Multiculturalismo e individualismo liberale / Multiculturalism and Liberal Individualism

Abstract disponibile solo in lingua inglese

Having acknowledged the universality of Reason, the Enlightenment sought to standardise Law and Ethics. Right from the outset this world view has been subject to much criticism: on the one hand, those concerned with the purity of races have been opposed to racial intermingling; on the other, Heterophiles have plead for cultural separation as the only means of preventing each culture from losing its own identity. Differentialisme, which we can identify with the New Right in France and Italy, and Multiculturalism, which uses the method of Communitarian philosophers, criticise the classical liberal idea of tolerance because it cannot protect the integrity of different cultures and ethnic minorities. Individualism is considered to be the main enemy of these traditions. The extreme right and left wings thus find a common goal in support of the idea of Community against that of Individualism, but their idealisation of every non-Western culture seems to give rise to a new myth of the Noble Savage. The fact that this Savage sometimes turns out to be Wicked rather than Noble does not concern them. From their point of view, even the Wicked Savage is better than Western civilisation.