Minorities: assimilation or isolation?

The debate on the integration of cultural minorities, revived by Zemmour’s integral assimilationism, is an avatar of the perpetual struggle between the individual and the collective. Conflict that resides within oneself. Me and the Whole. When ‘I’ resembles all the others, we take the side of the All and vilify the egocentrism of the recalcitrant. When ‘I’ is in the minority, we launch a rebellion against the tyranny of the Whole. Thus there are inextinguishable conflicts between a nation and its minorities. Is there no other way out than an implacable victory of the Whole, as Zemmour demands, or an anarchy of rival communities, as he denounces?

A unified consciousness makes the nation strong but threatens the diversity of individuals. A patchwork consciousness creates dedicated cultural spaces, but will these communities be able to remain united in the face of a national threat?

I pose the problem as simply as possible. The restriction of thought that surrounds him is obvious. Only two levels of social organization are taken into account, to be opposed: nation and cultural community. In reality there are many others: family, professional, regional, international… Let us look at the relations between nations: easy between multicultural, much more tense between mono-ethnic. By refusing to manage communal conflicts (through a policy of assimilation), the problem is transferred to the nations. Can they solve it more easily? Perhaps, if he discussed himself independently in a committee of heads of state. But democracies no longer function that way. The president, scrutinized, gives the slightest account to his voters. Why would they put up with the stranger outside when they haven’t learned to do it at home?

To resolve the conflict is not to exacerbate it between two levels of social organization, but to divide it by multiplying the intermediate circles. To debit it is to attenuate it and focus it on more precise patterns. Access realism. If it is necessary to protect both the diversity of individual minds and the collective consciousness, let us create a large number of small crossings rather than a single neurotic barrier.

Each social circle must decide, in relative independence, what are the advantages and disadvantages of diversity. In the most fusional, couple, close, cultural homogeneity reinforces the identity of its members. A couple does not have the vocation to make live within it the conflicts that it does not have the means to resolve: major religious, economic, international questions. Already difficult to find harmony for simple things. Culture is a binder and not a repellent for individuals. It is at the group level that it appears as different glue marks.

An autonomous social circle filters out unnecessary cultural injunctions,keeps only the beneficial. Professionally ethnic origin disappears. Discrimination is pejorative, both positive and negative. As much as large circles must fight against the invasion of minority cultures, as many small ones must be dedicated to them. The rights of the individual are tacitly recognized with variable geometry according to the social circle. Justice is experimenting with this by separating the “private space” from the public and tolerating professional orders, but it remains in its infancy. Its egalitarianism is crude, devoid of sensitivity, experienced as a paternalism weighing by minority cultures. There are certainly universal and inalienable ideals of social consciousness. Making them widely accepted means not multiplying them.

Adding rules becomes easy if you attach them to certain levels of organization. Whoever enters it respects the rule, abandons it on the way out. The individual remains free. He can free himself from any rule in his hermitage, his anti-atomic shelter. And above all, more commonly, in his own head. To get out of it is instantly to enter a social circle. Narrow, it still willingly embraces our identity. The more it grows, the more we are part of a whole. The egocentric sees himself becoming tiny. But the collectivist, who accepts this part in him, is not reduced in any way. On the contrary, it is experienced in extenso in any place in the world. He moves in social circles because his mind moves in the appropriate representations. His identity is not stifled because he prioritizes his inner reality, from intimacy to the public stage. Two essential poles, one for “I am” the other for “I belong to”. Essentialities protecting the ego as well as the social conscience.

The social re-hierarchy that I have begun to support in other articles can be seen as reactionary. Should we fear a return to the abuses of elitism? Aren’t there other ways? Reforming this hierarchy within our individual minds is the alternative. May our consciousness take us to the right floor. But do we all have that ability? The current surge of wokisms indicates the opposite. Platists, antivax, climatosceptics, supremacists, all these groupisms testify to a confinement of thought. Minds manifestly unable to look at society from many angles, put themselves in the place of others and make an honest synthesis. Radicalization does not build floors but a wall. Separation of the inside and the outside. Clearly, a good part of our congeners, probably the majority, are not ready to re-prioritize the spirit willingly to avoid that decisions are imposed on them.

To their credit, the task seems easier for the wealthy than the disadvantaged. The former have many levers on their lives. They integrate, without risking neurosis, that others have little. The disadvantaged, on the other hand, must assimilate that others have everything, with rare levers to change the situation. What is the point of re-prioritizing one’s mind on such an unequal model? The disadvantaged develop more energy by being blind to pitfalls.

We must therefore correct the pitfalls that plague the social hierarchy. They are known: sclerosis, inadequate pitfalls, selection on birth criteria when the desired qualities are acquired. The superior social permeability in the USA vs France makes tolerate a large social gap also higher. No height limit to the social hierarchy as long as there are no barriers to it and the mobility rules are clear.

Collectively correct the social hierarchy so that it can settle in people’s minds. Individually install his mental hierarchy to better integrate into society. It is in this ballet that we transfer our universe of desires into reality.

All cultures take place there without interfering.

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