Orthodox liberals reject multiculturalism as threatening universal citizenship and personal autonomy

Evidence

It is clear, however, that for conservative and orthodox liberal commentators only liberal pluralism will do. In the end, civism must be favored over pluralism while the corporatist intentions of multiculturalism must be specifically disavowed. This is because, in their view, only the current organization of nation-states - represented most clearly by the neutrality of the civic realm - can ensure personal autonomy, equality, and common citizenship (at least in theory). In contrast, multiculturalism is accused of replacing universalism with particularism and introducing ethnicity unnecessarily and unhelpfully into the civic realm - that is, “civil society” in Gramsci’s (1971) sense of the term. Where countenanced at all, alternative ethnic affiliations should be restricted solely to the private domain, since the formal recognition of collective (ethnic) identity is viewed as undermining personal and political autonomy, and fostering social and political fragmentation. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 878

Categorization

• XREF: The private-domain restriction of ethnicity echoes the same structure as the immodesty moral panics in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — decorating the private self is fine, but bringing it into public/civic space is the transgression. — connects to: Orthodox liberalism denies group difference by constructing all persons as interchangeable rights-bearing citizens — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 880; Western secularism claims universality while resisting genuine multicultural inclusion — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 296