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Chapter 21 | Guy Mercier (continued) There would then be a displacement of where cultural authenticity is to be found. Previously, traditional cultures gave shape to great collective narratives which gave meaning to the behaviour and discourse of individuals. These days, the community seems less and less the source of an authentic culture which can be handed down, through tradition, from one generation to the next. Tradition has not necessarily vanished, but it is no longer the main source of culture. It is just one source among those presented to one’s conscience or to individual consumption. This is why a tradition, in these circumstances, can find a new vigour if it is wise enough to — please excuse the wording — “capture a segment of the market.” It is then only a memory incorporated or amalgamated in with other cultural traits. But the importance of tradition is declining; the privileged source is no longer the community but the individual. Given these conditions, one can hope that individuals will really be the benefiaries of a new cultural authenticity. Each individual, in that perspective, is condemned to innovation, otherwise he is left alone or nearly alone, to mass alienation. If globalization is to result in a new and authentic cultural diversity, the individual must be able to tackle the multiplicity of cultural expressions. He must be in a position to negotiate his own cultural identity, taking into account:
If this personal choice of culture is implemented fully, it is essential to accept the individiual’s basic right to be what he is; the right to build his hopes into a heritage, as Donna Cardinal would say. This is why Michael Ignatieff is totally correct in arguing that individual rights, to their fullest extent, are an essential attribute of cultural globalization. Without the privilege of freedom that the rights provide, the individual can only express his cultural authenticity with great difficulty. ... But are individual rights more efficient than the influence of the producers of mass culture? Even if governments are sensitive to cultural diversity and to individual rights, what about the cultural industries, and especially the huge monopolies in that sector? Until recently — and perhaps even today — the producers of mass culture targeting the world market had to take into account not just national protectionism but more especially the great collective narratives that have links with politics and territories. Those great narratives, to which mass culture had to conform, dictated a political negotiation whose task was the local acculturation of the cultural products or models coming from outside. But won’t the trend toward free trade, which is a companion to the present movement of globalization, squeeze the communities, bit by bit, of the right of political negotiation, if clear limits are not drawn up? Local cultures can, of course, appropriate, as Serge Proulx says, foreign techniques and use them to their own advantage, to eventually penetrate the world market. But what about the political stake? I would say that, in those circumstances, the political task would be less to protect national — or ethnic — identities than to defend the right of the individual to a collective life that is as democratic as possible and as meaningful as can be hoped for. Among those rights, could we not emphasize the right to participate, whatever the level of government, in the shaping of how to live as a community? If so, it is still possible to think that a given community can give itself the political instruments to pursue or safeguard, in one’s own milieu, what are seen as cultural singularities. It is essential that the collective rights created for that purpose:
Under those conditions, it seems possible to think that a cultural policy can be a factor of social cohesion, while favouring the development of a cultural plurality. |
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