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But this does not mean that these continental thinkers had as little
effect on modern cultural life as Clausen claims. In fact, many Americans
who unthinkingly believe in the multiculturalist project would be aghast
to discover the link between multiculturalism and the views of Foucault,
Barthes, and their peers-views they would generally regard as repellent.
Indeed, Clausen chooses to focus mostly on the structural and cultural
causes for what he terms post-culturalism at the expense of intellectual
issues. Thus he-like unreflective partisans of multiculturalism-does
not mention the long tradition of Western self-criticism that results from
an examination of other cultures. In fact, deference to other cultures,
traceable even in Herodotus's
Histories,
plays a large part in the intellec–
tual history of the West, and can be discovered in important works of
Western thought, by such authors as Michel de Montaigne and Jean–
Jacques Rousseau. In a sense, then, Americans are not stranded in a post–
cultural world; rather, they are following a well-worn path in their
supposedly new-found concern for non-Western cultures. It is not sur–
prising that this recent emphasis on "diversity" and multiculturalism has
been the preoccupation of Westerners; it would be startling if, say, Iran,
given its intellectual traditions, were the home of radical multicultural–
ists . Clausen's failure to discuss this issue makes his argument tread dan–
gerously close to the ahistorical rants of multiculturalism's devotees.
One can, moreover, quibble with Clausen's neologism, "post–
cultural." Can a society ever be truly "post-cultural"? Perhaps "post–
traditional" would be a more accurate, though less sexy, adjective, but
even it fails to convey the heart of American cultural life-a life infected
by an unhealthy dollop of faux multiculturalism and a smidgen of self–
serving cultural relativism.
Despite these flaws,
Faded Mosaic
is a crucial addition to the multi–
culturalist debate. For Clausen's depiction does not simply highlight the
divisiveness usually considered a result of the multiculturalist world–
view; rather, it questions the legitimacy of the entire enterprise. Though
it would be foolish to assert-even wryly-that "we are all post-cultur–
alists now,"
Faded Mosaic
describes aspects of modern American life
with a disheartening accuracy.
Eric Adler
