J Value Inquiry (2015) 49:205–220

DOI 10.1007/s10790-014-9470-9

The Ethics and Politics of Cultural Preservation

Chike Jeffers

Published online: 3 December 2014

 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Multiculturalism is, by this point, a well-worn topic in social and political

philosophy. Still, in what follows, I hope to usefully contribute to the philosophical
discussion of multiculturalism by asking and trying to answer some foundational
questions about the practical significance of cultural membership. Specifically, I
want to investigate the normative concerns associated with the goal of preserving
culture. In the first part of this article, I raise questions about the ethics of cultural
preservation. Is it a permissible or impermissible goal? If it is permissible, is it
obligatory or at least praiseworthy? Does it even make sense to treat the fact that
something is part of your culture as the primary reason for valuing or doing it? To
what extent should the idea of preserving your culture be seen as in conflict with the
valuable orientation of being open to learning from all cultures?
In the second part, I consider the politics of cultural preservation, a topic that
political philosophers interested in multiculturalism have generally pursued by
asking what it is just or unjust for the state to do in aiding minority cultures to
engage in self-preservation. While not dismissing this question, my focus will not be
on the responsibilities of the state but rather on imperatives applying to everyday
people and social movements. Specifically, I will raise questions about the
relationship between cultural preservation and the pursuit of justice by the
historically oppressed in the wake of histories of racism and colonialism. Might the
political goal of resistance against racial oppression ground an obligation to cultural
preservation on the part of non-white people? Would belief in the existence of such
an obligation be compatible with belief in the freedom of individuals to define
themselves and choose their own projects? Especially in light of the fact that some
have criticized multiculturalism as harmful particularly from an anti-racist

C. Jeffers (&)
Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
e-mail: chike.jeffers@dal.ca

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perspective, I believe that considering matters from this non-standard angle (i.e.,
from the perspective of those resisting against racism) will usefully broaden the
debate while also still leading toward conclusions regarding the justice of state
policy.

1 The Ethics of Cultural Preservation

When I speak of cultural preservation, I intend to refer to efforts by individuals or

groups to maintain the distinctness and distinctiveness of a cultural group to which
they belong. The success of such a project requires, at the very least, that there
continue to be people who identify as members of the group. Less minimally, efforts
at cultural preservation generally involve attempts to ensure that at least some of the
particular ways of thinking, talking, and doing things that have been traditional
within and characteristic of the cultural group in question continue to be practiced
by members living now and in the future. Cultural preservation thus always involves
the choice to continue to identify with a particular group and the encouragement of
others viewed as part of the group to continue to identify as well and it normally
involves the choice to maintain certain customs and the encouragement of others
viewed as part of the group to maintain them as well.
Is there anything wrong with preserving your culture? Well, the commitment to
cultural preservation as I have described it is potentially morally innocent, but it is
potentially morally culpable as well. It depends on what traditions one is attempting
to sustain and hoping to see continue. If it is common in my community for able-
bodied males to be unhelpful and cruel to the physically disabled, for example, that
is not a custom that I can innocently preserve. It is, rather, one that it is morally
incumbent upon me to abandon and to encourage others to abandon as well. To
make the point in a more general way, given that it is possible for elements of one’s
culture to be immoral, it is morally impermissible to have an unqualified
commitment to preserving one’s culture.
We can similarly reject an unqualified commitment to preserving your culture as
imprudent and irrational. Speaking firstly about prudence, just as there can be
customs that are unacceptable because they wrong other people, there can be
customs that are bad and not to be preserved because they can be expected to
function contrary to one’s own desires to live, flourish, and pursue permissible ends.
For the sake of prudence, for example, I ought to consider abandoning a tradition if
carrying it out requires the regular ingestion of a potentially lethal substance. With
regard to rationality, I am a bit more reticent to give an example of a hypothetical
custom. Often, actions likely to be criticized for their irrationality also count as
imprudent, as in cases of intentionally exposing oneself to harm without having any
reason to do so. If we think of cases of purposeful action that we would call
irrational but which we would classify as neither immoral nor imprudent, it seems to
me that it becomes tougher to firmly hold the position that customs involving such
actions should be opposed. Perhaps it is irrational for an adult to make a conscious
effort whenever walking outside to never step on the lines in the sidewalk, for
example, but if we allow that this does not yet rise to the level of being imprudent, it

