1Anna Elisabetta Galeotti
(Università del Piemonte Orientale-The Italian Academy)
CULTURAL CONFLICTS: A DEFLATIONARY APPROACH*
Abstract
This paper will provide a preliminary and indirect contribution to the debate between multiculturalism and interculturalism by focusing on a dimension of diversity which is usually overlooked and calls for specific interventions and social engagement. Instead of considering diversity from the point of view of doctrinal incompatibility, this paper suggests to start from the frictions in daily interactions between the society's majority and minority groups. In this case, at stake there are conventions and social norms that are instruments of social cooperation rather than conceptions of the good or comprehensive doctrines. The merging of social norms and the redesigning of social cooperation is complicated and insidious in its own way. The analysis will first illustrate what social standards are, and explain why they are so crucial in social interactions, and, second, will connect social standards with a specific virtue, civility. Civility, will be argued, is put under stress by the upsetting of social standards by newcomers. Finally, various solutions to the conflicts produced by the encounter of different social standards will be considered both on the institutional side and on the social relations side.
Key-words:
Cultural conflicts, conventions, social norms, social standards, toleration
1. Setting the problem
In this paper, I intend to explore the nature of cultural conflicts emergining from the wide diversity of contemporary democracy. “Cultural conflicts” is a controversial expression that may be considered linked with a problematic version of multiculturalism focused on an essentialistic or reified view of cultures and cultural identities, and harshly criticized by interculturalists.2 Here,
however, “cultural conflicts” is simly used as a shorthand for the problems emerging from social diversity where distribution is not the main issue and where some claim for recognition of a given practice or customs or way of life, maybe with some distributive implications, is usually the case.3
*This article is the product of the research project URBANITAS funded by ESF-CSP (2013-15). A first draft of this paper was presented at the first URBANITAS workshop in Vercelli (April 2014); then it was presented at Columbia Seminar in Political Theory (April 2015), and finally at the final URBANITAS conference in Vercelli (September 2015). I am grateful to, Antonella Besussi, Enrico Biale, Emanuela Ceva, Jon Elster, Federica Liveriero, Anna Loretoni, Daniele Santoro, Nadia Urbinati and Daniel Weinstok for their comments.
This paper intends to provide a preliminary contribution on the debate between multiculturalism and interculturalism by focusing on the very nature of social diversity. A wide variety of issues is usually comprised under this provisional heading, going from the most dramatic examples, such as forced marriages and genital mutilation, to others which, despite their less dramatic appearance, have nevertheless inflamed harsh political and public controversies, such as veil wearing and mosques building, to more daily frictions concerning, for example, dietary requirements, festivity and manners. The first set raises questions of compatibility with the political and legal framework of liberal democracy; the others mainly require intercultural adaptation, though, as I argue, not without social and occasionally redistibutive costs . Some of these conflicts are typically national, while others are more properly local. Yet, whether the case is dealt with nationally or locally often depends not only on the kind of issue at hand, but on the building of a political campaign which reaches national media and public attention. The building of a political controversy over incompatible differences is in itself an interesting topic of analysis, as well as the strategic use of the difficult intercultural adaptation for partisan politics, but I shall rather be concerned with a critical exploration of what cultural issues are about adopting a deflationary approach.
Even though cultural conflicts vary greatly as to their themes and intensity, the current political rethoric much emphasizes their actual or potential incompatibility with democratic societies, maybe only at the symbolic level. Such rethoric has become particularly aggressive and politically significant in Europe under stress by the arrival of so many refugees and by the terrorist threat. In this heated political climate, I suggest to look at cultural conflicts from a different perspective. I am not denying that issues of incompatibility are sometimes the case, but I contend that they represent either the only or the prevalent obstacle to groups' integration in a diverse society. Framing cultural conflicts from the incompatibility viewpoint inflates the discussion with xenophobic overtone, fueling the anti-immigrants and closed borders politics. I suggest instead to take the opposite path: instead of starting from the most controversial questions, and from the point of view of doctrinal disagreement, let's first consider the frictions in daily interactions between the society's majority and minority groups, especially migrants or of immigrant origin, and from there move towards the most heated issues. This move is justified by the consideration that the vast majority of cultural conflicts consist of such garden-variety cases.
The advantage of such bottom-up strategy is double to my mind: on the one hand it contributes to deflate the ideological intensity and, on the other, it throws light on a much overlooked dimension which shows a less ideological, but distinctive difficulty of the integration process underlying all cultural conflicts though unbeknownst. For, in this case, as we shall see, at
stake there are conventions and social norms that are instruments of social cooperation rather than conceptions of the good or comprehensive doctrines. Yet, if doctrinal disagreement is set aside, the merging of diverse social norms and the redesigning of social cooperation are complicated and insidious in their own way. In order to be faced with properly, they require a previous understanding of the nature and functioning of social standards for social cooperation. Finally, looking at this dimension will help to focus the analysis both on local strategies and on social interactions where members of groups are considered agents and not just patients of social transformation toward a more inclusive policy.
