Draft: August 2003
3
authentic difference, Canadian courts must first determine if Aboriginal societies count as
societies, and this determination is itself made according to ethnocentric criteria.
Beyond the problem of ethnocentricism, objections have also been raised about
the very project of deciding, in the context of public debate, whether cultural practices are
central rather than incidental to a cultural way of life.
6
In political theory, the problem
has been expressed in terms of the inflationary tendencies of cultural or identity politics.
Jeremy Waldron has argued that identity claims are far too subjective, and interpersonally
and socially non-negotiable to be the proper subject of political or legal argument.
7
To
admit identity claims into political argument would greatly increase the scope of the sort
of things that are the subject of public discussion and adjudication. It would divert
attention from other more salient issues, such as the fair distribution of resources.
8
Or
worse, it would render democratic politics impossible because it allows each group to
foist on the rest demands that are put in terms what their identity requires.
In addition to these concerns, critics of the use of culture in political theory argue
that because culture is constantly being made and remade through human interactions, it
is not the sort of thing that ought to be subject to legal or political reification: ‘the idea of
culture is itself of culture.”
9
The point here is partly that culture is fluid and ever-
6
Barsh and Henderson, p. 1000-1.
7
Jeremy Waldron “Cultural Identity and Civic Responsibility” in Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman
(eds.), Citizenship in Diverse Societies. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
8
The debate between redistribution and recognition, as Nancy Fraser has labeled it, is far reaching in
political theory and comparative politics of the welfare state. Some authors, such as Brian Barry, contend
that identity claims, based on cultural identity and practices, have no normative value and therefore ought
to be left out of democratic politics, which should focus on equalizing resources and opportunities. Others,
such as Nancy Fraser and Iris Young, argue that redistributive issues have an inevitable cultural component
to them and therefore the relevant project ought to be finding a way to deal with both types of issues, and
especially the ways in which the issues overlap.
9
Also see David Scott, “Culture in Political Theory,” Political Theory 31:1 (Feb 2003) pp. 92-115.
Convention