Cultural competence, identity politics, and the utopian dilemma

Abstract

In the name of creating a more just society, demands for multiculturalism, diversity, and cultural competence have proliferated over the past few decades. All these terms fundamentally depend on identity politics, pitting group against group. Far from ushering in a more harmonious future, identity politics seems to lead primarily to greater social fragmentation, combativeness, and conflict. The escalation of these tensions is manifest today in attacks on free speech and efforts to micromanage everyday life. Accompanying these is a persistent denigration of western culture and its tradition of individual (rather than group) rights and freedoms. The dangers of such developments have been well documented in the twentieth-century dictatorial regimes claiming to be acting for the greater good. The costs of abdicating liberal values in the name of goodness have also been extensively explored in utopian and dystopian fictions that demonstrate why ideological policing can never produce a better world.