richard-day-gramsci-is-dead

78 Gramsci is Deaddialogue with the resonances given this term by Bakhtin and Hegel,whom Taylor explicitly cites as precursors (1992: 26, n. 13; 33 n. 9;34 n. 10). Central to the Bakhtinian notion of dialogue is the absenceof any finalizing, totalizing or all-knowing position—the absence,in fact, of a hegemonic moment. 10 In Taylor’s texts, however, wefind claims like the following: ‘The demand for recognition tendsto hide itself, tends to be presented as something else’ (1993: 192).Such a claim cannot be made without invoking a privileged fieldof vision that is capable of assessing the ‘true’ intentions that liebehind the statements of others. Here Taylor is not playing the gameas he says it should be played; he is not taking these identities for‘what they really are’, or at least for what they say they really are.A similar moment occurs in Kymlicka’s argument when he assignscertain political motivations and rights to all who are supposed tooccupy each of the citizenship categories he creates. Here again, wefind an utterance that does not anticipate a rejoinder. The speakeralready knows both what his addressees ‘really want’, and how togive it to them.In keeping with its anti-totalizing character, Bakhtin’s polyphonicnotion of dialogue is predicated upon an assumption of radicalequality. It presupposes a ‘plurality of consciousnesses of equal value,together with their worlds’, a plurality of ‘independent and unmergedvoices’ (Bakhtin 1984: 4–5). Taylor’s conception of dialogue is againclearly not Bakhtinian, as we can see in his inability to accept thedemand that ‘we all recognize the equal value of different cultures; thatwe not only let them survive, but acknowledge their worth’ (Taylor1992: 64). The problem for Taylor is that ‘mere difference can’t itselfbe the ground of equal value’ (1991: 51). Rather, the judgement ofequal worth that leads to recognition is for him an empirical question.He writes: ‘On examination, either we will find something of greatvalue in [a given] culture ... or we will not. But it makes no moresense to demand that we do so than it does to demand that we findthe earth round or flat, the temperature of the air hot or cold’ (69).That is, he continues, ‘if the judgment of equal value is to registersomething independent of our own wills and desires, it cannot bedictated by a principle of ethics’ (69). Here Taylor leaves both Bakhtinand Hegel far behind, and again seems to be working against his ownposition, by presenting a theory of ethical community that precludesethical considerations.Taylor’s form of recognition not only contains monological andanti-egalitarian elements, it is also based on what, in Hegelian