Circles of Consensus: The Preservation of Cultural Diversity through Political Processes

Jordi Jaria I Manzano

doi:10.18352/ulr.182

Abstract

Western modern culture has expanded at the universal level and has thereby become a threat to other cultures, particularly those of chthonic communities. But these cultures have progressively recognized its worth as a source of richness, which can be very useful in facing future challenges to humanity. Moreover, in terms of human dignity and the equality of all human beings, Western modern culture has to be recognized as having an intrinsic value as well. Given these facts, we must find a way to protect this cultural diversity in an effective manner. It is obvious that assimilationist or isolationist models are not satisfactory. So I propose a third way. I call it an integrationist or a deep approach. It consists of giving political density to cultural diversity through the design of federalist strategies that have, as a result, the definition of different levels of decision (circles of consensus). After having exposed my model, I will pay attention to the recent constitutional experiences in Ecuador and Bolivia, where some new developments in this sense are intended. I compare these models with my proposal and, finally, I analyze the main problems that a deep approach to preserving cultural diversity has to face up to.

Highlights

Since the rise of the modern paradigm, during the 15th and 16th centuries, Western culture has striven for homogenization at a global level
Based on a certain conception of knowledge and a certain form of social organization, it has extended its influence over all continents, imposing its views on other cultures.[1]
The capitalist accumulation and the monopoly on knowledge by scientists have together extended towards new territories with the arrival of Europeans in the different parts of the world.[2] (Western) modernity consists of the birth, development and global pervasion of the capitalist

Summary

Introduction: the Western world-system and the loss of cultural diversity

Since the rise of the modern paradigm, during the 15th and 16th centuries, Western culture has striven for homogenization at a global level. The modern version of Western culture advocates a certain pattern of relations between society and the environment, based on a radical separation between human and non-human aspects and the control of the former over the latter, the so-called traditional anthropocentrism.[8] It is not the aim of this paper to explain, in great detail, the consequences of this cultural pattern in causing the present environmental crisis, but it is obvious that capitalist accumulation combined with new technologies based on the advances of Western modern science have radically transformed our environment, generating new problems and threats that we are currently forced to face up to.[9] In contrast, it can be stated that ‘[c]hthonic notions of property are (...) those of a chthonic life, and the human person is generally not elevated to a position of domination, or dominium, over the natural world’.10 For this reason, among others, the so-called chthonic traditions, more or less those that can be described as belonging to indigenous or aboriginal peoples, can be seen as an alternative source of knowledge to find solutions in the present situation. One could say that the same process which leads to a significant loss of biodiversity is related to the loss of cultural diversity within the human species, because these different cultures, threatened, have interacted with the environment, protecting and taking care of the biological assets of the Earth that are threatened.[11]

The value of cultural diversity

Cultural diversity in the modern-world system

The isolationist approach

An integrationist approach to cultural diversity

Challenges to the deep approach

Conclusion