Multiculturalism And Humanism In The Context Of Globalization

Abstract

The article is covered the humanistic potential of multiculturalism as a sociocultural integrational model and identificated the ways to improve it under the globalization processes. Hyperglobalism and global skepticism approaches are compared. From the point of view of hyperglobalism, economic globalization causes homogenization, forms a global identity in the universal socio-economic plane of the consumer society, the social roles and functions distribution’s market model. Global skepticism draws attention to the globalization tendency as social subjects’ cultural identity problematization in the process of expanding and deepening the interconnections internationalization. Resistance to a universalizing global trend is expressed in the form of an aggravation of own ethnonational exclusivity sense, especially among small nations. Comparison of hyperglobalism and global skepticism approaches allows stating the existence of numerous threats to the successful functioning and sociocultural communications and integration development the interethnic and interfaith relations sphere at the world level. At the same time, along with the problems of intercultural interaction caused by global migration processes, there are also positive opportunities for the functioning and social and cultural communications and integration development in the interethnic and interfaith relations sphere considering world trends. The unifying melting pot model and globalization moving from West to East, limitations, on the one hand, and the crisis of primitive multiculturalism, on the other, stimulate the search for alternative integration models, clarifying the limits of individual freedom, tolerance and pluralism.

Keywords: Globalizationmulticulturalismcultural diversityhumanismsocial integration

Introduction

Globalization is the most significant and large-scale trend in the modern society development, causing a permanent interest over the past few decades. As an economic process, it finds its origins in international trade, as noted by World-systems analysis school members (Wallerstein, 1974; Frank & Gills, 1993; Chase-Dunn & Hall, 1997; Korotayev & Grinin, 2006). The exchange of goods was the first strong reason for international communication, trade actualizes the need for international communication and makes it involve more and more territories and people, as well as technologically improve these links, develop navigation and logistics. All this ultimately leads to the human exploration of the planet Earth and the actual establishment of its global essence, since the reliable trade routes establishment is the cause of the Great Geographical Discoveries. Nevertheless, the economy acquires a global nature when the activities of all subjects of the economic system, and not just the agents of the international trading network, turn out to be defined by global interactions. Trade communications connect different regions and cultures into a single macroeconomic space, giving it the core and periphery structure corresponding to the commodity and financial flows direction.

Within the world-system approach framework, there is an alternative vision of the of the world systems formation, quantity and status dynamics, the time of single world system emergence and existence, whose terms are dated in the range from 5,000 to 500 years. However, despite the debate about the age of the global economy, the general idea is the economic nature of globalization.

Problem Statement

The position linking globalization and capitalism in a predicative relation is generally recognized in social science, as Fedotova (as cited in Fedotova, Kolpakov, & Fedotova, 2008) notes, most researchers envisage the global economy as a product, an epiphenomenon of capitalism that realizes the ultimate economic space expansion and non-economic restrictions destruction. The capitalist type of social economic development in Western Europe, and subsequently in North America logically led their business entities to the need to increase profits and achieve further economic growth in all possible ways, both through science, technology and increased labor productivity, and expanding markets.

In a competitive environment, increasing profits by reducing production costs, by optimizing the resource base in the form of cheap minerals, energy, labor, faces the artificial for the economy state, national, ethnic, religious and cultural boundaries. There are two principal approaches in elimination of this interference type: by destroying the borders themselves and standardizing, unifying the cultural environment surrounding the economic relations in a uniform, invariant behavioral pattern, or by building interaction between differentiating factors in the form of mutually exclusive additionality. The relief features, the unique features of the subjects of social exchange can be not so much a factor of separation, as the basis for the need for communication.

At the micro level, this thesis is also confirmed by a study using a sample of 7,600 firms to study the links between cultural diversity, innovation, entrepreneurship and sales strategies in London business from 2005 to 2007, convincingly show that cultural diversity is widely regarded as a socio-economic asset. Results that are resilient to most problems offer a small but significant “diversity bonus”, in particular, diversified companies introduce new products more often than with homogeneous teams, and diversity is especially important for entering international markets and serving a cosmopolitan population (Nathan & Lee, 2013).