In the first section I shall first illustrate what social standards are, and explain why they are so crucial in social interactions; in the second, I shall connect social standards with a specific virtue, civility, which is the correspondent normative attitude for smoothing social cooperation. Thirdly, I shall show how social standards are upset by the arrival of newcomers with different customs, traditions and social conventions;4 and how such upsetting puts the virtue of civility under stress.
The relocation of cultural conflicts on conventions and social norms rather than on doctrines and principles dispells the threat to the ethical core of liberal democracy, but, given that conventions and social norms are necessary at a fundamental level of social life, it shows another kind of problem, namely the need for a renewed network of conventional rules and a wider set of social norms. The latter cannot be established direclty by fiat via legislation, but crucially requires actions from below by social agents. Thus, in the final section, I shall explore possible indirect institutional interventions which can favor the merging of different social standards, as well as ask which kind of attitude may help this process at the level of social interactions. I shall argue that the virtue of civility cannot display its force as social lubricant in a situation of uncertain social coordination; the transition towards the establishment of a new network of more inclusive rules will rather require an exertion of the social virtue of tolerance both on the majority and on the minorities' side.
2. Social Standards
By social standards, I mean the web of rules governing daily social life and promoting basic social coordination in street encounters and casual gatherings in public space. They technically comprise two types of rules: conventions and social norms. The basic difference between the two types is that conventions are outcome-oriented rules, while social norms are not.5 Though the two sets are
analytically distinct, not only they overlap concerning their origin, but also they function in the same way, given that social agents follow both kinds with similar motivations and attitudes. This fact justifies their inclusion under the general category of ‘social standards’. Let me first consider
them in turn, and then explain their common functioning.
Conventional rules had been originally explored, both in their genesis and in their functioning, by the thinkers of Scottish Enlightenment, especially by David Hume and Adam Smith; then rehearsed in the last century by Friedrich Hayek, and after him by all students of cooperation by evolution. Hayek, specifically, explains the possibility of market equilibrium by the existence of prices that allow agents to coordinate efficiently without explicitly aiming at social equilibrium.6 Prices are particularly efficient signals because of their unintended emergence out of
economic interactions elsewhere directed. Their origin is the product of the well-known invisible hand mechanism economizing on the limits of human cognition and rationality. From market equilibrium, in his social theory, Hayek generalizes the idea of spontaneous rules emerging out of repeated social interactions as the governing web of rules of just conduct producing the spontaneous social order.7 Hayek's rules of just conducts actually comprises both conventions and
social norms, since both kinds contribute to the spontaneous social order.
David Lewis, in his well-known study on Convention, provides instead a technical definition of conventions. He revisits Hume's idea that basic social norms are the product of a spontaneous evolution of trials and errors producing social coordination, and rigorously defines conventions as the selection of one coordination equilibrium among possible alternatives.8
Equilibrium obtains when agents' plans and expectations are consistent, and no agents has incentive to move out of it. Conventions are thus characterized by two apparently contrasting features: a) they solve a coordination problem, hence they are necessary for social coordination to take place, and once in place, as Nash equilibria, they tend to be stable and self-reinforcing; b) nevertheless they represent only one of several possible alternatives and, in that respect, they are arbitrary as to their content. For a coordination equilibrium to become a convention R in a community C, the following features must be present: i) the population of C should learn to orient their expectations according to R; ii) it should become common knowledge that the expectations of each agent are guided by R; iii) all agents have an interest to follow R for successful interactions; iv) eventually, R becomes invested with a normative dimension despite its arbitrariness. Conventions are thus outcome-oriented in a double sense: they serve the purpose of social coordination, and agents have an interest in follow them in order to cooperate with others and avoid clashes. Upsetting conventional equilibria is self-defeating for the individual: driving on the right in Great Britain is very dangerous indeed.9
This account of conventions is however incomplete in some relevant respects for, though individuals definitely aim at coordination, nevertheless, they usually follow conventions out of habits and without thinking, and often invest these rules with normative meaning. Consequently
breaking a convention is perceived not only as stupid and irrational, but also as inappropriate and wrong. In this respect, conventions are similar to social norms.10
According to the typology of rules presented by Jon Elster (1989), social norms are all those rules and codes regulating different aspects of social life which share the deontological form with moral laws (A ought to do x), though, in general, their content is arbitrary from a strictly moral point of view. Yet similar to moral laws, their violation is subject to social sanctions of blame and to internal sanctions of guilt, despite the fact that they are mostly customary. Social norms significantly contribute to the ultimate outcome of society's stability and daily order and often come to be associated with religious practices or rituals. Rules of etiquette, norms of reciprocity, codes of honor and rules of modesty, all belong to this type of rules. They are distinct from conventions in the proper technical sense for they do not produce self-reinforcing equilibria and in some cases, on the contrary, norm violation would be rational from the point of view of all parties involved.11 Even
