tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post5606602010250287723..comments2024-03-29T09:14:53.583+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Richard Dawkins on Retiring EssentialismPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-24400184832330011092014-01-13T08:10:45.016+00:002014-01-13T08:10:45.016+00:00This issue often comes up in discussions about mul...<br />This issue often comes up in discussions about multiculturalism when one side says - well what is British culture anyway, fish and chips, pubs, etc, come on, it doesn't exist! Ironically however this tends to be the side that pushes multiculturalism, despite what the word actually says. <br /><br />So if there is no British, Indian, Bangladeshi culture - why can we say that one person is Bangladeshi and another not? <br /><br />Presumably, the language, the traditions, the food, the religion, etc. <br /><br />Of course there may be south or north Bengalis, some in India, etc. But there is still a culture? It is still a thing? <br /><br />Immament criticism was developed as an academic exercise to challenge "commons sense" notions about how things (like assumptions about culture) work by isolating the subject in a kind of intellectual laboratory? <br /><br />However, by definition, by isolating it in this sterile environment it is not a relevant real world comparison because although you can say "look how Western society has influenced Bangladeshi pop music, so how can you say their pop is Bangladeshi" when taken "out of the laboratory" you can see a clear contrast between, say, Chinese and Bangladeshi pop music in comparison with each other, even though there may be grey areas (instruments, for example). <br /><br />As you infer, this way of thinking (Immament criticism) has gained popular purchase, and, given how many policy makers and commentators were trained has probably gone on to affect the world we live in (the immigration debate for example - how can cultural impact matter if there is "no" culture?).<br /><br />Yet to do so is essentially to abuse an academic tool - dismissing essentialism may work as a form of artificial analysis (indeed, in science, in the laboratory), but if you are hungry you don't want to eat a cat thinking just because it has four legs and fur it is a rabbit. <br />Speedynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-22330633522350944162014-01-13T07:50:15.916+00:002014-01-13T07:50:15.916+00:00Dawkins criticising essentialism? That's a lau...Dawkins criticising essentialism? That's a laugh. By the way, the idea of religion as a single social category is seriously under threat in religious studies. <br /><br />- Fitzgerald, T. [Ed.] (2007) 'Religion and the Secular: Historical and Colonial Formations' (Equinox)<br />- Masuzawa, T. (2005) 'The Invention of World Religions' (The University of Chicago Press)<br />- McCutcheon, R. T. (1997) 'Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse of Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia' (Oxford University Press)Yakoubhttp://www.tasneemproject.info/rsbiblio.htmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-7605106301457059202014-01-13T07:04:13.582+00:002014-01-13T07:04:13.582+00:00Yes, all the answers are interesting in their own ...Yes, all the answers are interesting in their own ways.<br /><br />Dawkins has been making the same point about essentialism for a long time. (I forget which of his many books it's in.) I think it was first made by Meyr and popularized by George Gaylord Simpson. I got the point about population versus essence when I was studying zoology way back in the mid-70s. <br /><br />So this not a new theorectial departure for Dawkins, I'm afraid. Incidentally, I notice in the earlier post you link to that you advance a philosophical critique of The God Delusion without having read the book.Kenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03493440163559858462noreply@blogger.com