While on this globalization’s historical study subject, the research team led by Held expands the context of the globalization analysis, including other aspects of inter-human interactions transformed by internationalization as significant factors and forces (as cited in Held, Goldblatt, McGrew, & Perraton, 2004). There is an increase in organized violence, global military conflicts and political confrontations and reactions to them in the form of collective security systems establishment and existence, there are global environmental, social and demographic problems, and an unprecedented expansion occurs spaces of cultural exchange. Obviously, all these processes and transformations are derived with respect to the key reason that caused them, but in their complex mutual influence they are not explained by the linear logic of classical rationality and assume the variability and inconsistency of development scenarios and research plots.

There is an indicative Held (as cited in Held et al., 2004) theoretical positions classification. On the basis of coherent world civilization strategic prospects vision, distinguishes three points of view: hyperglobalism, global skepticism and transformism. Hypreglobalist supports the economic logic and liberal ideology, they anticipate a global open market civilization without national borders and world civil society. Their motive is unification, integration and unity. Analyzing global financial, investment and demographic flows, global skeptics doubt the unprecedented nature of internationalization and interdependence, and note the increasing regionalization, back reactions to integration processes in the form of intensifying national competition and dividing the socio-economic and political interactions space into blocks, which reinforces and increases inequality and conflict. Transformists, recognizing the unprecedented scale and irreversibility of the globalization process, are trying to focus not on the assumed ideal image of the future society, but on the real changes in various spheres of social practice occurring in international interdependencies growth, which manifest themselves as asymmetric, contradictory, paradoxical and heterogeneous, their focus remains uncertain.

Research Questions

The subject of the study is a set of problems posed by globalization in the intercultural and inter-ethnic interaction field.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to analyze the multiculturalism humanistic potential as sociocultural integration model and to identify ways to improve it.

Research Methods

The main research method is a comparative critical analysis of the apologists and globalization’s skeptics’ approaches and alternative models of sociocultural countries’ and peoples’ integration spawned by globalization. From the hyperglobalism point of view, it is possible to identify a number of trends and processes that allow evaluating social modernization and globalization as a cause, an objective basis for blurring the identity of social actors, introducing them as a ghost, a unification scarecrow. Indeed, economic globalization causes homogenization, forms a global identity in the universal socio-economic plane of the consumer society, the market model of the distribution of social roles and functions. The results of a multinational study conducted among the United States, Italy, Russia, Argentina, South Africa and Iran population show that inclusive social identification with the world community is a significant psychological construct that plays a role in motivating cooperation that goes beyond narrow interests. Identification with the world in general predicts a behavioral contribution to the global public interests, and global social identification conceptually differs from the general attitude to global problems and has a unique effect on cooperative behavior (Buchan et al., 2011).

However, such a verifiable sphere as traditional societies deterritorialization and demographic transformation, caused by economic reasons and large-scale migration, only by a superficial glance fits into the labor free movement explanation according to the global conjuncture of the labor division (“brain drain” and “muscle drain”). On closer examination, this research strategy encounters a number of problems and contradictory facts that do not fit into this picture. For example, Global Migration is a complex crossover and interaction model of global and regional migration flows, both economic and non-economic in nature, which reflects the globalization processes asymmetric nature in general.

Within the global skeptics critical perspective migration can be viewed as one of the key aspects of highly unequal global exchange conditions. This is reflected, in particular, in the migration policy, which provides employment and residence rights to certain privileged groups, but at the same time excludes low-skilled migrants from such rights (Czaika & de Haas, 2014). The automatic regions development according to the assimilation model and catch-up modernization does not occur, but more complex, multidirectional movements are observed.

The globalization tendency as the social subjects’ cultural self-determination problematization in the process of expanding and deepening the interconnections internationalization confirms the global skeptics’ position. Resistance to a universalizing global trend is expressed in the form of an own ethnonational exclusivity sense aggravation, especially among small nations. Economic rigidity, lack of competitiveness engender a inferiority’s feeling, latent envy towards a more successful adversary in the face of the world community, which contributes to the formation of an alternative value system opposing the dominant one. The sociocultural subject creates an image of an “enemy” in order to get rid of the feeling of one’s own economic failure and justify it with superiority in the culture, morality, and traditions sphere. Isolationism, various forms of extremism, adherence to radical methods of struggle is the extreme expression of this tendency. With the loss of the territorial and traditional rootedness of the social order for immigrants, pre-immigrant identity is often strengthened (Malakhov, 1997). It is accepted to consider the contradictions generated by globalization: between the peoples and social groups identity and unification, conflicts of interest, xenophobia, conflicts of traditional and developed cultures, merged in one pot.