if not conducive to conventional equilibria, hence not directly outcome-oriented, they share with conventions some features, namely their origin, from social evolution, which makes them relatively arbitrary as to their content, and their social function of providing stable expectations and information about other agents' behavior. In this respect, like conventions, they serve the very general purpose of stabilizing society in a recognizable order. True, others and maybe simpler rules might have provided the solution for the same problem in a more efficient way, but that is due to their spontaneous evolution by tradition.12 Besides, even if from an abstract standpoint everyone
would be better off with different rules, it is not up to individuals to dispense with them if they want to be members in their community. Finally, as much as successful conventions, they are not usually followed instrumentally, but mostly because agents believe that they ought to be followed. Both habits and normative investments make social norms as well as conventions stable, beyond any rational outcome consideration. In sum, because of their spontaneous origin, their arbitrary content, their normative investment, and their provision of a stable network of expectations, I think that conventions and social norms jointly form the standards of a society in so far as the types of behaviors and practices they promote provide stability and, at the same time, define membership in that society. For example, in a wide and diverse community where closer relationships are limited compared to the encounters with relatively strangers, rules signaling non-aggressive attitudes are badly required. Complex codes of greetings, social propriety, precedence rules, plus an intangible bodily area of respect between persons usually fulfill this need. In the absence of such rules, or if they are not common knowledge, or if they are contested, social agents might not know how to interpret and respond to others' conduct in daily encounters with strangers. These codes, crucial to our daily life, are however 'conventional', insofar as whether greetings implies shaking hands,
kissing cheeks or just saying “hello!” is irrelevant, as long as people's expectations are similarly oriented and the rules are common knowledge. In this way, we can get clear signs of others' good or bad intentions toward us, easily and efficiently. Things get however more complicated, if these instruments of social coordination are invested with normative meaning, for in that case, shifting from one code to another for meeting other people’s expectations may find an obstacle in the belief that one’s code is right and the other is wrong.
3. The Normative Investment on Social standards and Civility
Beyond the arbitrary content and the conventional nature, two forms of normative investment on social standards can in fact be detected. The first is a direct investment of value. In this case, the arbitrary nature of social standards is disguised and norms for regulating social coordination become reasons for blame and praise, for sanctions and respect. The second form is indirect through the virtue of civility. Behavior according to social standards meets other people's expectations and signals one's benevolent intentions in face-to-face encounters with strangers; it is a display of good will as well as of respect as much as its opposite is an instance of rudeness and disrespect. Thus, following social standards may acquire an independent and more specific moral value that is properly captured by the virtue of “civility”.
Civility is the disposition to avoid frictions with others by smothering social life (this is the consequentialist side of civility), and to treat others as they expect to be treated, with the appropriate consideration due to others (this makes civility akin to respect). One can be civil out of habit and traditions, or instrumentally, in order to avoid social sanctions and others' disapproval; but also out of the specific intention to display respect for others. The moral value differs even though the outward behavior and social beneficial consequences are the same.
There is actually a considerable discussion within moral and social theory whether civility can be considered a proper moral virtue or only a useful attitude;13 and in the former case, whether it
is a distinct moral virtue or parasitic on other virtues such as tolerance, consideratedness and respect. Some scholars have actually argued at great length that civility differs from similar dispositions in that it relies on established social rules and conventions but derives its distinctiveness as a communicative virtue, as the display of attitudes of tolerance, consideratedness and respect14. This latter observation has a point, but requires a closer exploration of the intrinsic
connection of civility with social standards. In order to be civil, a context of civility, of civil texture is preliminarily required. Civility is a virtue rather than a mere habit if social standards are followed with the intention to show others one's good will, and it is a distinctive virtue, not to be conflated
with tolerance and consideratedness, for the intention of being civil can be formed and can prompt behavior dispensing with complex moral reasoning but simply relying on social standards as guidelines. By contrast, one can be tolerant or considerate independently of the background web of conventions. In this case, agents ought to make a more complex moral reasoning: for example, in order to be tolerant, they first object to some behavior or opinion of other people, and then they should decide to suspend the original objection for either moral or pragmatical reasons.15 In order to
be considerate, agents must preliminarily understand the effects of their attitudes and acts on others' feelings, and sort out what may be offensive from what may show sympathy. As moral agents, we share basic normative attitudes and reactions, nevertheless attitudes and reactions may be expressed in a variety of displays attuned to social norms and conventions. Without the reference to social standards, considerate and respectful moral agents must move more cautiously and still may make mistake. Civility is instead epistemically less demanding. In order to be civil, agents simply rely on social standards, and their benign intentions show up in their rule-abiding behavior. In this respect, it is not the case that civility is parasitic on tolerance and respect, but rather that tolerance and respect are implied in civility, without the civil individual having to think about being tolerant and respectful.
Therefore, abiding by social standardards may be regarded as right in two senses: directly, for social standards are considered intrinsically right, indirectly, for they are believed to be the way to show respect and consideratedness to others via civility.