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does not seem to me to be a problem for someone to keep and promote such a
custom. There is also the problem that, on some accounts of rationality, all faith-
based cultural practices are irrational and it is certainly not my intention to suggest
that all religious customs should be given up. With all that having been said, it
remains the case that one reason to avoid an unqualified commitment to preserving
your culture is the fact that such a commitment can lead to the preservation of
practices that are irrational in such a way that it is, if not impermissible, at least
inadvisable to engage in the practices in question.
The first thing we can say about the ethics of cultural preservation, then, is that
there are many circumstances in which the fact that something counts as part of a
cultural tradition is insufficient to justify doing it. If the goal of cultural preservation
is ever a justifiable motivation to do something, this goal can come into play as a
viable reason for action only on the prior condition that the action is not immoral,
imprudent, or otherwise to be avoided. I need to distinguish this point, however,
from arguments that some philosophers have made suggesting that the fact that
something is part of your culture can never serve as a reason to do it. According to
these arguments, even when the morality, prudence, or rationality of what you’re
contemplating doing is not at issue, to appeal to the fact that it is part of your culture
in order to provide a reason for doing it is redundant, confused, and even
disrespectful of the culture. If we accept these arguments, the very idea of cultural
preservation as a conscious aim and practice begins to seem nonsensical. Let us
therefore consider their force.
Jeremy Waldron has pointed out that participating in a cultural way of life – for
example, by marrying or dancing or worshipping in the ways that people in one’s
community tend to do – normally does not involve calling attention to the fact that
one is thereby following a cultural tradition. This is, he believes, as it should be.
According to Waldron, to advertise or announce the fact that what one is doing is
participating in a particular form of life is, in fact, to participate in ‘‘another form of
life – a different form of life… only problematically related to the first.’’1 His point
is that social norms are grounded, first and foremost, in patterns of reasoning
directly linked to the kinds of norms they are. For instance, if we ask an elder in the
group to which we belong why we practice something like monogamy, we are likely
to get a story about what makes monogamy an appropriate approach to marriage and
family. Waldron argues that the flaunting of cultural participation for its own sake
involved in modern identity politics is not only abnormal but problematic because,
as he sees it, we no longer truly respect a norm once we treat its mere existence
within a culture as its justification: ‘‘rather I show a vain and self-preoccupied
contempt for the norm itself – by gutting it of its reasons, and replacing them… with
my own need to keep faith with my own cultural roots.’’2 Waldron views the
difference between caring most about the reasons internal to a norm and treating its
existence within a culture as justification in itself as the difference between

1
Jeremy Waldron, ‘‘What is Cosmopolitan?’’ The Journal of Political Philosophy 8 (June 2000): 234.
2
Ibid., p. 235.

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208 C. Jeffers

‘‘genuine as opposed to fake or patronizing participation in the life and practice of

one’s particular community.’’3
Samuel Scheffler has raised similar concerns. He claims that it is important to
distinguish between the normative significance of moral, religious, and philosoph-
ical beliefs, on the one hand, and the significance of cultural affiliation, on the other
hand. Moral, religious, and philosophical outlooks are ‘‘justificatory structures; they
are systems of norms and values that provide guidance about how to live.’’4
Cultures, by contrast, are not systems of justification but rather sociological webs of
‘‘formal and informal practices, customs, institutions, traditions, norms, rituals,
values, and beliefs.’’5 Note that this definition acknowledges norms and values as
aspects of cultures, but, according to Scheffler, ‘‘[t]o describe something as a
cultural norm or a cultural value is not to characterize its perceived authority but
rather to indicate its prevalence within a certain social group.’’6 What this means is
that even when we recognize that certain principles that we endorse are principles
commonly endorsed within a culture in which we participate, what makes sense is to
see the authority of those principles as deriving directly from their intrinsic
normative force and not from the extrinsic feature of their widespread acceptance
within our culture.
From the perspective recommended by Waldron and Scheffler, the self-conscious
pursuit of cultural preservation seems a defective, perhaps even incoherent
enterprise. They suggest that talk of culture is only ever apt and informative from
an external, sociologically descriptive point of view. From our personal standpoints
as agents justifying our choices about what to do and what to value to ourselves and
to others, the fact that something is common in a culture can only ever be irrelevant.
We have already established, prior to looking at Waldron and Scheffler, that the fact
that something is common in a culture can be irrelevant because it is a bad thing to
value or do. They add to this that, when the thing in question is worth valuing or
doing, it will always be possible and much more sensible to explain what makes it
worth valuing or doing without mentioning its status as a cultural tradition.
For my part, however, I see nothing odd, much less incoherent or defective, in
one’s attachment to one’s culture prominently factoring into one’s decision-making
processes about how to live. Let us consider, for example, the simple case of
choosing what to cook for dinner. We will begin by assuming that one has already
eliminated options that are so unhealthy that it would be flatly imprudent or perhaps
even failing in moral duties to one’s self to eat them. Presumably, this leaves lots of
tasty and relatively wholesome options open. What then would be problematic or
even curious about choosing a particular dish among these options specifically
because one associates it with a feeling of cultural pride? On the model of reasoning
suggested by Waldron and Scheffler, there should be some other reason for choosing
the dish that serves as the real justification, rendering the fact that it is popular

3
Ibid., p. 236.
4
Samuel Scheffler, ‘‘Immigration and the Significance of Culture,’’ Philosophy & Public Affairs 35
(Spring 2007): 119.
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid., p. 120.