Findings

Comparison of hyperglobalism and global skepticism approaches allows stating the existence of numerous threats to the successful functioning and sociocultural communications and integration development the interethnic and interfaith relations sphere at the world level. Disproportion and asymmetry in states’ and macroregions’ socio-economic development leads to the launch of uncontrolled migration processes and as a result of a distortion of the historical, traditional ethno-confessional structure of societies, and an increase in interethnic tension. Protracted local conflicts, the destruction of political systems in the Middle East provide endless migration flows to Europe and Asian countries, exceeding the assimilation and adaptation potential of recipient states. The terrorist groups activities and extremist pseudo-state formations on religious and political grounds in the Middle East region are accompanied by sophisticated propaganda activity and targeted spread of radical views and exercises in the interreligious and interethnic relations sphere, undermining the social and cultural values of European states and Central Asian countries representatives. The fact that the target audience for the dissemination of extremist ideas is mainly young people who have not fully developed civic positions and are at a difficult stage in the development personal cultural identity is particularly alarming.

At the same time, along with the problems of intercultural interaction caused by global migration processes, there are also positive opportunities for the functioning and social and cultural communications and integration development in the interethnic and interfaith relations sphere taking into account world trends. Migration population growth serves as a resource for replenishing human capital in the context of a decline in natural population growth under the condition of cultural adaptation and integration of new society members as full-fledged participants in socio-economic processes. There is a potential for the informational resistance growth in relation to radical views and ideas, principles, unity of the population concerning the respect for the inalienable human rights and basic sociocultural values protection ​​ensuring the peaceful coexistence of ethnic and national groups and the sustainable society development.

Overcome problems and take advantage of opportunities is possible provided that we develop and operate an adequate responding to modern challenges model. What are the alternative models and practices of ethnocultural interaction? In the literature, there are mainly three types: 1. assimilation - adaptation to the existing standard of the dominant culture; 2. melting pot - mutual fusion into a common, averaged, homogeneous cultural environment based on metaculture (liberal legal principles and popular culture); 3. multiculturalism as a parallel coexistence based on mutual respect, legalization of cultural pluralism.

The assimilation, vulgar westernization, and catch-up modernization models have evolved from debatable into fulfilled, not satisfying the verification requirements throughout the past century. The demographic transformation in the United States as a “melting pot” concept classic example is also requires revision. From the beginning, immigrants were forced to adapt to the standards and traditions of the culture of Western societies, now, arriving in a Western country, they have the opportunity to join in the formation of non-European culture on European or American soil, and not to change their values. For example, in the demographic trends redistributing light the ratio of traditional and non-traditional ethno-national groups in the USA, Huntington (2004) doubts that migrants to the United States will assimilate the dominant American culture as it was in the past, accepting the ideals of freedom, individualism and democracy.

Considering multiculturalism, as the normative Western policies ideal that are trying to reconcile the globalizational contradictions, several scenarios in which this concept appears can be identified. In the legal context, multiculturalism is an expression of the doctrine that ensures the realization of the rights and freedoms of various ethnic, confessional and cultural groups representatives. In the ideological context, it self-presents as a manifesto of such social values as liberalism, the principle of the freedom priority and diversity over the ideas of domination and unity. Multiculturalism acts as a political construct, obliged to justify and guarantee liberal values. In cultural terms, multiculturalism is a simple recognition of pluralism, a statement of the existing diversity, parallelism, mosaic of complex, constructive societies.

Thus, the question about mutual adaptation of multiculturalism as a politician to a multicultural reality is logical. Is an extremely liberal political doctrine adequate a deeper elaboration of mechanisms for ensuring cultural interaction needed? At the end of the 20th century, it seemed that “hard” politically regulated multiculturalism, which obliged to strictly observe and respect the values of individualism, autonomy and equality, as it is in Britain, is a guarantor and a sufficient basis for non-conflict and sustainable cultural interaction (Kymlicka, 1995).

The liberal multiculturalism principles had finally entered the political practice of the European Union at the end of the 20th century, but, unfortunately, to date, they have shown their inconsistency, the brightest symptoms of which are the European migration crisis of 2015, the terrorist attacks in Paris and London. The failure of the program is recognized at the highest political level in speeches in 2010–2013 of European leaders, the first of them were A. Merkel, N. Sarkozy and D. Cameron, who recognized that the policy of multiculturalism had become obsolete. Often, researchers build up a direct relationship between it and negative social phenomena. Grychenko (2017) believes that multiculturalism aggravates the migration crisis, because its abstract values do not withstand competition with the values of traditional societies for their representatives, especially given the possibility of their recultivation by carriers in fairly large isolated groups. Popov (2013) emphasizes that the emergence of ethnic and religious enclaves was a symptom of the unresolved migrants’ assimilation problem.

