Learning & living difference that makes a difference: Postmodern theory & multicultural education

Multicultural Education, Summer 2002 by Jacobs, Walter R

Although "postmodern theory" means different things in different contexts- and even different things in the same context! (see Bertens 1995 for comprehensive survey)-the ubiquity and power of media is a central component in many accounts of life in America as either governed by postmodern conditions, or rapidly falling into "the postmodern" (e.g., Balsamo 1997; Fiske 1994; Kellner 1995; Grossberg 1997a, 1997b; McRobbie 1994). These theorists argue that subjects in late modern and/or post-modern societies are constantly bombarded with cultural representations of themselves and Others, and that these images, sounds, and words occlude undergirding social and material conditions of lived realities. In other words, difference is everywhere, but exists mainly to produce and reproduce the desire to consume, which may be the ultimate expression of American-ness. McLaughlin argues that college students are especially adept at reading and using the codes of a multiculturalism as such an assimilationist pluralism, where consumption stands as the great unifier.

How can we actualize a transformative multiculturalism in which students rethink America as more than a giant supermarket, examining the disparities in group access to its productive processes as well as rear-end commodities? How can teachers encourage "border crossings" (Giroux 1992; see also Anzaldua 1987) between academic and everyday worlds, and across and among disparate cultures to encourage more democratic and humane understandings and interaction? How can teachers make sure that multiculturalism goes beyond a surface political correctness, and is part of a multiculturalism that "doesn't see diversity itself as a goal but rather argues that diversity must be affirmed within a politics of cultural criticism and a commitment to social justice" (McLaren 1995: 126; see also McLaren & Farahmandpur 2001)?

A "social postmodernism" (Nicholson & Seidman 1995) may address these questions, and offer us (at least) two guidelines. It is anchored in the cultures and politics of "the new social movements" (see also Omi 1996; Omi & Winant 1994), and attempts to transform America into a more just and democratic space. First, social postmodernism encourages us to explore a "radical democratic" approach to citizenship in late Capitalist society: articulations about "the common good" are viewed as "'a vanishing point," something to which we must constantly refer when we are acting as citizens, but can never be reached" (Mouffe 1995: 326; see also Fraser 1995).

A critical component ofthis is learning and living the intricate and ubiquitous complexities introduced by our existence in expanding media (Kellner 1995) and consumer (Jameson 1983; Lury 1996) cultures. We should make our social worlds problematic, creating "problems [that] would be significant to the extent that they raised questions for individuals and groups in our society in ways that would not simply underwrite a purely presentist orientation or a projective inclination to rewrite the past in order to find mouthpieces or vehicles for currently affirmed values" (LaCapra 1997:62). In the college classroom, we teach our students- and remind ourselves -that particular articulations of perspectives and experiences have implications that go beyond our immediate interests, and that the "common good" is always under negotiation, and affects different groups in divergent ways.