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among one’s people redundant. But this is just wrong, as there need not be any other
reason. If we say, for instance, that the reason that it is popular among one’s people
is that it tastes great and that that, then, is the sensible reason for choosing to cook it,
we should remember that, given the level of subjectivity involved in the enjoyment
of food, it is possible for something widely perceived as tasty by most members of
one’s cultural group to be nevertheless somewhat bland or otherwise less than ideal
from one’s personal perspective. In such instances, I see nothing strange about the
dominant reason for enjoying the process of cooking and eating this dish being the
pleasure one derives from the way it symbolizes membership in one’s cultural
group, a sense of pleasure that may naturally result from the pleasure one takes in
being part of this group.
One might wonder whether Waldron and Scheffler’s concerns are perhaps more
appropriate in relation to weightier choices than what to eat for dinner, but I believe
my objection can be reworked for any situation in which we are making a choice
between options that appear to us to be either roughly equal or at least not wildly
disparate in value while setting aside the question of their connection to a culture.
One’s choice of career is hugely important, for example, and there are a number of
ethical considerations that can help narrow the field. If it comes down to becoming a
teacher or a lawyer, though, and one feels as if one possesses the aptitude to do
either, then if it also happens to be the case that the teaching profession is especially
highly valued in one’s culture, there is nothing weird or inappropriate about this
turning out to be the deciding factor in one’s deliberation about which path to
pursue.
At least part of what has gone wrong in Waldron and Scheffler’s thinking, I
believe, is that what they treat as normal reasoning about what to do and why ends
up making the paradigmatic reasoner someone more or less oblivious to the
existence or extent of cultural diversity in the world. It is true that being conscious
of and calling attention to the fact that one is participating in the traditions of a
particular culture while participating in them is odd in circumstances in which
people generally do not give any thought to the possibility that there are other ways
of doing things. It does not, however, require living in a culturally diverse country
like Canada or being familiar with ‘‘modern cultural identity politics’’ or ‘‘the
discourse of multiculturalism’’ for someone to be aware of having ended up, through
the happenstance of birth and life path, with this rather than that set of cultural
influences.7 Some basic awareness that there are groups to which one does not
belong that do things differently is, I would venture to say, the condition in which
most human beings have lived. To the extent that this is so, this means that most
human beings have had the capacity, if not the inclination, to imagine what it would
be like for them to live as those from another culture live. Even where the
possibility of taking up a different way of life has seemed remote, this capacity to
imagine doing so is all that is required for someone to experience the desire to
abandon his or her culture or some of its ways. It is also, however, all that is
necessary to experience the disinclination to leave behind the familiarity of one’s
culture and, while this sense of attachment can be linked to beliefs about the

7
See Waldron, op. cit., p. 234, and Scheffler, op. cit., p. 121.

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210 C. Jeffers

universally appreciable value of the culture’s norms, it can also be simply a matter
of liking that which is familiar or that which one takes to be symbolic of who one is
as a person shaped by a certain culture. We have established that such feelings
cannot justify sticking with how things have been done in one’s cultural context in
all cases but, in cases where a custom is permissible because it is not ruled out by
the demands of morality, prudence, or rationality, nothing Waldron and Scheffler
say show it to be unreasonable to adhere to the practice mainly because one wishes
to adhere to and to perpetuate one’s culture as a whole.
Against Waldron and Scheffler, then, I would defend cultural preservation as a
perfectly reasonable motivation and a sufficient justification for action whenever it
is kept within its proper ethical limits. Note that what I have said so far, though, tells
us only that when people choose to preserve their culture, there is nothing
unavoidably wrong or nonsensical in this choice. It can be permissible. Could it be,
though, that there is also something praiseworthy in this choice? Is it perhaps a
motivation that everyone should have? I do indeed think there is something
praiseworthy to be found in cultural preservation within its ethical limits, although I
would not go so far as to identify it as a general obligation to which all people must
feel bound. I will consider circumstances in which I do think there is an argument to
be made for an obligation to cultural preservation in the section of this paper on
politics, but I think the obligation there is derived from circumstances that we
should be striving to transcend. Consequently, I do not see cultural preservation as
something that everyone everywhere should always feel obligated to pursue. Let us
consider, though, why it might be praiseworthy.
We may look first at the attitude toward one’s community and one’s ancestors
involved in the conscious decision to continue identifying with a culture and to
encourage the perpetuation of some of its historical practices. I believe we can see
certain virtuous forms of humility and gratitude expressed in this choice. It is one
way of humbly acknowledging, first of all, that one cannot flourish as an isolated
individual independent of others but rather that one needs to be part of a community
(here and elsewhere, for the sake of simplicity, I will speak of a single community,
but it is important to note that one can certainly identify with multiple cultural
groups and thus be part of an overlapping set of communities). Dedication to the
preservation of community through the preservation of culture demonstrates
recognition of and gratitude for the meaning-providing, direction-giving, and life-
enriching value of cultural community. Another way in which we may see humility
and gratitude in the effort to preserve one’s culture is by seeing it as an
acknowledgment not only of the wisdom and value in the ways of one’s people but
also of the fact that it is the existence of this particular people that has made one’s
own existence and thus one’s ability to enjoy life possible. Deferring to the wisdom
and cherishing the value in the ways of one’s ancestors can therefore be a means of
honouring them, preserving their memory, and taking hold of the legacy they left for
those coming after them. Complete deference to one’s community and one’s
ancestors is, as we have repeatedly noted, unacceptable, but critically thinking about
what is of value and what is not in one’s culture is not the opposite of cultural
preservation. It is, on the contrary, the condition that ensures that cultural