4. The Dark Side of Civility
The advantages of civility in being epistemically parsimonious are however also the source of its troubles. Since civility relies on the web of social standards, whenever there is conflict over social norms and conventions, what civility requires becomes murky, and the consequent behavior may fail to show respect and consideration for other people. Societies are hardly uniform and organic communities, governed by well-defined social norms universally acknowledged and followed. Societies are often internally divided, and while some conventions and norms are general, different social sections and groups have their own, often exclusive, codes. Moreover, social standards, being the result of social evolution, are constantly being modified in the social process, sometimes slowly and sometimes more abruptly. Consequently, being civil according to a traditional code may prompt not so considerate, but possibly conformist or exclusive, behavior. Think, for example, at the traditional rule of opening doors to women which is now seen as a patronizing gesture. The justified criticism to this rule encoding gender inequality, however, opens the problem of an alternative
pattern to avoid clashes and to signal regard to others when passing through doors. In some contexts, now, a new rule is slowly emerging to the effect that, no matter gender and age, the first person passing through a door keeps it open for others approaching to pass, but this convention is by no means generally adopted, and confusion and misinterpration persist.
The students of civility have actually wondered whether and when to be civil is a value, and when it is instead a sign of social conformism aimed at silencing dissonant voices, or of social distinction marking off people who are not well mannered and well behaved.16 In this respect,
civility, the disposition to follow social standards out of regards for others, exhibits a dark side becoming an instrument of silencing dissent and excluding the “uncivilized”. In fact, the two sides of civility show up clearly if civility's intrinsic link with social standards is properly understood. As much as social standards generally promote social stability, standards exclusive to some social segments promote and stabilize social hierarchy.
The dark side of civility, and of the underlying social standards, as a rule, becomes visible when: a) oppressed segments of society start fighting social hierarchy and questioning the related exclusive standards; b) newcomers arrive in the society, bringing along their different customs and traditions, destabilizing the previous orderly social coordination. In both cases, what civility requires is unclear for behaving civilly may be regarded as a defense of the pre-existent power structure.
In case the exclusive effect of social standards and civility shows up toward newcomers, the issue emerges with the arrival in community C, regulated by given social standards and correlative civil dispositions, of people belonging to other communities, bringing along their different customs, traditions, and conventional codes. If the number of newcomers is significant, at least in certain areas, then migrants affect the hosting society by upsetting the established network of social norms and conventions, and corresponding expectations, and the embedded idea of civility. The orderly daily routine and social interchanges among strangers in face-to-face encounters are thus messed up. Two features of this phenomenon are worth stressing: a) Foreigners ' appearance of “incivility” in the eye of citizens of the hosting society, as a rule, means not an attitude of non-cooperation, but rather that their disposition to social interactions is patterned after different standards. b) The perception of having one's daily routine and orderly social interactions upset is not distributed evenly in the receiving community for newcomers tend to cluster in cities, and within cities in certain, poor, neighborhoods where the newcomers' presence become not just visible but prevalent, with all the correlate problems of security, uneasiness and strangeness.
The feeling of being uprooted and estranged in one's home and neighborhood is thus real and not simply a matter of prejudice and ignorance. The content of social standards, as we have
seen, is conventional in general sense, hence relatively arbitrary concerning moral, religious and philosophical convictions. In this respect, modifying social norms should not generally compromize one's considerate convictions. This consideration may contribute to deflate cultural issues, but, if it subtracts ideological intensity, it does not make the solution any easier. A few obstacles stand in the way of any easy shift in social standards. First, if no specific set is indispensable, some set is necessary to produce social coordination and orderly stability. Second, to this end, social standards must be both common knowledge and generally accepted by social agents. Hence, changing social standards is not up to individual choice and good will, but it is a collective problem, and, moreover, one which cannot be faced by collective choice. Third, by and large, rule-abiding behavior does not follow from strategic reasoning, but is rather induced by the normative grip that social norms and conventions have on agents. They are not followed simply out of civility, but also because they are directly believed right. Consequently people not only need some social standards for social coordination, but are also attached to their received ones, have internalized the social sanctions against violating them and do not see them as arbitrary. In a pluralistic society, where the society’s social standards are threatened by newcomers’ ones, this twofold normative investment heightens the conflictual encounter with different social standards. If social standards were regarded simply as instrumental rules for social coordination, the issue would consist in a) the reciprocal misinformation concerning alien social standards; b) the difficulty of finding a new coordination equilibrium where some room is made for newcomers’ rules. If these two problems are by no means easy to solve, nevertheless the normative investment adds a significant complication for any solution. From the viewpoint of the society’s majority, behavior guided by different social standards looks like a sign of incivility, hence as a lack of good-will, friendliness and respect. From the viewpoint of newcomers, giving up their own social standards is usually regarded as wrong, for they are often intertwined with religious practices and the boundary between the conventional and the doctrinal are consequently very blurred.
