all my overlapping cultural identities.
Monday, September 13th, 2010Every logically coherent definition of a cultural identity presumes that other cultures are different but of equal value. If, however, the particular European values are defined as universal humanistic values, that can only mean that other non-European cultures must be considered antihumanistic by nature…
European politics oscillates between imperialism and isolationism – mirroring the particular-universal character of the values that it wants to assert as its own…
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The European psyche is incurably torn between moral superiority and paranoid fear of the other.
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When the question of multiculturalism is discussed on the TV, the visual is inevitably of a street in a European city dominated by passers-by whose skin color differs from that of the “original” European population. This ives the impression that culture here functions de facto as a pseudonym for race. As a result, simply transferring a certain discourse into the visual makes it racist – even if that is not explicitly intended. Thus the dependence of today’s politics on the images with which it operates is obvious.
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If the tradition of European culture and art is understood in its full diversity and internal contradictoriness, the question of who is integrated into this culture or not takes a completely different shape. Those who are ready to see the cultural heritage of Europe in its entirety will notice that it is enormously difficult and almost impossible to escape this legacy and do something genuinely non-European, genuinely alien to European culture. The power of European culture is precisely that it is constantly producing its other. If there is anything at all that is unique in European culture, it is this ability to produce and reproduce not only oneself but also all the possible alternatives to oneself.
Boris Groys, 2008