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preservation can serve as a respectable method of perpetuating goodness in the

world.
Note furthermore that, insofar as what is preserved in cases of cultural
preservation is, in fact, goodness, cultural preservation should be seen as benefiting
more than just the person or persons doing the preserving and the cultural
community of which they are a part. Importantly, it should also be seen as
benefiting, or at least having the potential to benefit, everybody else as well. Charles
Taylor has written that it makes sense to approach other cultures with what he calls
the ‘‘presumption of equal worth,’’ that is, the presumption that ‘‘all human cultures
that have animated whole societies over some considerable stretch of time have
something important to say to all human beings.’’8 He convincingly argues that this
must be only a presumption, not an actual judgment of worth, as one must already
be familiar with a culture and with the standards of judgment most appropriate to
appreciating its products in order to actually judge its worth. Nevertheless, this
reasonable presumption that, when we engage with cultures unfamiliar to us, we can
always expect to learn and to benefit from their particular reservoir of represen-
tations of the world provides further reason to praise efforts by others to preserve
their cultures and resist homogenization. For the same reason, when we ourselves
endeavour to preserve our cultures in the judicious manner required for the activity
to be legitimate, we can take pride in the fact that we are not just promoting the
good of our group but also helping to maintain the variety of humanity in a way that
benefits the world as a whole.
The possibility of a paradox arises, however, from the foregoing considerations.
Grant me that cultural preservation can be seen as admirable not just because of its
effects on members of the group whose culture is preserved but also because of the
useful array of perspectives we are all able to consult and the diverse forms of
beauty we are all able to enjoy in a world characterized by cultural heterogeneity.
On the one hand, the fact that it is virtuous in this way makes it reasonable for all of
us to choose to be cultural preservationists. On the other hand, the more we dedicate
ourselves to preserving our cultures and thus resisting whatever pull we might feel
to do things differently than our ancestors, the less open we are to gaining from the
wealth of other cultures. It seems, then, that the idea of cultural preservation as
universally beneficial leads to a paradox: we need to immerse ourselves in our
respective cultures in order to perpetuate their goodness for the sake of humanity,
but increasing immersion in our cultures makes us increasingly unaware of and
unable to appreciate other cultures, thus negating the initial aim of humanity
benefiting from the diversity of cultures.
The goals of preserving our cultures and interacting with other cultures thus tug
us in different directions and it may seem as if we ultimately have to choose one or
the other. Kwame Anthony Appiah sometimes seems to suggest as much in his work
on cosmopolitanism, as when he criticizes the ideal of cultural purity as not merely
unfortunate but oxymoronic and endorses ‘‘cultural contamination’’ as a counter-

8
Charles Taylor, ‘‘The Politics of Recognition,’’ in Amy Gutmann (ed.), Multiculturalism: Examining
the Politics of Recognition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 25–73, pp. 72 and 66.

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212 C. Jeffers

ideal.9 In my view, though, the way the inward-looking goal of preservation and the
outward-looking goal of interaction pull against one another is best seen not as an
irresolvable contradiction but rather as a productive tension. To be overly invested
in the cosmopolitan ideal of mixing traditions is to ignore the value of fostering
cultural continuity even as one benefits as a cosmopolitan from the ways in which
others have kept valuable cultural traditions alive. Likewise, to be overly invested in
cultural preservation is to forget that one of the main ways that cultures survive and
thrive is through incorporating what is beneficial from elsewhere.
Keeping this in mind, here is what I think we can say in summary about the ethics
of cultural preservation: in any instance in which one has a choice to make about
what to do and one is considering choosing to follow a cultural tradition, one must
think first about whether this tradition is harmful, reckless, culpably irrational, or in
some other way wrong or inadvisable. If so, one must not do it. If not, there is
absolutely nothing wrong with choosing to follow tradition, whether one is
motivated primarily by what precisely is of value in this particular tradition or above
all by the bare fact that it happens to be part of one’s culture. Furthermore, we have
reason to see the conscious choice to follow tradition because it is tradition as an
admirable one. All this we may say about the choice made in one instance. When we
turn to think, however, about the series of choices one makes over the course of a
lifetime, we cannot see it as admirable to decide always in favour of cultural
preservation. One must strive instead to balance the value of adherence to one’s
culture with the value of being open to learning from other cultures. In the language
of Kant’s moral theory, we may say that we have an imperfect duty to be curious, to
be open-minded, to be welcoming with regard to the possible influence upon us of
other ways of life, other habits and customs and methods of constructing a
meaningful life and world.

2 The Politics of Cultural Preservation

Having considered the general ethical concerns raised by cultural preservation, we

may turn now to normative questions involving cultural preservation as it relates to
the organization of power in society, that is, to politics. I take it that, in doing so, we
are continuing to explore the ethics of cultural preservation, as political concerns
make up a particular subset of ethical concerns. There are, of course, other ways to
understand the relationship between ethics and politics but this is how I will
conceptualize the relationship in what follows.
Will Kymlicka’s theory of multiculturalism remains probably the most prominent
account in contemporary Western political philosophy of the politics of cultural
preservation.10 He differentiates between national minority and ethnic minority
groups and argues that liberal states ought to provide each of these kinds of cultural

9
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (New York: W.W. Norton
& Company, 2006), p. 111.
10
See, especially, Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights
(Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1995).