Consider this episode reported on the press sometimes ago which exemplifies this clash very clearly. A family of Syrian refugees, temporarily hosted by a German family, was looking for a more stable accommodation within the government’s program for refugees. The father was accompanied by his temporary hostess to see a potential new apartment. The landlady was well meaning and waited for him at the apartment's entrance with a smile and her hand out for shaking. The refugee, however, avoided her gaze, did not return her smile, and did not shake her hand. His social rules forbids such a contact between men and women outside the family. The German lady, however, resented his behavior as rude and unfriendly and, consequently, did not let him her place. This episode illustrates that a) the difficult merging of different social standards is partly due to a
problem of misinformation and misinterpretation of rules, b) but also to their attached normative significance, and c) the failure to meet each other's expectations prevents the cooperative outcome to be reached. As mentioned, greeting codes serve social cooperation and, in this respect, their specific form is arbitrary. The German woman saw the refusal to shake hands as sign of stubborn unfriendliness given the triviality of the gesture. For the Syrian man, however, shaking hands meant a violation of the rules of honor and modesty, religiously prescribed.
In sum, focusing on social standards as the main locus of cultural conflict does not mean to wash away the conflict, and to rely on spontaneous cultural accommodations, but rather to appreciate its specific character and difficulties. The response cannot rely on agents' good will, for there is a previous epistemic problem for the interpretation of the other intentions and for signalling one's good will. The creation of a diverse but inclusive polis requires the revision of social standards, which will bring along the appropriate civility and new forms of social cooperation. The establishment of a new network of social standards, however, cannot be brought about directly by fiat, yet it can be helped by a number of different actions and attitudes both at the institutional and at the social level.
5. How to Address the Conflict over Social Standards: Institutional Actions
In sum, cultural conflicts are not only a matter of doctrinal disagreement and value incompatibility, but primarily of daily conflicts and difficult adjustments over contrasting social rules. These issues are not simply a matter of prejudice and bias. Consequently, multicultural education and good will, though welcome, cannot represent the only solution. Social standards are not created by fiat, but usually emerge out of an evolutionary process that is unplanned. Under this light, it would seem that a proper solution requires time for the establishment of new habits more than political decisions and social virtues. A strictly evolutionary view, however, is not entirely adequate. On the one hand, it overlooks that in history social norms and conventions changed quite dramatically in period of turmoils or revolutions. On the other, the evolutionary and unplanned nature of social standards concern the whole system, not specific individual rules.17 In this sense, if we cannot regard social
standards as if they were a legal code to be rewritten from scratch, we can still question and change single rules, whenever their exclusive effect is obvious. The change of individual rules is not necessarily traumatic. Think how society, both at the individual and at the institutional level, has accommodated vegetarians without big deals and without changing local culinary traditions nor questioning the eating habits of the others. Vegetarians may not seem a good example of upsetting social standards for they never represented a political and social issue. But this example shows that,
contrary to a conservative approach to social spontaneity, social standards admits of local adjustments and revisions without necessarily upsetting the whole of social coordination. If the shift in social standards induced by the adjustment to the social presence of vegetarians took place smoothly, without inducing the failure of social coordination, there is no reason to think that similar adjustments in other sectors of social standards, such as dress codes or dietary requirements for religious reasons, will interrupt daily social order. Obviously, in these cases, the conflict over social standards is harsher because of its ideological load and of its religious connections. But if the nature of such conflicts were acknowledged, the pressure of ideological investment would reasonably be lessened. In any case, here, I just want to stress that individual rules or practices may be changed without putting social coordination at risk.18 Suffice to consider that successful interventions
concern specific norms rather than the whole network of rules, both at the institutional level and at the level of social interaction.
Finally, even though conflicts over social standards are not easily resolved, nevertheless the effort for its resolution benefits from the deflationary tone of this discussion. There is no need to inflate the uneasiness and insecurity engendered by the threat to habitual social coordination into the general insecurity about the persistence of our liberal order as such. Think of the fear of the Islamization of Europe, with reference to the building of mosques and minarets, which would allegedly disrupts the familiar landscape of churches and bell towers.19 If the issue of mosques were
treated as a conflict over social standards, instead of a battle of religion, it may come to be considered as vegetarianism had been; that is, something unfamiliar, hence unsettling and disturbing, but amenable of adjustments within the familiar landscape of our societies.
My deflationary approach rehearses the strategy followed by supporters of toleration and of religious peaceful coexistence in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century, especially, among others, by John Locke.20 This strategy referred to the doctrine of indifferentia or adiaphora, and traced a
line between essential doctrinal matters, crucial to eternal salvation, and matters of rituals or discipline that are ultimately “indifferent” to faith. Giving up the “indifferentia”, was argued, does not compromise one’s faith and one’s soul, while it greatly contributes to peace and civil coexistence. My argument for social standards in fact adds a component to the adiaphora doctrine, namely the acknowledgment of their crucial function for social coordination. In this respect, I do not suggest to dispose of social standards, but to revise them, in a piecemeal fashion, without doctrinal sacrifice. If the issue of dressing code is taken as an instance of the clash of civilizations, then the strangeness of headscarves worn at school is equated to an attack to secular values and to gender equality.21 Under such description, toleration of the unfamiliar looks like a compromise over
obvious option.
