Culture divides and discriminates before it ever unites a community.
Evidence
This way of considering cultures has become widespread through Relation’s very involvement. It is through this window that we watch one another reacting together. Before being perceived as the thing urging us into community, culture calls to mind what it is that divides us from aIl otherness. It is a discriminating factor, with no ostensible discrimination. It specifies without putting aside. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 815
Categorization
- DEFINE: Culture as discriminator-without-exclusion — a mechanism for difference within relation, relevant to non-collapsing collective identity.
- QUESTION: Does ‘specifying without putting aside’ describe a functional mechanism, or only an aspiration contradicted by real nationalism?
- XREF: connects to: Majority groups trigger deep division by imposing their culture on the state — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 375; Shared cultural identity dampens conflict between divided-nation rivals — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 592; Culture is the perennial claim of particularity against unreconciled generality. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 154 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Majority groups trigger deep division by imposing their culture on the state
#corroborates(0.85) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 375 - Shared cultural identity dampens conflict between divided-nation rivals
#contradicts(0.80) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 592 - Culture is the perennial claim of particularity against unreconciled generality.
#expands(0.72) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 154 - Visible cultural differences inevitably breed intergroup friction
#corroborates(0.72) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 119