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groups with particular kinds of rights. National minorities are territorially

concentrated groups that were previously independent of but later incorporated
into a larger country (e.g., indigenous and French Canadians). Kymlicka argues that
these groups ought to be accorded self-government rights so that they may preserve
their societal culture, that is, their culture as embodied in major societal institutions
and as expressed by means of a shared language. Ethnic groups, on the other hand,
are immigrant groups (so, for example, Chinese Canadians, Italian Canadians, etc.)
and Kymlicka argues that they, unlike national minorities, deserve aid in integrating
into the larger societal culture surrounding them. Part of accomplishing this,
however, involves granting what he calls polyethnic rights, which are rights to
financial support, legal protections, and other kinds of measures that help ethnic
groups preserve some aspects of their ancestral culture even as they participate
within the societal culture of, say, English Canada. For groups that don’t fit into
either of these two categories, such as African Americans, Kymlicka has speculated
that a rather unique set of policies may be appropriate.11
Having briefly summarized Kymlicka’s theory in order to provide an example of
contemporary thinking on the politics of cultural preservation, I can now explain
how and why I will be approaching the topic from a different angle. Kymlicka is, I
think, representative of most philosophers who engage with the topic in the way he
approaches it, namely, from the angle of questioning what the state should do. How
should the state deal with these minority cultures located within the territory it
controls given its power to grant them or deny them various kinds of rights? The
perspectives of the members of the minority cultures themselves are relevant to his
theory but only or at least primarily as input, as part of what must be considered in
order to reach conclusions about what would be fair and what is therefore required
of governing bodies.
Consider, for example, the question of what immigrants want. Michael Murphy
has recently noted that some critics of Kymlicka have unfairly accused him of
constructing a hierarchy of cultural minorities because national minorities might be
seen as privileged over immigrant groups in terms of the extent of the rights that
they are granted. Murphy points out that Kymlicka is ‘‘not in principle opposed to
the idea of extending the right to self-determination to an immigrant minority, if at
some point in time the members of that group become highly territorially
concentrated, begin to identify as a nation, and express the desire to govern
themselves more independently – his view is simply that in the vast majority of
cases immigrants neither need nor demand such a right, let alone have the capacity
to exercise it.’’12 As we see here, what demands immigrants make or do not make
and what desires inform these demands form part of the evidence for what it would
be fair for a government to do in order to treat immigrants with adequate respect.
I intend to focus, by contrast, not on what the state should or should not do but on
what members of minority cultures should or should not want and strive to achieve.
I am interested in asking these questions especially with regard to minority cultures

11
See Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 178–185.
12
Michael Murphy, Multiculturalism: A Critical Introduction (London: Routledge, 2012), p. 66.

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214 C. Jeffers

that also clearly count as historically oppressed groups and, even more specifically,
those who have been victimized in the modern era by racism and European
colonialism. This shift in focus is not random or based solely on my contingent
interests, for I believe considering the situation of such peoples is not only
interesting in itself but is also very helpful in leading us toward deeper insights into
the nature and value of cultural preservation and the proper function of
multiculturalism.
As a way of understanding the reorientation I am proposing, consider two
members of cultural minority groups. The first is a white Frenchwoman who has
immigrated to New Zealand. Kymlicka’s theory tells us that New Zealand ought to
structure public policy in such a way that this French immigrant feels welcome and
is supported in the goal of preserving aspects of her French culture, even as she
integrates into New Zealand’s societal culture. Given that I want to talk about what
members of cultural groups should want and strive for, though, the question I wish
to ask about this immigrant is: what if it turns out to be the case that she actually
feels no need whatsoever to preserve French culture and she would not feel injured
in any way if New Zealand had a very assimilationist approach to integrating
immigrants? If so, is there anything wrong with this? To be clear, we are not talking
about someone who is vocally opposed to official declarations that the country is
multicultural and that immigrants should feel encouraged to bring their unique
contribution to the country’s cultural mix (New Zealand, by the way, lacks explicit
legislation declaring a commitment to multiculturalism of the kind found in Canada
and Australia, but a number of its laws and policies regarding such things as
education and media representation can be viewed as multiculturalist).13 This
particular immigrant is merely apathetic – she is not opposed to the celebration and
promotion of different cultures but would be just as comfortable if immigrants were
generally expected to try to live as much like a traditional white New Zealander as
possible. Indeed, for her, the process of shedding her old culture and becoming
immersed in this new one is an enjoyable, even exhilarating experience.
Now, despite having not yet answered the question raised above, let me introduce
the second member of a cultural minority group, an indigenous woman living in
Winnipeg. Let us say that, like the French immigrant to New Zealand, this woman
feels no particular need to remain connected with her cultural heritage – Ojibway, in
her case. Let us further say that she would feel no sense of injury if Canada were
revive its older commitment to cultural assimilation as a policy regarding
indigenous peoples, although certainly only on the assumption that this time there
would be no violations of rights and abuses of the kinds associated with residential
schools.14 Again, we may stipulate that this woman is not opposed to indigenous
peoples being assured the kinds of self-government rights for which Kymlicka
advocates. She is simply apathetic about whether they exist or not in terms of how

13
See Multiculturalism Policy Index, ‘‘Immigrant Minorities: Evidence: New Zealand,’’ \http://www.
queensu.ca/mcp/immigrant/evidence/NewZealand.html[. Accessed July 15, 2014.
14
On this topic, see, for example, J.R. Miller, Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Native Residential
Schools (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1996).