As already stated, I do not want to deny that cultural coexistence brings along problems of value incompatibility. Yet consider the following: a) Often cultural conflicts do not involve the alleged clash of value, but simply the difficulty to revise habits and familiar conventions. b) Usually, such inflated representation of cultural conflicts is politically instrumental for it provides a more presentable public articulation of the dislike that is the first reaction to unfamiliar customs. c) Finally, representing cultural conflicts as examples of principles’ incompatibility, on the one hand, obscures the problem of more inclusive social standards for a diverse social coordination, and, on the other, makes it harder to face the issue of compatibility given the consequent climate of reciprocal mistrust and disrespect.
That said, let us see now how to address the issue. Given that the problem is caused by unfamiliar and strange customs upsetting traditional conventions, at the institutional level the objective should be to transform what is strange into something familiar. Such a transformation may eventually come about spontaneously in the due course of time, but spontaneity in this case comes with high social costs. I think, instead, that the process of adjusting social standards and of making room for different traditions can be indirectly helped in several ways by public action, both locally, nationally and transnationally. At the local level, public initiatives involving neighborhood's inhabitants in any common enterprise, such as the management of public space and city gardens, help to build trust and to familiarize with different customs and ways of life. If neighbors learn to trust each other, they cease to feel threatened by different customs, for the latter will soon lose their unfamiliar appearance and become part of a new familiar daily life.22
The most significant institutional contribution to the solution of cultural conflicts over social standards is however, to my mind, the adoption of a steady policy of public toleration making cultural differences visible in the public sphere, at all pertinent levels of institutional action. Such policy is first required by justice, by what democratic institutions and democratic citizens owe to newcomers.23 Moreover, this policy has a crucial secondary effect, that of legitimizing the presence
of differences in the public space. By making them more visible on a daily basis, public toleration indirectly makes them also more familiar and less threatening. The policy of toleration as recognition is only the first step in the institutional response to the issue of social standards. All policies easing integration and improving the living conditions of migrants and the renovation of degraded neighborhood share the side effect of making differences less threatening and less unfamiliar, at least if such policies are pursued by means of an appropriate democratic process of involving participants.
6. The Social Virtue of Toleration
So far for the institutional response. What about social relations? We have seen that the working of social standards for producing coordination and cooperation is helped by the virtue of civility, which is the dispositions to follow social standards out of regard for others' expectations. We have seen that civility is different from respect and tolerance for the civil person relies on social standards and, in so doing, communicates her civil attitude with no need to engage in complex moral reasoning and deliberation. The advantage of civility over toleration and consideratedness lies in minimizing moral reasoning, thanks to the guidelines provided by social standards. This advantage however turns into its opposite when social standards are ambiguous, unclear, unknown or upset by the merging of different traditions. What happens then to the good intentioned and civil citizen when she meets with people coming from different communities who are not able to coordinate with the hosting society's social norms and conventions? In such cases, the civil citizen should exercise a critical stance towards the behavior that in normal circumstances would be considered a civil sign of outward respect for others. If civility relies on social standards and if social standards are not dependable in the circumstances, then agents ought to recur to the virtues which civility is meant to communicate, that is tolerance, consideratedness and respect. More specifically, the virtue of tolerance is in this case paramount, for, on the one hand, tolerance is the attitude for dealing with behavior which is disliked and, on the other, the adoption of tolerance is grounded on respect for others. The spontaneous reaction of disapproval one feels towards infringements of one's social standards should be critically suspended in favor of tolerance. For strange patterns of social behavior should not be regarded as signs of disrespect of one's expectations, but of different traditions. Newcomers are accustomed with different social standards and do not master the ones of the hosting society. Local standards should become common knowledge for newcomers too, yet not through an arrogant imposition, but via a considerate process of familiarization with the hosting society. Neither majority nor minorities should be forced to give up one's norms and conventions abruptly, and that is possible if civility gives way to a much broader tolerance than that required in a culturally uniform society. In the due course of time, different standards will merge and produce a new and richer network of social norms and conventions, making it possible for the virtue of civility to do its job. In a phase of transition, though, civility lacks the common ground of rules which dictates what the considerate social interaction is. In the above example of the German landlady and the prospective Syrian tenant, the exchange failed not because either party was uncivil, but because, according to the woman's social standards, the refugee's behavior, informed by different rules, looked uncivil. He might not have
known what German civility required or, had he known, he might have considered impossible for him to adapt, given the normative prescription on gendered exchange. Only an act of tolerance on the woman side, suspending her spostaneous displeasure at his refusal to shake her hands, might have rescued the social exchange. Transforming what is strange and alien into something familiar to be included in a new map of social standards requires time. In the transition, civility cannot help, while the social virtue of tolerance is precisely needed to move in that direction.