Active and multiple impact in an attempt to dissolve national manifestations in a single stream of popular culture often causes a counterreaction in the form of resistance and radicalization of tradition. A paradox arises: multiculturalism at the country level turns into rigid monoculturalism and segregation at the local level. As Kharitonov (2012) notes, the policy of multiculturalism actually had left immigrants alone, demanding from the authorities’ only financial support, allocation of subsidies to immigrant organizations for independent solution of their needs and problems. Such a policy involves an attempt to “pay off” from problems that does not solve but aggravates the opposition. This leads to the actual formation of “parallel” societies with their social and legal norms instead of “full-fledged” integration.

Radicalization on the example of the Muslim diasporas is considered in the article of Dobaev (2015). Based on the data of social measurements, the view is substantiated that the social and youth policy pursued over several decades has not yielded a positive result: migrants in the second and third generation did not turn into law-abiding Europeans. On the contrary, Islamic extremism has spread among Muslim migrants. Many European Muslims joined terrorist organizations (Dobaev, 2015).

Does this mean that we need to come to terms with the conclusion of global skeptics about unbeaten inequality, as a constant, and a permanent source of conflict, regionalization and globalization? Awareness of the need to modify the policy of European society ethnocultural integration is increasingly spreading in the EU.

The unifying melting pot model and globalization moving from West to East, limitations, on the one hand, and the crisis of primitive multiculturalism, on the other, stimulate the search for alternative integration models, clarifying the limits of individual freedom, tolerance and pluralism. However, it should be recognized that multiculturalism fails not as a principle, but as a concrete example of the this idea implementation in certain historical and socio-cultural conditions (USA and Europe at the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st centuries).

One of the alternatives to economic and political-ideological projects of searching for a model for building an intercultural world and an integral global identity is the ethics area, traditionally relevant in the Russian research tradition (Huseynov, 2009). On the number of authors works basis, a revival of the traditional, but half-forgotten moral perspective, takes place (Kueng, 1991). The global ethos, understood as the minimum fundamental agreement regarding common values and basic moral positions, suggests moral reasons for a better common view of order, but not in the sense of pattern, but in the sense of the non-violence chaos absence. These minimum standards, enshrined in the Declaration of Human Rights, are four moral imperatives:

1. The adherence to a culture of non-violence and reverence for all forms of life;

2. The adherence to a culture of solidarity and a fair economic order;

3. The adherence to the culture of tolerance and truthfulness;

4. The adherence to the culture of equality and partnership between a man and a woman.

As Avdeeva (2014) points out, “the issue of global ethics, and this is already an obvious fact, was initiated not so much by the need for philosophical reflection and understanding of what is happening, as by the obvious and necessary need to create, in addition to the dominant economic factors of the globalization process, some ideological grounds” (p. 94).

The conceptual basis of this line should not be classical liberal political and economic constructions, but humanistic ideas of moral authorities expressing universal princes that are the same for all peoples and religions, fundamental ideas that served as the basis of civilization throughout its existence, expressed in traditional morality and religion. They, of course, can and should be adapted to the conditions of modernity using the achievements of social and humanitarian knowledge of the XXXXI centuries, as well as the concepts of dialogue, discourse ethics and communicative rationality of E. Levinas, J. Habermas, K. Apel.

The second way of multiculturalism rehabilitation is its transformation within the framework of the “civil integration” model, which is applied, concrete, procedural measures for the implementation of interethnic and interfaith peace. Movement towards pragmatization of Korobeynikova (2012) describes in the following way:

Prospects for multicultural research can be described as follows: analysis of the political process of creating rights / or anti-discrimination laws for migrants / minorities; recognition of diverse ethnic groups as a way in which different groups are recognized / categorized for political / legal purposes; mobilization of opportunities / channels that are opened and used by different ethnic groups. (Korobeynikova, 2012, p. 197)

It is obvious that exposing negative ethnic stereotypes, xenophobia and migrant-phobia with constant and inevitable close contact with immigrants entering into civilized contractual economic and legal relations, successful social and cultural adaptation and integration of migrants imply the involvement of all channels from traditional macro-political , to the network of low-level municipal and civil initiatives.

