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122-3, 130-1, 144 Conversations
MULTICULTURALISM
Isn't it symptomatic that multiculturalism exploded at the very historic [[moment]] when the last traces of [[working]]-[[class]] [[politics]] disappeared from [[political]] [[space]]? For many former leftists, this multiculturalism is a kind of ersatz working-class politics. We don't even [[know]] whether the [[working class]] still [[exists]], so let's talk [[about]] exploitation of [[others]].
There may be [[nothing]] wrong with that as such. But there is a [[danger]] that issues of [[economic]] exploitation are converted into problems of [[cultural]] [[tolerance]]. And then you have only to make one step further, that of [[Julia Kristeva]] in her essay 'Etrangers à nous mêmes', and say we cannot tolerate others because we cannot tolerate [[otherness]] in ourselves. Here we have a pure pseudo-[[psychoanalytic]] cultural reductionism.
TOLERANCE/INTOLERANCE
The second [[thing]] I find wrong with this multiculturalist tolerance is that it is often hypocritical in the [[sense]] that the [[other]] whom they tolerate is already a reduced other. The other is okay in so far as this other is only a question of food, of [[culture]], of dances. What about clitoridectomy? What about my friends who say: 'We must respect Hindus.' Okay, but what about one of the old Hindu customs which, as we know, is that when a husband dies, the wife is burned. Now, do we respect that? Problems arise here.
An even more important problem is that this [[notion]] of tolerance effectively masks its opposite: [[intolerance]]. It is a recurring theme in all my books that, from this [[liberal]] perspective, the basic [[perception]] of [[another]] [[human]] [[being]] is always as something that may in some way hurt you.
VICTIMIZATION
The [[discourse]] of victimisation is almost the predominant discourse today. You can be a [[victim]] of the [[environment]], of smoking, of [[sexual]] harassment. I find this reduction of the [[subject]] to a victim sad. In what sense? There is an extremely [[narcissistic]] notion of [[personality]] here. And, indeed, an intolerant one, insofar as what it means is that we can no longer tolerate violent encounters with others — and these encounters are always violent.
SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Let me briefly address sexual harassment for a moment. Of course I am opposed to it, but let's be frank. Say I am passionately attached, in [[love]], or whatever, to another human being and I declare my love, my [[passion]] for him or her. There is always something shocking, violent in it. This may sound like a [[joke]], but it isn't — you cannot do the [[game]] of [[erotic]] [[seduction]] in politically correct [[terms]]. There is a moment of [[violence]], when you say: 'I love you, I [[want]] you.' In no way can you bypass this violent aspect. So I even [[think]] that the [[fear]] of sexual harassment in a way includes this aspect, a fear of a too violent, too open [[encounter]] with another human being.
Another thing that bothers me about this multiculturalism is when [[people]] ask me: 'How can you be sure that you are not a racist?' My answer is that there is only one way. If I can [[exchange]] insults, brutal [[jokes]], dirty jokes, with a member of a different [[race]] and we both know it's not meant in a racist way. If, on the other hand, we play this politically correct game — 'Oh, I respect you, how interesting your customs are' — this is inverted [[racism]], and it is disgusting.
In the Yugoslav [[army]] where we were all of mixed nationalities, how did I become friends with Albanians? When we started to exchange obscenities, sexual innuendo, jokes. This is why this politically correct respect is just, as [[Freud]] put it, 'zielgehemmt'. You still have the [[aggression]] towards the other.
For me there is one measure of [[true]] love: you can insult the other. Like in that horrible [[German]] [[comedy]] [[film]] from 1943 where Marika Röck treats her fiancé very brutally. This fiancé is a rich, important person, so her [[father]] asks her why are you treating him like that. And she gives the [[right]] answer. She says: 'But I love him, and since I love him, I can do with him whatever I want.' That's the [[truth]] of it. If there is true love, you can say horrible things and anything goes.
When multiculturalists tell you to respect the others, I always have this [[uncanny]] [[association]] that this is dangerously close to how we treat our [[children]]: the [[idea]] that we should respect [[them]], even when we know that what they believe is not true. We should not destroy their illusions. No, I think that others deserve better — not to be treated like children.
<ref>[[The One Measure of True Love Is: You Can Insult the Other]]</ref>
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