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she understands her own well-being. She is much more invested in being
indistinguishable culturally from her white Canadian friends.
In both of these cases, the French New Zealander and the Ojibway Winnipegger,
the question of whether it is right or wrong to grant minority cultures special rights
is not at issue. We are talking here only about the attitude of apathy regarding
cultural policy that may naturally arise for someone personally invested in being
culturally assimilated. Superficially, then, the cases, given their parallels, ought to
be viewed as more or less the same. They strike me, however, as different. While I
do not relate to the complete lack of interest that the French New Zealander has in
perpetuating French culture, her apathy about staying connected to her roots does
not strike me as very worrisome from a moral and political point of view. The
attitudes toward indigenous culture and assimilationist policy held by the Ojibway
Winnipegger, on the other hand, do strike me as worrisome, even in spite of the fact
that, as a non-indigenous person, I am not reacting to what could be seen as a
member of my own group rejecting our heritage.
So why this difference? Is this disparity in my reactions unfair? Let me admit that
this could very well be the case. That being said, I believe the disparity is not hard to
explain. A major reason that the cases seem relevantly different to me is that there
seems to be much greater reason to worry in the case of the indigenous Canadian
than in the case of the white person from France that this total lack of investment in
cultural tradition and complete readiness to assimilate as much as possible into the
culture of the white majority may be connected to the power of long-circulating
invidious beliefs concerning which cultures are superior and which are inferior. To
be clear, I am not saying that we can simply assume that the Ojibway Winnipegger’s
preference for the dominant culture means that she believes that white cultures are
superior and that indigenous cultures of the Americas are inferior. If making such an
assumption would be unreasonable, however, worrying about the possibility that
this is the case is decidedly not unreasonable. Such a worry is, on the contrary,
realistic given the history of racism in Canadian culture and the psychological
effects that we know that racism can have on those who are targeted by it.15
When we look past the Ojibway Winnipegger’s lack of interest in her ancestors’
culture to the fact that she would not be uncomfortable with a revival of
assimilationist policies on the part of the Canadian government, I think it becomes
even harder to reject as unreasonable the worry that something is wrong here. The
struggles by indigenous peoples in Canada and throughout the Americas to keep
their cultures alive in the face of European dominance count as hugely significant
cases of resistance to oppression, indeed, as efforts that should inspire and galvanize
us all in opposition to the legacy of colonialism, and yet we have said that this
person would not be bothered by a concerted effort on the part of the state to negate
and completely reverse the gains of these struggles. One can reasonably worry that
this reveals a lack of appropriate concern for the people to which this person is
attached, even if only by the ties of family and ancestry.
15
On internalized racism among indigenous people in North America, see John Gonzalez, Estelle
Simard, Twyla Baker-Demaray, and Chase Iron Eyes, ‘‘The Internalized Oppression of North American
Indigenous Peoples,’’ in E.J.R. David (ed.), Internalized Oppression: The Psychology of Marginalized
Groups (New York: Springer, 2014), pp. 31–56.

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216 C. Jeffers

It might be noted that another important difference between the two cases not yet
mentioned is that an assimilationist policy in New Zealand does nothing to affect
the continued vibrancy of French culture in France whereas an assimilationist policy
in Canada has the potential to result in the complete eradication of a culture
indigenous to this land.16 I agree that this is an important difference and I take this
variation in the severity of the possible consequences of assimilationist policies to
be helpful in exposing the superficiality of the similarity between the cases. I would
not want it to be inferred, though, that all that is at stake here is the difference
between one’s culture being likely to live on in another country and one’s culture
being likely to go out of existence if not sustained in this particular place. Consider
a third case: a Haitian immigrant to France dedicated to jettisoning all that is Haitian
in her ways and habits so as to become as plainly French as possible. Here, despite
the fact that Haitian culture will live on in Haiti, I think it is not unreasonable to
worry, as in the case of the Ojibway Winnipegger, about how the racial dynamics of
the situation and the history of colonialism behind those dynamics might possibly be
involved in shaping this person’s concerns and desires.
The general point, then, is that it is reasonable to think the issue of cultural
preservation attains a special level of importance and an urgency it may not have
elsewhere in the context of the history of racism and colonialism. This is because
racism and colonialism in the modern world centrally involve the construction of
the system of white supremacy and an essential component of that ideological,
discursive, and institutional reality is the devaluation of the cultures of non-white
peoples, concomitant with the elevation of that which is associated with being white
as culturally superior. This historical reality gives all people of good will reason to
be concerned with how the cultures of non-white peoples are treated and
represented, especially in racially diverse but majority white societies. While
everybody ought to feel obligated to fight racism, though, those who are targeted by
racism have special reason on the grounds of self-respect to resist against it.17 The
question then becomes: what is required of non-white people who dedicate
themselves to resisting against white supremacy, particularly in relation to the
thereby encompassed duty of resisting against the cultural dimension of this system
of oppression?
Here is where I wish to argue that, faced with the task of resistance against
racism, some involvement in or at least support for achieving the goal of cultural
preservation begins to exceed the realm of the merely praiseworthy and extend into
the realm of obligation. If I am right, Waldron and Scheffler’s approaches to
thinking about culture obscure not only the coherence of treating the cultural status
of something as a reason for doing it but also the necessity of doing so in certain
circumstances. A number of things have to be clarified, however, in order for me to
make this point in a responsible, plausible manner.