It is noted that since the beginning of the 2010s, the involvement of various diaspora organizations in the implementation of the pan-European policy of migrant integration has been significantly intensified (Molodikova, Lyalina, & Emelyanova, 2018).

Now, multiculturalism theorists emphasize the need to study the history and comparison of differences and similarities within cultures in order to develop “successful” multiculturalism according to the “civic integration” model, in which migrants are provided with a certain level of socio-economic rights while maintaining a balance between relations to the host community. Based on the successful foreign cases study, it is concluded that it is not multicultural initiatives proper, but a coherent social integration policy (informational support, language courses, training, career guidance, media projects, consulting and diplomatic adaptation assistance projects), which essentially there is a practical humanism, able to solve many challenges of inequality and conflict (Isakova, 2018).

The transition to open, flexible schemes involving effective communication based on creating a favorable psychological climate, value-orientation unity, creative communication strategies of cooperation and feedback is possible while simultaneously deepening and expanding both the very principle of humanism and operational practices of its implementation. The ability to feel co-citizenship, belonging in a political, legal, economic space, thereby earning a profit in the literal sense of the word is given in the accepted communication space, but the rules of communication do not impinge on ethnic uniqueness, cultural identity by meeting the cultural and educational and information needs of national and cultural groups. As an example, a study demonstrating that the monetization bonus of cultural diversity is directly related to the perfection of English as the universal medium of communication (Ratna, Grafton, & To, 2017). Successful social integration implies the pluralism and liberalism convergence as the core ideas of classical multiculturalism with principles and ideas that help to escape from the basic unity and difference logic. Thus, multiculturalism should be complemented by semantic, value reference points exceeding the plurality itself, pluralism and instrumental practices of the implementation of productive, creative, relevant diversity, the true unity of diversity. Humanism is the moral core of a global ethos, successful multiculturalism. Active and practical humanism associated with operational practices of social assistance, cultural adaptation and social integration is the successful multiculturalism basis.

Conclusion

Economic globalization, forming a unite global economic space and stimulating the processes of sociocultural countries and ethnic groups integration, creates, on the one hand, a complex of communication problems for different cultures carriers and their integration into a single sociocultural space, on the other hand, a number of positive opportunities to improve communication for different cultures carriers and their integration into a single sociocultural space.

Overcome problems and take advantage of opportunities is possible provided that we develop and operate an adequate responding to modern challenges model. The models of assimilation as an adaptation to the dominant culture existing standard and the melting pot as a mutual fusion into a common, averaged, homogeneous cultural environment based on metaculture (liberal legal principles and popular culture), obviously, demonstrate their limitations.

Multiculturalism as a parallel coexistence based on mutual respect, the cultural pluralism legalization was seen as the normative ideal of Western policies trying to reconcile the globalizational contradictions. However, in the light of recent events (European migration crisis of 2015, terrorist attacks in Paris and London, etc.) multiculturalism serious crisis or even collapse became obvious.

The unifying melting pot model and globalization moving from West to East, limitations, on the one hand, and the crisis of primitive multiculturalism, on the other, stimulate the search for alternative integration models, clarifying the limits of individual freedom, tolerance and pluralism.

It is necessary to actualize the moral authorities humanistic ideas expressing universal princes, the same for all peoples and religions, the fundamental ideas that served as the basis of civilization throughout its existence, expressed in traditional morality and religion. They, of course, can and should be adapted to the conditions of modernity using the achievements of social and humanitarian knowledge of the XX-XXI centuries, as well as the concepts of dialogue, discourse ethics and communicative rationality of E. Levinas, J. Habermas, K. Apel.

The second multiculturalism rehabilitation direction is its transformation within the framework of the “civic integration” model, which represents applied, concrete, procedural measures for the implementation of an inter-ethnic and inter-religious world. The transition to open, flexible schemes involving effective communication based on creating a favorable psychological climate, value-orientation unity, creative communication strategies of cooperation and feedback is possible while simultaneously deepening and expanding both the very principle of humanism and operational practices of its implementation.

Multiculturalism should be complemented by semantic, value reference points exceeding the plurality itself, pluralism and instrumental practices of the implementation of productive, creative, relevant diversity, the true unity of diversity.

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