The recourse to the social virtue of toleration in the transition to a more culturally diverse society may look like a step backward for the establishment of a multicultural ethos appropriate to a pluralistic democracy, as argued by Sune Lægaard (2011). For tolerance is too thin as a virtue implying a previous dislike or disapproval, hence carrying along the aftertaste of moral condescendion.24 Positive respect for for cultural practices or religions, as proposed by
multiculturalists, is instead too demanding for people who may reasonably disagree. By contrast civility, which he understands as an attitude of formal respect for others, strikes as the right virtue for approaching diverse people, without requiring judgments or acceptance of their customs. But Lægaard does not consider that civility depends on established and shared social standards, hence is the effect rather than the premise of the multicultural ethos. Lægaard aknowledges that civility is culturally specific but he thinks that this problem is not “fatal” to civility, and that some kind of assimilation is in this respect both necessary and morally unproblematic.25 But he does not consider
the epistemic problem and the normative investment on social standards which must be known and shared to make civil interactions possible. In the condition of uncertainty produced by the merging of different practices and codes, where unfamiliar customs are likely to produce mistrust and dislike, tolerance becomes the alternative candidate, for tolerance is the virtue that suspends the dislike, letting others free to follow their customs, out of respect for them. Lægaard stresses that dislike is a problematic feature of tolerance for multicultural ethos, but in fact dislike, or maybe just mistrust, are the actual consequences of the upsetting of social standards. And if they are the spontaneous reaction to unfamiliar and strange patterns of conduct, then tolerance may be the only response available to cultural frictions and conflicts. In my view, tolerance is a transitional virtue towards a multicultural ethos; and, if grounded on respect for other people, it is more than merely condescending to put up with disliked customs.
If the civil citizen of the hosting society should exercise more tolerance and consideratedness than in normal circumstances, what can be expected and even required from people coming from different cultures? Can tolerance be reciprocated by the newcomers or is available only to the cultural majority? If civility is not helpful for that purpose, there is doubt that tolerance can as well be available. In the standard definition of tolerance, in fact, the tolerator must
possess some power of interference or sanction with the disliked or disapproved behavior.26
Majority has actually the control of social standards and the social power to sanction their infringements. Minorities instead lack such power; it would thus seem that minorities could hardly be tolerant, but in case just acquiescent.27 But acquiescence or passive adaptation to the majority's
customs is in any case problematic, before dominant social standards become known and whenever they conflict with minority's norms invested of religious meaning. The effort of adaptation cannot and should not be sustained only by the hosting society, but what can cultural minorities do under the circumstances? My suggestion is that, contrary to the standard view of toleration as necessarily non-reciprocal, tolerance can go in both direction. The standard view follows from the consideration that some power of interference or of sanction with the disapproved behavior should be available to the tolerator, in order that she suspends the original objection in favor of tolerance. Toleration thus looks like a barren option to the powerless. This view is however disputed by some scholars of toleration,28 for toleration can in fact be reciprocal independently from the actual power
available to potential tolerator. As a moral virtue, toleration is a reciprocal demand to withhold one's objection toward the other out of respect. The moral quality lies in that: each of the two parties “can” and is not “compelled” to suspend her objection. The “can” needs not be interpreted as a factual condition of power but as a normative condition of free will.29 In this respect, reciprocity can
be reconciled with asymmetries of power.30 In other words, the tolerator should not put up with a
disliked practice simply because forced by the circumstances, but should overcome her dislike as a result of a free choice, whether she is endowed with the might to suppress or obstruct the object of toleration or not. In this way, also minorities and powerless groups can be either tolerant or intolerant, according to their underlying attitude and reasons, and not necessarily simply acquiescent. Drawing from this argument, if the newcomers are met by public and social toleration, then they ought to reciprocate this attitude, by tolerating the hosting society's social norms and conventions, finding ways to show consideratedness and respect. Such disposition implies being open to adjust to the new society once the standards are learned, as well as learning to negotiate the traits and aspects of one’s tradition worth to keep and treasure, and those which can instead be given up without much ado.
To sum up: the conflict over social standards represents a significant portion of multicultural issues, given that it concerns daily life and social order. The problem must first be acknowledged in order to be addressed, and not conflated with the issue of doctrinal incompatibility. Such acknowledgment however does not provide a spontaneous nor an easy solution as the analysis of what social standards are and what is at stake can show. Neither does it imply that the only solution is through spontaneous social evolution, for there are several
interventions which may directly or indirectly help to address such conflicts. On the institutional side, beside various initiatives which involve the participation of both citizens and immigrants, a policy of public toleration, that is of legitimation of the public presence of cultural differences, is the crucial first step for reciprocal adaptation. On the side of social relationships, I have argued that the virtue of civility, as a rule sustaining social standards' stability and social coordination, is in this case insufficient, because the reference network of rules is undependable in the merging with different traditions, customs and habits. The social virtue of toleration can instead sustain the transition to a new and more diverse network of social standards, and favor a process of reciprocity between the hosting society and members of different traditions. Display of consideratedness and respect of other people and of their expectations, rather than of their differences directly, will help the familiarity process and ultimately serve the establishment of the social standards appropriate to a multicultural polis.