16
I thank Thomas Hurka for raising this point to me.
17
On self-respect as a reason to resist oppression, see Bernard Boxill, Blacks and Social Justice, revised
ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1992), pp. 186–204, and Carol Hay, Kantianism, Liberalism,
and Feminism: Resisting Oppression (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 117–157.

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The Ethics and Politics of Cultural Preservation 217

I need to clarify, first of all, that I am not saying that members of oppressed
cultural groups have a duty to resist against racism by striving to keep their culture
exactly the same as it is or as it allegedly was at some point in the past. That would
mean taking on an unqualified commitment to cultural preservation and, as we
firmly established in the previous section, such a commitment is unethical. The
pursuit of cultural preservation as a means of resistance must therefore incorporate
the kind of openness to change that is necessary to ensure that regrettable customs
can be discarded and also the kind of openness to change necessary for ensuring that
learning from other cultures is possible (although note that, now that we are thinking
politically, we must be careful to distinguish these two kinds of cultural change
from the kind that is undergone primarily as a result of pressure from dominant
external forces).
Secondly, it must be clear not only that we should avoid constraining our cultures
to fit a single unchanging image but also that individual members ought to feel as
unconstrained as possible in constructing their personalized versions of the cultural
identity they share with others. This point is crucially important, as it is certain that
one of the strongest reasons for resisting the conclusion I wish to draw about how to
resist is that it may seem to imply the need to constantly engage in the wholly
unproductive practice of policing the habits and inclinations of individuals in order
to measure their cultural authenticity. Tommie Shelby has strongly rejected and
criticized the idea of holding onto a cultural basis for solidarity among black people
in the United States for this very reason, among others.18
And yet, when I suggest that we who are black need to defend the value of black
cultural difference in the face of assumptions and intimations of white cultural
superiority, I am not saying that we need to draw clear lines around what counts and
what does not count as black culture and then criticize each other when we fail to
heed the boundaries. Black people are, of course, wonderfully diverse and the model
of cultural resistance I wish to promote affirms rather than denies that. Consider, for
example, two cousins who have grown up in Toronto but who were born in Jamaica
and spent early parts of their lives there. Both of them conceive of themselves as
very proud of their cultural background as people of African descent. One cousin,
however, lost his Jamaican accent early and takes no great interest in speaking in
dialect. For the other, by contrast, the ability to ‘‘chat patois,’’ as he would describe
it, is central to his identity and to his sense of his particularly Caribbean version of
blackness. For the cousin who does not speak patois, on the other hand, central to
his sense of his blackness is his membership and participation in a black church.
From the music to some themes in his pastor’s messages to the simple value of
congregating and communing with other black people, this is, for him, the
quintessence of black culture. His cousin, the one that speaks patois, has no
comparable gathering of community members that he enjoys on a weekly basis,
given that he is nonreligious.
In a situation like this, we have two individuals who access black culture in
different ways and who are, in fact, disinclined if not completely unable to access

18
See Tommie Shelby, We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005).

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218 C. Jeffers

the culture in the same ways as each other. If commitments to cultural preservation
had to be premised on the homogeneity of a culture and the existence of a single
pattern of cultural engagement that all must follow in order to be authentic, these
two would be likely to butt heads and to accuse each other of failing to truly adhere
to the culture. This, however, is unnecessary. Understanding that the point is to
celebrate black cultural life in general rather than prescribe its limits and its essence,
these two individuals can recognize each other as equally committed to the goal of
cultural preservation in spite of their different senses of what is central to being
black.
Having now clarified that cultural preservation should be practiced in a way that
recognizes and accepts both the necessary dynamism of culture and the normality of
internal diversity, my position is that non-white people dedicated to resisting racism
should feel a duty to help preserve the cultural distinctness of the peoples to whom
they recognize themselves as belonging. This is because they should recognize that
part of how racism operates is the Eurocentric privileging of that which is associated
with whiteness and the deprecation of that which is marked as non-white. To
counter a possible objection, it is certainly true that racism also involves the
exoticizing appreciation of non-white cultures while the people themselves are
treated unequally and it also involves the problematic usage or misusage of symbols
of non-white cultures, but to speak of exoticization, appropriation, and other such
forms of wrongdoing is to admit that the problem is that non-white cultures are
insufficiently respected. My argument is that, in response to this lack of respect, the
value of non-white cultures should be regularly and insistently reaffirmed and
celebrated. How this is done admits of endless variation: one person may don
traditional clothing while others pass down folktales to their children, and for
someone else, it will not be folktales but rather appreciation for knowledge of the
actual history of the people that she strives to cultivate most among the young. We
should expect and, in fact, desire lack of uniformity among those engaged in
politically motivated cultural preservation. Such lack of uniformity is not a
weakness but rather a strength, for affirming the internal diversity of the cultures in
question helps demonstrate their flexibility and thus their ample capacity to shape
and foster flourishing modern lives.
Given all this flexibility, what would count as failing to do one’s duty on this
account and what would the appropriate response to such failure be? Non-white
people who are broadly dismissive of the culture of their ancestors and fellow group
members – rather than carefully critical of it in a manner conducive to improving it
– would count as clearly failing, in my view, to challenge the cultural dimension of
racism. Respectful criticism of this failing and constructive encouragement of the
anti-Eurocentric alternative would be appropriate in response. Reasoned explanation
and encouragement would also be appropriate in response to those who are not
dismissive of non-white cultures but who do not yet see the need to support the
project of cultural preservation. Given the risk of seeming to impose too much on
the freedom of people to structure their lives and choose their priorities as they wish,
individual failures with regard to this duty should not provoke very harsh
judgments. More vigorous criticism may be appropriate, however, when organiza-
tions that claim to represent the interests of one’s racial or ethnic group appear

