China. Because of his specialty and the locality of the colloquium, French and Japanese contexts also are considered.

  If liberal social praxis today in United States sometimes attempts to solve contradictions between multiculturalism and feminism by means of accommodation, the genealogy of this device goes back to the efforts of Roger Williams, who tried to assure the equal right to freedom of conscience to all members of different religious or ethnic communities in his American plantation in 17th century. Thus, he expanded and deepened Locke’s notion of toleration. In its resistance to Anglo-Saxon model of multiculturalism, France is not eager to call for accommodation to attenuate conflictual religious matters.

  Recently the notion of hospitality tends to replace that of tolerance in French philosophical context. While the latter is a geographically and historically limited experience linked to Christian Reform, the former designates an ethos inherent to any cultural entity. While capital punishment is currently in force in China, United States and Japan, one wonders how to justify its abolishment as praxis of tolerance and/or hospitality.