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1
2 This critical view of multiculturalism is, for example, expressed in the recent debate over interculturalism as a preferable alternative. See Meer, Modood, Zapata Barrero (2016). Among the critics of multiculturalism and advocates of interculturalism, see Cantle (2016, 133-157), Bouchard (77-103) and Zapata-Barrero (53-76). 3 Whether recognition implies a positive public acceptance of a given practice, and by implication of a given
collective identity, or, instead, simply a legitimization of a giving practice which is instrumental to the inclusion of members of certain groups is an open question. See, for example, Taylor (1992), Honneth (1995), Frazer (2000), Parekh (2004); Seymour, ed., (2010). The distinction between conflicts over distribution and conflicts over recognition, though not uncontroversial, is however quite widely shared in the debate on pluralism and diversity. See Honneth-Frazer (2005).
4 Conflicts over social standards are not exclusively induces by immigrants. They may be the secondary effect of class struggle; they may beinduced by internal minorities as well, once they become visible and claim for the public recognition of their ways of life. Think of the controversies over the recognition of gay marriage. Finally they may be produced by social sectors, like women and youth, excluded by hierarchical standards.
5 Elster (1990).
6 Hayek (1948).
7 Hayek (1973).
8 Lewis (1969).
9 Elster (1990).
10 The non-instrumental dimension of conventional rules is much emphasized by Hayek (1973). In his view
conventions function all the more successfully by economizing on human limited rationality, hence not requiring a strategic decision. Therefore if conventions are the solution to a strategic problem and in that respect are outcome-oriented, they are not followed for that explicit aim, but rather out of habits or for the attached normative dimension. Precisely because they are not followed by strategic agents, they work so well and smoothly. Clearly from Hayek's viewpoint, the distinction between conventional rules and social norms is in this respect both blurred and
problematic.
11 Elster (1990, pp.114-17) makes the examples of buying a place in a line and of offering one's neighbor money in exchange of gardening services. In his view they exemplify the inefficient nature of social norms. However, if we look at such norms in depth, we see that they are serving a purpose in social coordination. In both examples, the same request is socially acceptable if there is no money transaction involved. It is not uncommon that people in line accept if someone is buying tickets also for friends or acquaintances whose position in line would be at the end. I have never seen people protest or criticize this kind of behavior. Similarly it may be acceptable to ask one neighbor help with one's gardening if the neighbor has a better mower, for instance, in exchange of a cake for example, or to be reciprocated at the next occasion. Thus, what is unacceptable seems to be the offer to buy the favor. Favors are seen as dependable on good will, friendly feelings and reciprocity. Buying favors introduces asymmetries in social relations and, if socially licensed, it eventually may lead to form of corruption which precisely means that favors are sold. In this light, such norms have the effect of keeping certain social spheres out of economic transaction for the sake of relations that are more symmetrical and of sanctioning forms of corrupting attitudes.
12 Hayek (1973); Ullman-Margalit (1977). 13 Boyd (2006). 14 Calhoun (2000). 15 Forst (2013). 16 Mayo (2002). 17 Hayek (1973). 18 Hayek (1973.
19 On this point, see Allievi (2010).
between things that are indifferent to religion and things that are indifferent to political power. In this way he rehearsed the doctrine of indifferentia or adiaphora which played such a role in the controversies over religion differences and dissent in the Reformation. Locke actually expanded the idea of things that can be tolerated as indifferent to the core of faith, to things that can be tolerated for they are indifferent to social and political order. The Essay was published in J.Locke's Political Philosophy, ed. by J.W. Gough, (1950).
21 Laborde (2006).
22 Biale (2010).
23 Galeotti (2002)
24 Laegaard (2011, 82).
25 “In so far as the point of civility is to provide a shared way of expressing formal respect, it is not obvious that the
kind of assimilation involved is morally problematic. Just as cultural specificity is inevitable in social and political relations, some degree of assimilation of cultural minorities in some respect is inevitable and may be in the interest of minority members.” (Laegaard 2011, 89).
26 King (1976).
27 Mendus (1989), Galeotti (2002).
28 Jones (2015) Galeotti (2015), Forst (2013).
29 Forst (2013).
30 Each of the tolerating parties actually enjoys the moral power of overcoming the objection and being tolerant; it may be that one of the two also enjoys actual power to interfere or prevent the disliked behavior, and this is precisely the asymmetry of power usually remarked by theories of toleration.