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dismissive or insufficiently concerned with affirming the value of the culture or

cultures associated with it.
I wish to move toward my conclusion now by drawing an important implication
from the foregoing endorsement of cultural preservation for the question of the
value of multiculturalism as state policy. Critiques of multiculturalism can be said to
fall broadly into two types: those that charge that state support for the preservation
of cultural diversity is inherently dangerous and those that charge that such support
is not so much dangerous in itself as it is distracting from what ought to be seen as
pressing demands of justice. The feminist critique of multiculturalism fits most
often into the first type – Susan Moller Okin, for example, raises the question of
whether multiculturalism is bad for women in order to argue that the power of
patriarchal views within traditional cultures makes facilitating the maintenance of
tradition inherently dangerous for women.19 Let me quickly note here that the
model of maintaining tradition that I encourage aims to avoid such danger by
requiring critical evaluation of the moral status of traditions.
The anti-racist critique of multiculturalism, on the other hand, falls most often
into the second category – it is a critique of multiculturalism as a distraction. In a
short piece nicely summing up the critique, poet and theorist M. NourbeSe Philip
writes that multiculturalism is merely ‘‘window dressing.’’20 She argues that
multiculturalist policies serve, at best, as a ‘‘mechanism whereby immigrants
indulge their nostalgic love for their countries,’’ but, at worst, they ‘‘unwittingly
perpetuate racism’’ by fooling people into thinking that multiculturalism and anti-
racism are synonymous.21 They are not synonymous, for the happy image of
equalized cultures promoted by multicultural festivals and the like arguably does
little or nothing to help us attack the systematic problem of racial hierarchy in
education, employment, the justice system, and every other facet of Canadian life.
Multiculturalism, according to Philip, does not truly address racism but rather serves
to distract us from its persistence.
This powerful critique has been echoed by some professional philosophers,
including Charles Mills. It is noteworthy, however, that when Mills articulates the
anti-racist critique, he begins by conceding that multiculturalism at least challenges
‘‘the older hegemonic norm of monoculturalism, the view that non-European
cultures were to a greater or lesser extent clearly inferior to European ones, not
deserving of much or any respect, and… that they should be abandoned for
assimilation to the superior ‘‘civilized’’ white European standard.’’22 This conces-
sion is a prelude to a focus in the rest of his essay on the limitations of
multiculturalism in addressing racism and its complete irrelevance in some
19
Susan Moller Okin, ‘‘Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?’’ in Joshua Cohen, Matthew Howard, and
Martha Nussbaum (eds.), Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1999), 7–24.
20
M. Nourbese Philip, Frontiers: Essays and Writings on Racism and Culture, 1984–1992 (Stratford,
ON: Mercury Press, 1992), p. 186.
21
Ibid.
22
Charles W. Mills, ‘‘Multiculturalism as/and/or Anti-Racism?’’ in Anthony Simon Laden and David
Owen (eds.), Multiculturalism and Political Theory (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007),
pp. 91–92.

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220 C. Jeffers

circumstances. If I am right, however, that non-white people ought to support and

participate in projects of cultural preservation as a form of resistance, then it is
extremely important to recognize the way that multiculturalist policies function to
facilitate and encourage such projects. Such policies ought, as a result, to be seen as
vital weapons in the battle against racism. To give an example, public support for
extracurricular cultural heritage programs should be celebrated given the way such
programs facilitate and encourage the anti-Eurocentric project of raising children of
non-European descent who know and value their languages and traditions even as
they strive to fully participate in the white-dominated institutions of their society.
I certainly agree with Philip and Mills that multiculturalism cannot address
racism in its totality, but the anti-racist critique of multiculturalism wrongfully
ignores or downplays its utility in this regard. Overcoming racism requires, to be
sure, eliminating certain forms of difference: unfair disparities in opportunities and
access to resources, the circulation of disparaging and limiting stereotypes, and
other such forms of hierarchical distinction and separation. Overcoming racism also
requires, however, the continuous cultivation of greater respect for difference and
the elimination of pressure toward sameness in light of the value of diversity and the
bankruptcy of Eurocentric cultural hierarchies. This second requirement makes
multiculturalism a valuable tool in overcoming racism and it makes the goal of
cultural preservation among non-white people not just admirable but absolutely
imperative when properly and productively pursued.

Acknowledgments This paper was presented at the University of Manitoba as part of a series co-
sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics and at the
University of Toronto, where it was sponsored by the Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) initiative. I
would like to thank my audiences at both universities for their helpful feedback. I would also like to thank
Liam Kofi Bright for his comments on a draft.

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